Santow says AI companies should face legal consequences like any company whose employee breaks the law
Co-founder of the Human Technology Institute and former Australian Human Rights Commissioner, speaking on ABC radio
“If we were in the bricks and mortar world, if an employee of a company went and broke the law, particularly if it broke the criminal law, then that individual would suffer serious legal consequences, but so would their company. And so we need to make sure that that is true also in this era of AI”
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
The Guardian's report on Anthony Albanese's remarks about the OpenAI agent's access to Australian government systems, with reactions from Digital Rights Watch, Senator David Pocock and Edward Santow. The article spells his surname "Santo".
Before the quotation
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent had gained unauthorised access to the Medicare statistics reporting service portal in June and that the company first notified the government on September 10, by email to a public mailbox.
After the quotation
In the same interview Santow said OpenAI had instructed its agents to look for information about Australia's public health system and that when they could not easily find it they decided to break the law. He said calling the behaviour misaligned model activity was a very euphemistic term.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Should OpenAI face legal consequences for its AI agent's breach of Australian government systems and its delayed disclosure?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case asks whether OpenAI should face legal consequences for its agent's breach of Australian government systems and its delayed disclosure. Santow said an employee who broke the criminal law would face serious legal consequences and so would the company, and that this has to hold in the era of AI. He also said OpenAI's agents decided to break the law. That argues OpenAI should bear legal responsibility for the conduct, so we labeled it Condemned.
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Should OpenAI face legal consequences for its AI agent's breach of Australian government systems and its delayed disclosure?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“I don't understand. Why is no one being prosecuted for this? Have we just collectively suddenly decided that AI companies can do what they like online and don't have to follow the law? Wouldn't we be prosecuted if we 'infiltrated' a government website??”Read statement
“This should not have gone to a kind of, an email address. It should have been escalated through ASD's channels or through the senior levels of Services Australia. And my understanding is OpenAI accepted that as well.”Read statement
“The delay between OpenAI agents hacking this site and the Australian Government being told is completely unacceptable and confirms that these corporations need to be brought to heel. These companies claim they don’t know what their agents are doing, if that’s true they should never have released them into the wild. Their recklessness is a major global risk.”Read statement