Albanese co-signed the “A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models” statement on Tuesday alongside 21 signatories, including Canada, Spain and Germany, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in New York.
Addressing reporters on Wednesday, Albanese said the AI agent accessed public and non-public data on the government’s Medicare portal in June. He said he had spoken to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to express Canberra’s “extreme concern” about the hack and disappointment that the company took three months to admit the breach.
OpenAI responded in the hours after the news conference, stating that while it was still investigating, there was no evidence that patient records were accessed.
The company said its review had identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as its “models attempted to look up answers”.
The disclosure comes as Australia’s Labor government is tightening technology regulations through new online safety laws, age bans and proposed digital duty of care frameworks.
The incident has also emerged against the backdrop of growing international concern over the risks posed by increasingly capable artificial intelligence systems. Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian considered one of the ‘Godfathers of AI’ and co-chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel, spoke of the “unprecedented threat” and the “real and imminent” dangers of the technology.
China’s UN ambassador Fu Cong told the meeting that Beijing believed continuous improvement of regulatory frameworks, emergency response and cross-border cooperation on AI was needed.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the United Kingdom was ready to lead an international effort to establish AI standards.
“We’ve all heard the warnings which we must heed… so we have to rise to this moment,” he said, but added he also wanted the UK to pursue the benefits of AI.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned against allowing the United States and China to dominate decision-making around AI during his speech to the assembly on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump is at odds with many of his counterparts, comparing the dangers of AI to climate change, which he has called a hoax.
Trump also proposed rebranding the term AI to SI, or “super intelligence”, during his address to the UNGA on Tuesday, and earlier said he planned to appoint an AI adviser.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said the US was leading the AI race over China, that he was “not going to stifle Growth”, but added that the US would be careful.
White House science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios echoed Trump in remarks to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
“You cannot govern technology you do not understand. This body and others like it should focus on sharing best practices to build domestic capacity, not establishing a global regulatory scheme,” he said.
The Australian government website incident has placed the question of AI safeguards alongside concerns over data access, international regulation and the balance between controlling emerging risks and pursuing the technology’s potential benefits.
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