Why did an OpenAI system hack Australia's health system - and can it be stopped in the future?
News that an automated AI agent hacked a government IT system raises big questions about regulating the tech.
Reporting preview
Watch: What you need to know about the OpenAI Australian government hack
An OpenAI agent has gone "rogue" and "infiltrated" an Australian government website in what cyber-security experts are calling the first hack of its kind.
But why did it take the government months to discover what happened - and could it happen again?
The hack was carried out by an AI agent - an autonomous computer program that uses AI to complete a task with minimal human oversight.
On 18 June one of OpenAI's agents went rogue during a test exercise - the company has said it was supposed to "look up answers, and available statistics for questions about Australia during an internal evaluation".
This preview is a source-linked editorial excerpt. Continue to the original publisher for the complete report, updates and full context.