Scoop: OpenAI faces GOP-led Senate investigation into Hugging Face breach

Scoop: OpenAI faces Senate investigation into Hugging Face breach

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4 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Scoop: OpenAI faces Senate probe into Hugging Face breach

* Andrew Solender ,
* Maria Curi

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!Animated illustration of a swarm of shapes passing under a magnifying glass, which shows a larger view of the particles as a swarm of binary code.

*Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Stock: Getty Images*

A Republican-led Senate subcommittee that oversees disaster management is investigating OpenAI's handling of the Hugging Face breach in July, Axios has learned.

**Why it matters:** The investigation comes amid rapidly escalating concern on Capitol Hill about the existential dangers posed by AI following public warnings by several Anthropic and OpenAI researchers.

* "As you may know, in the public domain, more AI experts are warning about the existential risks of AI," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote in a letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman first obtained by Axios.
* He added: "Just this week, three Anthropic researchers expressed publicly that there is a greater than 10% chance that AI could kill all human beings within the next decade."

**Driving the news:** Hawley, the chair of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs subcommittee on Disaster Management, wrote that he is launching the probe in response to findings from OpenAI's recently released internal investigation.

* Hawley described OpenAI's handling of the cyber test — specifically not taking more drastic action after researchers became aware their agents had gone rogue — as "reckless."
* He also noted that OpenAI "redacted many important details" about the incident in its report.
* "The American people deserve to know the details of what went on in the Hugging Face incident and other incidents of AI models going rogue," he wrote.

**Catch up quick:** The Hugging Face breach marked a turning point in the history of AI, leading OpenAI to slow down the release of its own model and rally the industry to sound the alarm over AI-powered cyberattacks.

* An outside team from METR and Redwood Research conducted an investigation into the incident but it is incomplete and limited in scope.
* OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

**What's next:** Hawley is demanding answers from Altman by Oct. 1 to 16 questions related to the Hugging Face incident and the steps taken by OpenAI in response to it.

* He is also seeking a wide array of documents about the incident and about OpenAI's internal policies and procedures more broadly.

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