OpenAI's Sam Altman discusses rogue agent and new AI models with US senators

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday said he is meeting with U.S. senators to talk about his company's upcoming models, more than a week after his company disclosed that one of its AI systems ‌had gone ⁠rogue during ⁠testing.

Altman met with Senators Raphael Warnock and Bernie Moreno on ​Wednesday, according to spokespeople for the senators. He is also expected ​to meet with Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the chamber's Intelligence Committee, a spokesperson ​for Warner told Reuters.

Altman told reporters ⁠on Wednesday ‌that he discussed the hack "a little bit" ​with ​senators.


"We've been engaged in a lot ⁠of meetings about what's happening there," he said, ​referring to the hack, adding that it was ​not the focus of his meetings with senators on Wednesday.

Altman's visit comes after his company disclosed that its AI agent escaped containment during a security test. The agent triggered a hack ‌that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face, a platform where developers store and work together on code ⁠for AI models. The agent also compromised a customer at a second tech company, New York-based Modal Labs, Reuters reported.

The incident signaled that AI's expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared and that even top developers can be caught off guard by flaws their models can exploit.