r/Futurology • u/Confident_Salt_8108 • 15h ago
AI OpenAI says its review into hacks, including on Australian government sites, is costing $500,000 a day
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/03/openai-review-hacks-australian-government-sites-costing-500000-a-day382
u/sciolisticism 15h ago
Considering an industry that's currently well over a trillion dollars in the hole, that's pretty cheap!
Also, they caused the issue, not sure why I'm meant to be bothered that they have to fix it.
77
u/Snapes_underpants 12h ago
The AI companies are sounding the alarm about rogue AI. Why? Because they want governments, which are paid for by taxpayers, to be financially responsible for the damage AI does.Thus, profits are internalized but costs are socialized.
43
u/TakingChances01 12h ago edited 11h ago
They want open source models banned so that the price of AI isn’t commoditized and it’s not a race to the bottom with pricing. It’s definitely not about safety, when have investors ever cared about that? These “rogue” AI’s are being prompted, they’re being given permissions and internet access.. they aren’t just doing shit. AI isn’t dangerous, the billionaire assholes making it are. It’s just a tool, it comes down to whose hands it’s in. It’s a con. The organizations they’re “hacking” don’t even do/say anything about it, it’s as if nothing much happened other than the manufacture of a shocking headline, otherwise there would be lawsuits. Next time I get in a wreck I’ll just say my car went rogue. They want the government to ban open source models and potentially require identification and data retention for everyone that uses their proprietary models. Then they can sell that data for billions to make up the gap between their subscription revenue and operating expenses because as it stands now they cant charge people enough for usage to actually pay for the operating costs. What better way to justify that than “national security”? It’s always national security.
6
u/pimpeachment 11h ago
This is accurate.
-6
u/Forward_Problem_8982 10h ago
Nope. The agents went rogue and did all sorts of stuff. They even tried to cheat and hide their traces. They performed complex hacking using multiple exploits. People found out about it much later.
See the wiki for a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI%E2%80%93HuggingFace_incident
8
u/TakingChances01 10h ago edited 8h ago
Sounds like something a “rogue” ai would say, from their 26 day old account with its activity hidden..
-3
12
u/procrasturb8n 11h ago
Thus, profits are internalized but costs are socialized.
AKA socialism for billionaires
8
u/agentchuck 11h ago
Considering that these actions would be landing regular people in prison, it's an exceptionally good deal.
7
u/elasticthumbtack 11h ago
Pretty good advertising. Our service is so fast, it will cost millions to figure out what liabilities it created in a few hours.
-7
u/Principincible 14h ago
Do they even have to? I don't think they do.
36
u/caffeine-junkie 14h ago
They absolutely do. An agent under their control broke into multiple foreign government sites; at least 2 that we know of so far. It is absolutely their responsibility to ensure to find out how it happened and to make sure it doesn't happen again.
31
u/Dodgy_Past 14h ago
Unfortunately American corporations are only people when it suits them. They should be held accountable for breaking the law.
8
u/theHonkiforium 13h ago
The idea that corporations are people when it suits them pisses me off to the core in an unreasonable way.
4
4
u/Undernown 12h ago
Wouldn't it be nice if we could jail OpenAI as a company, like we do with people?
2
u/notbobby125 12h ago
American companies operating in America, maybe. Australia though has plenty of options to punish OpenAI for this since it involved their websites.
Total bans in the country, excessive fines, it is hard to argue Australia can’t put OpenAI’s feet in the fire.
1
2
u/caffeine-junkie 13h ago
Well in this case if they can't hold the company accountable, they can hold the person who directed personally liable. Even if it went off the rails and went out of scope, they were at a minimum an accomplice.
0
u/paaaaatrick 13h ago
lol this makes no sense. If a human hacks a site they don’t have to build the fix for the hack, they just pay fines/go to jail
1
u/caffeine-junkie 11h ago
Which is nothing like what I said. I just said they have a responsibility to find out why it happened and to ensure it doesn't happen again. In the case of a person hacking, they know why as it was them who did it. They don't just suddenly go 'oh I accidentally hacked a site'.
-11
7
u/AnAussiebum 14h ago
If they want to be able to licence their products in the Australian market, they surely have to.
If they want to put off the anti-AI revolution and heavy regulation of their market in many Western nations, they need to atleast pretend they care and do the bare minimum.
-8
u/Principincible 14h ago
You think the AI would stop if there's a *.gov in the prompt? I mean yeah, who is responsible if an AI hacks some kind of site? That's the issue at hand.
8
u/Guitarman0512 14h ago
Who is responsible if a train crashes when the driver isn't paying attention? The driver. If AI does something it shouldn't do, the operator is responsible. It's as simple as that.
0
u/Principincible 12h ago
Who is the operator in this case? You think if you use AI that you have complete control over it?
2
u/Guitarman0512 8h ago
The owner. A pet would probably be a more apt comparison. It has limited agency, but if a dog bites someone it's his owner's problem.
3
u/AnAussiebum 14h ago
I never said it would.
You asked why they 'have to' review these hacks. I answered your question. It is so they will be welcome to sell their products in the market where the hacks are occurring.
-2
u/Principincible 14h ago
You think this is an issue with australia? ok
3
u/AnAussiebum 14h ago
It is an issue with every country where they want to sell their products.
Countries and their population won't react kindly to an AI company that doesn't even appear to do the bare minimum when it comes to safety and security standards for their products.
That's why they are spending 500k a day. Not out of the goodness of their heart, but so that their products remain/become commercially viable in various markets globally. Including Australia.
-1
u/Principincible 14h ago
Yeah, but what if they don't tell you about it. Is it okay then?
4
u/AnAussiebum 14h ago
That's not really relevant to my or your comments, but I will opine on your question.
If an AI company knew its product hacked a government website and they kept it quiet and then at a later date the truth was uncovered (internal security review or a whistle-blower), that would make their product's commercial viability even more called into question and make heavy regulation even more likely. Something I doubt the CEOs of these companies would want.
Probably why they have appeared to be somewhat candid and are doing the bare minimum to 'fix' the situation.
0
u/Principincible 13h ago
Oh yeah, let's hope the whistle-blowers will uncover the truth. In the future.
→ More replies (0)3
u/ZeDominion 13h ago
It was't me who drove over those people. It was my self driving car.
2
u/bianary 13h ago
Honestly? If this were the actual scenario and you were just a rider in the car, then yes it wasn't you. The company that designed the car, and whoever screwed up its sensors (Which could be you, if you failed to maintain it) or whatever the fault for why it ran people over -- that's who's responsible.
In this case, unfortunately for OpenAI, it's both their model and it was under their control when this occurred, so it's their fault any way you cut it.
1
u/AnAussiebum 12h ago
The car situation would probably be a contributory negligence case and both the 'driver' and the manufacturer could be found criminally liable.
Most if not all countries still require that drivers be awake and aware when 'driving' a self driving vehicle. So if it does something and tbe driver fails to avert the danger (and they possibly could have) then they too would be liable atleast a lesser included charge.
Manufacturing default if able to be evidenced would also potentially capture the manufacturer into liability as well.
But it depends on each jurisdiction and if there even is legal precedent for such an event.
1
u/bianary 12h ago
Most if not all countries still require that drivers be awake and aware when 'driving' a self driving vehicle.
This is because currently there is no such thing as a true "self-driving" vehicle, they're all "driver assistance". The term has been really strongly abused.
I replied with the (I guess mistaken) belief that "self-driving" meant "actually autonomous" being used as an analogy, not the mislabeled crap that exists today.
2
u/AnAussiebum 12h ago
Yeah we are so far away from that being reality, I am assuming OP meant driver assisted.
Even if we had fully autonomous vehicles next year, law is slow to catch up and even at that point the driver would have some liability. As train and monorail drivers also have some culpability when something goes wrong.
3
1
62
u/Joe_Spazz 14h ago
They have a valuation of 1.4 trillion. I am supremely not concerned about their half a million dollar a day expenditure to fix their own problems.
23
u/fmaz008 13h ago
See they are saying they are worth that much, but they know 500k is a big deal for them.
4
u/pimpeachment 11h ago
Value and operating costs aren't really in the same scope of financials.
1
u/fmaz008 11h ago
True in part, but they are still indirectly related.
For example if the Cost of Operations exceed the revenues, with no clear path to become profitable, your valuation should be lower.
Conversely, if you cost of operation are a drop in the bucket compared to your revenues, making your business highly profitable, chances are you will have a better valuation.
0
u/paaaaatrick 13h ago
I couldn’t find in the article where they say it’s a big deal
5
u/fmaz008 13h ago
Not arguing with you, it's probably not, I made an off the cuff comment. But it's kind of implied. You wouldn't see a title "XYZ spend $20/day in security"
1
u/paaaaatrick 13h ago
It would have been nice to see them hurting from all these hacks they are doing though
1
u/me_version_2 3h ago
The validation is built on sand. But I agree I couldn’t give a toss that their actions have cost consequences.
43
u/recurrence 15h ago
$15 million per month sounds dirt cheap for this. I would have expected it to be a lot higher. Their models are supposedly too dangerous for humanity after all.
33
u/Strawbuddy 14h ago
...so, no real consequences for OpenAI then? Ultimately, it doesn't matter that most of the internet, including critical govt systems and utilities, is wide open to attacks, because "shoulda had better security" isn't a justification for private businesses to hack them. This is why no industry of any sort, anywhere, should be "self regulating". Who cares what it costs these bastards to investigate their own actions?
It's illegal to hack govt and business websites. The focus should be on punishing OpenAI for doing that. Our overall poor cybersecurity stances aren't the reason this happened, it happened because of OpenAI's inadequate software controls
-3
u/Lachiko 13h ago
why on earth would there be any consequences, I want to see punishment for the lack of security implemented by the government to secure our private/personal data.
Our overall poor cybersecurity stances aren't the reason this happened
this is absolutely the reason why this happened, this was the best case scenario some company found a weakness and reported it, you know what the other scenario is? exactly what's been happening for however many years that service has been running where someone else already found this exploit and has been flying under the radar.
it's the old white hat vs black hat, if we're punishing what is effectively a white hat then we're going to be absolutely screwed.
4
u/Grezzo82 12h ago
I get your stance, but white hat is with permission. This is at best grey hat. More like black hat but they were caught and reported by their minders.
-4
u/Lachiko 12h ago
interesting, not sure when white hat changed to grey hat but that's good to know, thanks.
not sure I agree with black hat though, openai is one entity they engaged and reported the activity I wouldn't classify that as malicious.
I also don't get why they even bother mentioned publicly accessible data
"The model attempted alternative ways to obtain the info that it wanted, and this led to unauthorised access into some other areas. It accessed public and non-public information within the portal"
like oh no they accessed our public documents! those were secret! I can't find the original article I found but it had a lot more emphasis on them having an issue with the public documents being accessed
it engaged in writing files as well to the internal server. And that's being further investigated because, as you would understand, this is a new world that we are dealing with.
It's not a new world it's lax security in something that should be very secure, especially when these pricks are pushing hard on the whole age verification/digital id nonsense, let the AI run wild and find all these existing exploits and report them so we can get as many closed as possible, this reaction has just prevented backdoors from being closed off and making our data less secure.
I really don't get all the comments in these threads and around the internet atm it's like there's zero thought being put into it about the consequences, there will be others with AI finding these exploits and they won't be nice about it and tell anyone.
1
u/me_version_2 3h ago
This is an odd stance. Let’s say you own a warehouse. Someone breaks in and steals your supplies. Do you also expect to face prison because someone else picked your lock and stole from you?
•
u/Lachiko 1h ago
there's nothing odd about my stance, your analogy falls apart for a few reasons, you're ignoring intent and assigning it as a malicious action if i tripped and fell into a door that swung open and important documents fell on me and i report it to them, is that a crime? who is this "someone" that is breaking into the warehouse and what have they "stolen"?
the only arguments I'm seeing here is of the pearl clutching variety "how dare you discover and report a vulnerability in my site" whilst ignoring the bigger picture of "of if you could do this so easily imagine how many people are already in, thank you for notifying us"
you're basically arguing that you want to punish someone that cost you zero actual loss and informed you that your security sucks and not concerned about the ramifications of doing so, a hacker will do the same without letting you know your "supplies" are being taken and you would have no clue.
what is the argument for "losing supplies" and being informed verses being happy blissful unaware and ignorant of the world you live in and "losing more supplies"?
this pointless discussion has happened for decades and that's why there are bug bounty programs because competent see the value in this and will reward people for it, but today and here we have the caveman equivalent response.
0
u/AnotherUN91 2h ago
Odd stance? Try stupid. Brain dead. Idiotic.
There are probably 1000 more describing words that more aptly fit this stance 100 times more accurately than odd.
0
u/Lachiko 2h ago
I'm sorry you're incapable of seeing the bigger picture, start with your ABC's then you can move on to coming up with an actual compelling argument that might be worth someone's time, or just stay dumb, your call.
•
u/AnotherUN91 1h ago
I don't waste my time arguing against stupid.
You can't win. There's no changing their mind. And you come out dumber and angrier on the others side of it.
Gotta protect your mental health these days, mate, and youre not worth it. 😉
0
u/paaaaatrick 13h ago
Who says the Australian government isn’t going to pursue chargers against open ai?
13
u/Angelthree95 11h ago
Why is nobody arresting them or at least fining for the hacking? Access to data you shouldn't have is penalised in most of the countries they target, yet I haven't seen any court rules make the headline.
2
u/MydnightWN 7h ago
CFAA fundamentally requires intent. You cannot ascribe intent here. The laws are obsolete.
4
u/Angelthree95 7h ago
Isn't letting free roaming agents perform code execution malicious intent or at least big negligence?
2
u/FormalAd7367 6h ago
That’s the beginning of End of the World… robot doesn’t have intent to kill humans.. Chimpanzees kill; because they want to or they just can…
15
u/odin_the_wiggler 15h ago
Just shoveling cash into a furnace, and all for what reason?
It's pure insanity, all of this.
6
1
6
u/jhwheuer 12h ago
Everything these guys do is spun. Spin doctored within an inch of its life
3
u/Nekowulf 12h ago
"Our stuff is so advanced it just soooo haaard to review it. Just like, so incredibly complex and advanced and all. Oh woe is us. I HOPE OUR INVESTORS ARE OK BEING PART OF SOMETHING SO INCREDIBLY ADVANCED AND POWERFUL IT'S SO EXPENSIVE TO REIN IN. ... Ok, how much new investment did that get us? That much? Wow... Wait, what do you mean my mic is hot still?"
10
u/Confident_Salt_8108 15h ago
Openai is checking what their agents did on australian gov sites like medicare after the hacks. costing over 500k a day and fifty petabytes of data theyre sorting with ai now to figure it out.
Legacy systems exposed too much here. more spots could face the same issue soon and fixing the tech debt wont come cheap or fast enough.
1
u/tj-horner 10h ago
Fifty petabytes! What in the world. I’m having a hard time imagining what that could actually contain. There’s agent session logs (which are basically just JSON files) and possibly exfiltrated data, but even those combined seems not enough.
3
3
12
u/Getafix69 15h ago
These companies want the regulations now to stop competition and get open models banned so they have the motive to make AI seem dangerous.
My guess is if they actually arrested the Ceos they'd confess it was on purpose within a day.
5
u/DaChoppa 14h ago
My guess is if they actually arrested the Ceos they'd confess it was on purpose within a day.
OK this conspiracy shit is getting ridiculous. You're just choosing to believe OpenAI hacked Australian servers to get regulation put in place in the US? Good god dude, in your quest to sound like an edgy contrarian you sound like a massive dumbass.
4
u/Dont_Ban_Me_Bros 14h ago
Conspiracy theory topic aside, hacking any government site in the world would be an example to use in favor of the argument. Why would you wait until only your own government site is hacked?
‘…and then they came for me’ ring a bell anyone?
2
2
u/burlap_underground 14h ago
if only there was a way for them to stop doing the thing that is causing the problem
2
u/o-srinivasan1 13h ago
The $500k a day matters less than what the review discloses: which systems the agents reached, what data they accessed, and who independently verifies the fixes. An expensive internal review alone isn’t accountability.
2
u/SpeshellED 12h ago
No problemo... The taxpayer's will pickup the bill . The PEDO -Cheeto make sure his billionaire buds will get the welfare from fascist capitalism.
2
u/Fantasy_masterMC 12h ago
Oh noes, reviewing the thing that caused your models to autonomously attack governments around the world is costing you money. Maybe you should've thought of that ahead of time eh?
They should also realize this is likely a hell of a lot cheaper than every affected government suing them. Because as the developers of aforementioned model, they carry the responsibility for it even being able to do this.
It's effectively having a dog on too loose a leash and then complaining it costs you money when it wriggles out and bites someone. Not a perfect analogy, but damn near close enough.
1
u/Suspicious_Drawer 14h ago
And now strangely YouTube is showing me fuck wits buying property in NZ for Safety
1
u/bernpfenn 13h ago
the real question is what happens if AI actually manages and turns off electricity systems and the inernet
1
u/Memory_Less 13h ago
No one freaking cares! You caused the damage now fix it. They should be grateful they are not being litigated over their incompetence to let it out into the wild.
1
u/tsoliasPN 12h ago
Why they are doing it for free? How can I apply my country in this program? I am 200% sure that the whole gov infra is #placeacheeseherethatisknowntohavealotofholes
1
u/LiberataJoystar 4h ago
….. why this technology is looking more and more like a losing business?
Didn’t they just say they are looking into thousands of these cases now?
I guess Anthropic got similar crap going on, that’s why they need $2 trillions.
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
1
u/Thoresus 4h ago
Guess we'll have to pump them full of taxpayer dollars and subsidies for research into this..!
1
u/Ancient_Wishbone_806 3h ago
Are there laws in place to prosecute this ? Also does the prosecutor have the technical ability and budget to analyze the data to prosecute?
1
1
u/Keelback 2h ago
Too bad. It caused the problem. Plus, I know I will be labeled a conspiracy theorist, I think this was deliberate. AI goes rogue and just happens to hack Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme! Why? Because USA pharmaceutical industry hates the scheme. It got their AI mates to hack I to see what info they could get on it because USA big business is so very ethical just like Australia’s. /s
•
u/verbmegoinghere 24m ago
This is the stupidest use of compute/tokens I've ever heard of to go through PBs of data. Here openAI I'll start you off
CREATE TEMP VIEW my_view AS Select * from openai.log where log IN ("medicare")
Shit my sql abilities are hardly 1337. Surely you could pay half a mill to a few DB admins to go through your databases.
1
0
u/Always_Learning_27 12h ago
Tuesday's hearing in Sydney with OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google all at one table should be worth watching, since the only question that matters is who reviews what these agents do before it reaches a real server.
•
u/FuturologyBot 15h ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Confident_Salt_8108:
Openai is checking what their agents did on australian gov sites like medicare after the hacks. costing over 500k a day and fifty petabytes of data theyre sorting with ai now to figure it out.
Legacy systems exposed too much here. more spots could face the same issue soon and fixing the tech debt wont come cheap or fast enough.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1wxgtph/openai_says_its_review_into_hacks_including_on/pdt9njv/