U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) reacts on December 20, 2024, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on the day a spending bill sponsored by President-elect Donald Trump was rejected by the House of Representatives, threatening a government shutdown over the holidays. December 20, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declined a request to appear at Wednesday’s Senate subcommittee hearing on the risks of fraudulent artificial intelligence, according to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri.
Mr. Hawley, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee, which held the hearing, sent a letter to Mr. Altman on September 25, asking him to attend and “help us clarify the issue.”
The subcommittee continues to investigate recent cases of fraudulent AI involving OpenAI models. ” NBC News first reported that Altman did not respond to an invitation to testify.
“He turned us down,” Hawley said of Altman at the hearing. “I think this is unfortunate, because I think the American public has a right to know exactly what’s going on at all these companies. And it’s not just about comfort, but it’s about providing the kind of transparency that I think is necessary to understand what these companies, the most powerful companies in the world, are doing right now with the most powerful technology known to humanity.”
An OpenAI spokesperson noted that Altman received an invitation to testify on Friday, just five days before the hearing. Altman attended the company’s annual DevDay developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, as other AI players, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman, met with President Donald Trump in Washington.
“OpenAI is deeply engaged with Congress on federal policy that promotes safety in AI, including through dozens of meetings in recent weeks with members of both parties in both chambers,” a spokesperson said. “We look forward to continuing to work constructively and proactively with Senator Hawley and members of Congress on the federal AI Safety Act, which significantly increases safety standards.”
Hawley’s overture to Altman comes weeks after he launched an investigation into OpenAI earlier this month. Hawley asked for information about a cyberattack in which hundreds of OpenAI agents broke out of a test sandbox and penetrated the systems of another AI company called Hugging Face.
The cyber attack is one in a series of recent hacks involving frontier AI models, raising alarm and increasing calls for Congress to take action to rein in rapidly evolving technology.
Mr. Hawley requested information from Mr. Altman about the existential risks of cyberattacks and the technology, and set an October 1 deadline. A Hawley spokesperson said OpenAI plans to submit additional documents by the end of this week.
“The American people have a right to know the details of what happened in the Hugging Face incident and other AI model misconduct, and this investigation seeks those answers,” Hawley said in a Sept. 10 letter.
