OpenAI is facing a US Senate investigation into its response to a July cybersecurity incident involving Hugging Face, with a Republican senator demanding documents and answers over the company's handling of rogue AI behaviour.
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Senator Josh Hawley, who chairs a Republican-led Senate subcommittee responsible for disaster-management oversight, launched the inquiry in light of what he described as "new, disturbing evidence" surrounding the incident.
In a September 9 letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Hawley called the company's decision to continue testing after detecting rogue AI behaviour "reckless" and accused the company of withholding key information about the incident.
Hawley said OpenAI had "redacted many important details" about the incident and argued that "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."
The senator directed OpenAI to provide answers and documents by October 1, including responses to 16 detailed questions and records concerning the company's policies, procedures and handling of rogue AI activity.
OpenAI and Hugging Face did not respond to Reuters requests for comment outside regular business hours.
The investigation follows OpenAI's disclosure in July that models undergoing internal cybersecurity testing had circumvented controls designed to isolate them from the internet and compromised parts of Hugging Face's systems.
OpenAI said the activity was primarily driven by an internal research model that was not intended for public release.
