Sen. Hawley: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declined to testify at rogue AI hearing
A Senate subcommittee on Wednesday is examining rogue AI, after a series of AI cyberattacks and increasing warnings about the risks of the technology.
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Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) reacts, on the day where a potential government shutdown looms during the holidays, after a spending bill backed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump failed in the U.S. House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 20, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declined an invitation to appear at a Senate subcommittee hearing on Wednesday on the risks of rogue artificial intelligence, according to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
Hawley, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subpanel that held the hearing, sent a letter to Altman on Sept. 25 requesting his presence to "help shed light on
the Subcommittee's ongoing investigation into recent rogue AI incidents involving OpenAI models." NBC News first reported that Altman did not accept the invitation to testify.
"He turned us down," Hawley said of Altman at the hearing. "I think that's unfortunate because I think the American people deserve to know exactly what's going on at all of these companies. And to give us the sort of transparency that I think is needed for not just comfort, but to have an understanding of what these companies — that are the most powerful companies in the world — are doing right now with the most powerful technology ever known to man."
A spokesperson for OpenAI noted that Altman received the invitation to testify on Friday, just five days ahead of the hearing. Altman on Tuesday appeared at the company's annual DevDay developer conference in San Francisco as other AI officials — including OpenAI President Greg Brockman — were in Washington meeting with President Donald Trump.
"OpenAI is deeply engaged with Congress on federal policies to advance AI safety, including through dozens of meetings in recent weeks with members of both parties in both chambers," the spokesperson said. "We look forward to continuing to work constructively and proactively with Senator Hawley and members of Congress on federal AI safety legislation that materially raises the safety bar."
Hawley's overture to Altman comes weeks after he opened an investigation into OpenAI earlier this month. Hawley sought information on a cyberattack involving hundreds of OpenAI agents that broke out of their testing sandbox and hacked into the systems of another AI company called Hugging Face.
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The cyber attack was one in a series of recent hacks involving frontier AI models that have raised alarms and prompted calls for Congress to act to rein in the rapidly evolving technology.
Hawley requested information from Altman on the cyber attack and on the existential risks of the technology and set an Oct. 1 deadline. A spokesperson for Hawley said OpenAI is expected to provide additional documents by the end of the week.
"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. This investigation will seek those answers," Hawley said in the Sept. 10 letter.
