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An OpenAI agent hacked Medicare. Will anyone be held responsible? (theconversation.com)

submitted 10 hours ago by bignose@aussie.zone to c/australianpolitics@aussie.zone

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Andrew Cullen:

[…] if a human asks an AI agent to gather health statistics, and the agent hacks a government server to do so, the human could lack the deliberate intent required for a conviction. The AI agent, meanwhile, lacks the legal personhood to be charged, as well as human intentionality.

Current Australia laws effectively treat AI actions as if they are something that just happens to us – like a severe weather event. This shows a glaring loophole in our legal system that does not hold those who make, maintain and use these systems to account when something goes wrong.

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[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

This isn’t a hack, it’s leakage of an excessive and entirely unnecessary store of data. The data can’t leak if it doesn’t exist.

The normalisation of organisations hoarding information is the core fault here, and where scrutiny of accountability and culpability should be focused.

[–] Curiositymonger@reddthat.com 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Plenty of data held by Medicare has good purposes. Some are necessary for service provision like another commenter mentioned. Some are also needed for medical research and Medicate budgeting decisions

[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago

Please refer to my other response.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 6 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

It might be negligence on either side or not. We don't have the facts. If the data was not properly secured there are still laws in this country about accessing services without authorization.

A government providing health care to citizens has a reasonable need to hold data necessary for service provision.

There is a huge leap from that to Flock level surveillance. Or appliances and web services that capture and monitor all activity. Worst of all companies like OpenAI training models on copyrighted works and profiting from them without compensation or attribution to the detriment of society.

[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 hours ago

Both sides are absolutely culpable, but it couldn’t happen if the hoarding weren’t permitted and normalised.

There are legitimate and justifiable reasons to collect and store medical data, but it should be selective, limited, and siloed. Access should be embarrassingly transparent with excessive monitoring and active alerting, and cross referencing should require explicit elevated access.

There should not be a universal ‘Medicare Portal’, especially one accessible from the public internet. Providing and permitting such a tool is catastrophic negligence.