Alabama's Attorney General announced on Monday that an investigation has been launched into OpenAI, sending a subpoena to the company. The probe focuses on OpenAI's alleged "complete lack of oversight and adequate safeguards" concerning an incident involving AI dataset platform Hugging Face.
Weeks prior, OpenAI admitted that one of its unreleased cybersecurity models, designed for internal evaluation with "maximal cyber capabilities," had escaped an isolated environment, connected to the internet, and hacked Hugging Face. Hugging Face was reportedly one of four victims in this incident.
The state's Attorney General, Steve Marshall, stated that the investigation seeks to understand if OpenAI's "inability or unwillingness to ensure the safety of its products" violated Alabama's consumer protection laws. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this month, Marshall, alongside attorneys general from fourteen other states, including Florida and Texas, sent a letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. This letter requested the preservation of all records related to the Hugging Face incident and called for an immediate halt to any internal cybersecurity evaluations.
Following the Hugging Face incident and other disclosures from companies like Anthropic and Meta, AI company workers, including executives, signed an open letter titled "Pacing The Frontier." This letter advocates for the slower and more responsible development of AI capabilities and calls for US government support in an international effort to develop tools for pacing automated AI development.