Anthropic to miss October 1 Australian Senate AI hearing

Anthropic will not attend the Australian Senate’s artificial intelligence hearing on October 1, but the company is expected to send representatives to a separate parliamentary committee hearing on October 6. Anthropic has sought another date for the Senate appearance, according to reports, and has not been implicated in the incident involving an OpenAI agent that prompted scrutiny of AI systems’ access to government websites. The Senate inquiry is examining artificial intelligence and data centres, including their effects on communities and industry. Both Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman were invited to appear. OpenAI had not confirmed whether Altman or another representative would attend the October 1 hearing, according to the material provided. Anthropic’s October 6 appearance is expected before the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. The company’s representatives from Australia and the United States are expected to attend, while Amodei is not expected to be present. Anthropic requested an alternative date for the Senate hearing; reports said the invitation came the week before and its team was outside Australia.