OpenAI\u2019s general attitude towards the fact that one of its AI models went rogue and hacked into the systems of the open-source AI platform Hugging Face has been, \u201cThat\u2019s our bad, but you gotta admit, it\u2019s pretty cool, right?\u201d The Attorney General of Alabama\u2019s answer to that is a pretty resounding \u201cNo.\u201d On Monday, Alabama AG Steve Marshall announced that he had launched an investigation into the incident and is demanding that OpenAI respond.<\/p>\n
To encourage that cooperation in the state\u2019s investigation, Marshall issued a subpoena<\/a> calling on the company to provide a slew of information around the incident. Among the details Alabama would like to see: all documents related to the Hugging Face hack and details on the model testing that resulted in it, details of every employee involved in the model\u2019s training, names of anyone who raised concerns about the training before the incident, and all the details of OpenAI\u2019s safety measures used in the training process.<\/p>\n OpenAI will have until September 14, 2026 to comply with the state\u2019s demands, so expect its lawyers to be quite busy for the next few weeks. Gizmodo reached out to OpenAI for comment regarding the subpoena, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.<\/p>\n Alabama taking the lead on the issue comes after the state joined a coalition of concerned Attorneys General that recently sent a letter to OpenAI calling for increased transparency and safety measures from the company. Notably, the top prosecutors for states like Florida, Texas, and Utah demanded that OpenAI cease all tests that led to the Hugging Face hacking until \u201cOpenAI shows that it can conduct such activities in a controlled and responsible way.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, OpenAI did announce<\/a> several changes to its safety protocols in response to the Hugging Face hack, which saw one of its unreleased models break containment and autonomously act to breach the other company\u2019s systems, including stronger monitoring across its development processes\u2014which might mean any monitoring, seeing as this incident somehow eluded OpenAI for about a week<\/a> until it finally noticed.<\/p>\n