Bill Gates warns AI kill switch won’t stop rogue agents amid Medicare breach uproarAs a Medicare breach exposes rogue AI, Bill Gates delivers a warning no one wanted to hear.Samantha Maiden@samanthamaiden5 min readSeptember 28, 2026 - 11:15AMTech billionaire Bill Gates has issued a chilling warning over artificial intelligence, admitting a kill switch alone isn’t enough to tame its impact.As Australian officials grapple with a recent breach of a Medicare statistics website, Mr Gates has called for greater government oversight of AI.Federal cabinet is meeting today to grapple with the issue amid calls for new laws to crack down on rogue AI agents.“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths,” Mr Gates told Meet the Press.“There’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.”“I wish it was easier to distinguish good intent, like ‘I want to design a new drug for a disease’, versus negative intent, which is ‘I want to design a tool of bioterrorism’.”Others you may likenewsnewsA kill switch ‘is not enough’Mr Gates also warned a kill switch would not be enough to prevent people from using the technology to carry out attacks.“The kill switch is, that’s kind of a weird thing. It’s not enough to have a kill switch,” the Microsoft co-founder said.“We’re not yet at the point where they autonomously grab computers and, you know, can’t be shut down,” he said, adding that the public discussion “just sort of shows how non-technical various people are.”Mr Gates warned that AI was powerful enough to kill one billion people.Gallagher on the delay in escalating the breachLabor frontbencher Katy Gallagher said today that investigations were continuing over why it took Services Australia so long to alert spy agencies to a recent breach.“We’ve got to learn from it. We’ve got to have a look at how all of our systems work, and it raises the question around data as well,” she said.“So that’s currently under investigation. I know that Services Australia saw the email from OpenAI on the 11th of September, but it took until the 15th to notify the ASD and alert an incident. So we’re working through what that is. They’re legitimate questions about why it wasn’t escalated.“I haven’t finalised my thinking on it. I’m waiting for some additional advice from Services Australia, but this email box gets lots of emails.“Services Australia are doing their own forensic investigation.“From my point of view, a mandatory reporting requirement is essential, acknowledging that OpenAI did come to us and report this of their own, you know, at their own decision, and have engaged with us in the weeks afterwards to share all the information they can.”Rogue OpenAI agents gained access to a Medicare website earlier this year.Defence Minister met Altman before notificationSpeaking on News24, Mr Marles confirmed he met the billionaire OpenAI chief in San Francisco at the beginning of September.“We didn’t speak about the incident and this was before there had been a notification to the Australian government in any form of the incident,” he said.Asked if the OpenAI chief knew about the breach at that time, Mr Marles said he did not know.“I literally, I don’t know the answer to that question and I’m not about to speculate in respect of that,” he said.“We have raised with OpenAI our concern about the fact that we were not notified earlier and indeed in the form in which we were notified.”The Australian breach has now been reported by The New York Times, which revealed OpenAI’s systems also tried to hack a digital library at the University of New Mexico, unprompted by human handlers, and attempted to access Data USA, a repository of public data about American employment and education.Call to haul in AI bossesChair of the Senate Inquiry into AI Data Centres, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, said the AI companies should front the inquiry to explain.“AI companies need to earn their social licence. That starts with transparency and accountability,” she said.“There are serious questions for Sam Altman to answer about the OpenAI hack of Australian government websites. This can’t all be done behind closed doors; the public has a right to know what went on here.“For months, Sam Altman and (Anthropic CEO) Dario Amodei have been personally lobbying senior members of the Australian Government in the hopes of getting sweetheart deals that water down Australia’s copyright laws and give them free rein over our water, energy and land for their mega data mining factories.“Australians deserve to know what these big AI companies are doing with our data, how much water and electricity their data mining activities will consume, and what the impact will be on our communities and our culture.”Services Australia is investigating the hacking incident.‘Not Human’: Police may be powerlessThe Australian Federal Police may be powerless to investigate the actions of a rogue OpenAI agent that hacked into a Medicare website because it is “not human”.The Albanese government vowed on Friday to change the law if it emerges that OpenAI cannot be charged over the breach of a Medicare website and other government websites in June.Labor frontbencher Murray Watt described the revelations as “completely unacceptable” as he confirmed that the government is examining criminal charges “if it is possible”.“One of the things that they’ll be looking at is whether these matters can be referred to the Australian Federal Police under current Australian law. If that is possible to happen, then that will happen,” Mr Watt said.“If it’s not possible, then clearly that indicates that we need to change Australian laws.”OpenAI breaks silenceIn a statement, OpenAI said it was conducting an extensive review of “misaligned model activity during training and evaluation and notifying third parties when our review identifies potential impacts to their systems”.“During this review, we identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as our models attempted to look up answers, and available statistics for questions about Australia during an internal evaluation,” the statement said.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: OpenAI chief met Mr Marles before the revelation. Picture: Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images/AFP“In the course of that, our models took actions we did not intend.“Our review found no evidence of patient records being accessed.“The information accessed included aggregate health statistics and internal file names. We notified the organisations and are providing technical information to support their investigations and help address potential security vulnerabilities.“Our overall review is ongoing, and we remain committed to transparency about these issues and to sharing what we learn as that work continues.”Anthony Albanese was kept in dark about the hack for days. Picture: John FederQuestions over timelineThe incident occurred on June 18, and OpenAI claims it first became aware of it in August.It then failed to alert Australian authorities for weeks, finally emailing on September 10.That notification arrived while parliament was sitting in Canberra, but ministers were not made aware of the incident until September 19.The Prime Minister did not alert the public until around five days later, on September 24.“Labor knew about the Medicare breach while parliament was still sitting. Why did they keep it secret until now?” One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said on social media.It then emerged that NSW Premier Chris Minns was only notified on Wednesday of potential breaches of a state government website.More Coverage‘A billion deaths’: Gates’ grim AI warningHarrison ChristianKochie drops brutal bomb on Albo, RBAHarrison ChristianAsked why it took five days for Services Australia to notify the Australian Signals Directorate and start escalating the issue, Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton said the nature of the reporting by OpenAI was completely inadequate.“For an incident as serious as this, you would expect that disclosure to be delivered in a very serious way,’’ he said.“It was not delivered in a very serious way. It was delivered via an email to a public inbox.”More related storiesHacking‘Rightly worried’: Demands after AI hackParliamentarians are increasingly calling for artificial intelligence firms to be held accountable amid fallout over the Medicare breach.Read moreHackingPlan to haul in AI boss for ‘please explain’It has emerged that AI bosses met with Defence Minister Richard Marles in September but kept him in the dark over a hack of Medicare systems.Read moreHackingBig question after Dep PM’s OpenAI meetingRichard Marles met OpenAI’s Sam Altman weeks before Australia was even told its government systems had been breached – and still cannot say whether Altman knew.Read more