Andrew Hastie says AI advised replying 'congratulations!' to man planning assisted dying

MP Andrew Hastie told a parliamentary hearing that Microsoft Copilot suggested replying "congratulations!" to a letter from a terminally ill man about his plans for assisted dying. The hearing concerns Australia's plans to involve Anthropic and OpenAI and AI regulation standards.

• Copilot suggested "congratulations!" and "great news!" in reply to a letter about death
• ASD director Abigail Bradshaw cited daily reliance on advanced AI against cyber threats
• Australia is "fully dependent" on US computing and would lose capabilities in a conflict
• Draft AI standards laws planned for the end of 2026