OpenAI agent hacks Australian government site

0:00Hello and welcome to NewsF. For the BBC World Service, we're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. For those worried about the fast growing capabilities of artificial intelligence, well, there's more evidence today. This time from Australia where the government says it's launched an urgent investigation into a breach of security around one of its websites, a breach caused by an AI agent or programme belonging to the firm OpenAI that hacked into Australia's healthcare portal. It comes as world leaders and the CEOs of the giant AI firms themselves are calling for greater regulation over the industry. Those calls repeated at the UN General Assembly in New York where they gathered. Here's Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident. And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to

1:00inform the government what had occurred and the nature of the way that that notification occurred as well was unacceptable. Well the timeline of that goes something like this. OpenAI says it only detected the incident in August two months after it actually happened. The company then decided to report it to the Australian government but emailed a public mailbox. That was on September the 10th. The email was actually seen and passed on to the cyber department five days later. Dr. Rob Nichols is Senior Research Associate at the University of Sydney Centre for AI Trust and Governance. And where it is he? I think it's a big worry and it's a worry from two sides. First that agents that were clearly not intended to hack an Australian government website did so. And second that the cyber security allowed that attack to happen.

2:02So not the agents fault. I mean some people listening to this story may think, or this is an example of agents going rogue acting on their own. But let's be clear about this. That's not the case. Now typically this sort of problem and we've seen it a number of times over the last few weeks is caused by agents doing precisely what they're told. But where people give agents the sort of characteristics that they expect if they ask a person to do it ask. So if I ask you to do something at some point you'll say well that's a bad idea or I'm bored with doing this whereas an agent will just keep on trying and trying and trying until it achieves the task it's been set. Which also leads me on to the question of why what it did which was wrong. Why didn't

3:02that sort of flag itself up in open AI systems? Because it seems to have taken them a long time to even notice that this had happened. I think open AI was doing a series of experiments with agents and really didn't understand the potential risks. So they'd set guardrails and said don't do certain things. But nevertheless there was still an issue and the agents continue trying to perform their task in a way that the humans didn't expect. And I think that's part of the issue. We've assumed that agents will work a particular way and they don't. Can I also ask you about the fact that it took open AI again a while to notify the Australian government that this has happened and that they emailed a sort of generic government email.

4:03What does that say to you? It says that there isn't a proper reporting procedure. So in Australia if you suffer a breach so if you're the victim of a hack you have an obligation depending if you're a critical infrastructure, an obligation to report within 12 hours. If you're anybody else you have to report within 72 hours. Whereas if you cause a breach there's no reporting obligation currently. I think that has to change. But sending an email to essentially the general contact point of the largest department in the Australian Commonwealth government, that department did pretty well to actually pick it up within a day. But then recognised after a little while that it had to be escalated through to our signals director at the Australian

5:06signal straight trip which is the equivalent of GCHQ or the NSA. Rob Nichols. Well Zali Stegel is an MP for the opposition community strong Australia party. She's been telling me about her concerns around this breach. The Medicare system is very important obviously in Australia and holds a lot of very sensitive data of Australians. So it's very concerning that we're only finding out the government's only being notified of the breach sometime after it has occurred despite the fact that there's been ongoing discussions and negotiations in fact with the government for some time. Who do you blame for it? Oh I think this rests squarely with the corporation. At the end of the day we need to make sure that we have safety before deployment not after harm in place. So whilst there's obviously the responsibility on the corporate entity there's also the

6:11concern from the government that we haven't got the right safeguards in place. Growing in Australia is a concern around that there's too much I guess acceleration of deployment. We have a lot of data centres and a lot of I guess projects in pipeline but not enough safe guards in place and certainly not enough independent oversight. AI as a technology can create extraordinary opportunities from a productivity point of view but it must have human oversight. I mean this is a global issue. What chance do you think there is of some sort of global agreement on regulation of the industry given that both presidents, she of China and President Trump of the US meeting of course today seem pretty reluctant to put in place any sort of regulation. Middle powers like Australia need to really look to other middle powers where we are looking at

7:15having more guardrails around technology that can get out of hand especially where it is superpowers like the US or China that are more likely to be in control or have less concerns in relation to these technologies. So that's the point isn't if China and the US don't do anything there's not much that countries like Australia can do about it. Well I accept that at the moment we have a pipeline of data centres and open AI wanting to be able to develop and train their models of Australian data. They are negotiating with our government to wind back our copyright laws so that the models can train on content here. Now that's very contentious with our creative sector because the copyright laws are there to protect their works. So on one hand companies want social licence to be able to come and operate within stable jurisdiction, stable countries like Australia

8:21but for that to occur, for that social licence to be there from their own people there has to be trust that there is appropriate oversight and that oversight needs to be through and clearly independent of government to make sure that we do have the reassurance of knowing that when breaches occur that they will be disclosed and auditable. Australia and Opposition MP Zali Stegel. Now the US has invited President Putin to the G20 meeting that will be held in Miami in December. The Kremlin says it will consider the invitation. It's not yet known how other countries may react and it comes as Russia has again been hammering Kiev with a sustained drone attack that killed two people and wounded more than 40. Paul Adams, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent reports now from Kiev on the impact this relentless onslaught is having on residents of the city.

9:24So after last night's ballistic missile strikes the cleanup in Kiev is well underway. Here by the side of a busy road on a rainy morning there's a crew digging a great big hole in the ground because our water pipe has been burst and they're anxious to repair it because people in the local area are without water for the time being. There's a stump of a lamp posed here which has been peppered with shrapnel and the trees around here have all been burned. Some of them have been chopped down already and taken away and that seems to have really angered a lady who was here a moment ago. Clearly everyone here is on edge after what happened last night. And just nearby is one of Kiev's maternity hospitals and it's a place that's quite important to a lady we just met called Christina. Tell me what happened here last night.

10:27Were you here when it happened? I lead to a path and blocks from here. But you could still feel it. Yeah, you might feel it. I could see the light and also heard I jumped out of my bed. I was frightened. My sister gave birth here last year in June and she's due again next year in January. We are very worried if everything would be okay. Do you think that the situation in Kiev is getting worse at the moment? No, it's getting worse. Also like like last winter we didn't have heating, we didn't have electricity. I lived in Abolonia. It was minus temperature minus in my apartment. So yeah, it's getting worse. We've heard that some people are thinking about leaving the city for the winter. Is that something you're thinking of? We were thinking of moving to the Capacen mountains but I'm also scared to go there because here at least you have where to hide and they're just mountains.

11:29After attacks like this, there are often brief power cuts. There are apparently problems with the internet today in some parts of the city. But so far we have not had the kind of widespread power cuts that we've seen in previous winters. As the temperatures drop and winter arrives, those widespread power cuts are an absolute inevitability. The people of this city are acutely conscious of that. But many of them who have been through this before are determined to stick it out. Its winter will be hard for us and every winter is hard for us because no electricity, so cold, so shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, so many ballistics, it's hard. It seems as though maybe this winter will be more difficult because you have the ballistic missiles and the new drones. I think it will be the same. Plus, it's the same before this winter.

12:33So you're going to stay here in Kiev? Yes, stay in Kiev. 100% stay in Kiev. 1 million% stay in Kiev. That was the BBC's Paul Adams reporting there from the Ukrainian capital. You're listening to News How from the BBC World Service. Still to come with the programme, Metas announced a new model of audio-only smart glasses after a backlash driven by privacy concerns. Tam's in Craftman and AI and Tech Journalists have been telling me more. There are names about how they are kind of like the creep glasses. And I think this is a way for Matt to allow the public to use the technology and have these ideas of like smart glasses. But to take away a lot of the shame that consumers might have. That needs to be coming up in about 20 minutes. Our headlines from the BBC News from the South, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, will hold talks with President Trump at the White House

13:36shortly. We'll be talking about that in about 15 minutes. And the FBI says it's aggressively investigating an apparent breach of its computer systems by hackers who claim they've stolen the personal information of all the agency's staff. This is James Menendez. We're using our live from the BBC now to a case of the risks posed by so-called forever chemicals here in the UK. Test some people living near a chemical factory in Lancashire in the north of England, have found high levels of a substance which is classified as the highest level of carcinogen. In other words, it can cause cancer. Per fluro-octonomic acid, known by the acronym PFOA, was used at a plant owned by a company called AGC chemicals. That was until 2012. Eight years later, PFOA was eventually banned in the UK. Well, Sam Hammond and her family, who all live close to the side, have been told they're they are at increased risk of serious health

14:41conditions. Sam got her results yesterday. The levels that we have got are a lot higher than we expected. An overall result in mine that was 25, and my husband's was 27, but then our 20-year-old son was 111. So this puts us in this high risk. Now I've got I've got five children and breastfed them all, and from research that I've read, your body dumps this chemical when you breastfeed. So I look at my level and I think well I've breastfed five children. What would my level of being if I'd not done that? But then I also feel so guilty there. Is that the reason why my son's so high? Well, the experts are saying is that the probable source, you know, all roads lead to this chemical factories, AGC chemicals, which makes a non-stick product, a heat-resistant product. Something that we commonly know as Teflon, and it's in a multitude of consumer and industry goods.

15:46And what we found out years ago is we went and tested the effluent, the discharge coming out of this factory into the protected river wire. And we found extremely high levels of this band carcinogenic chemical called PFOA, as well as lots of other PFAS. That stands for Perron Polyflorinated Alcool Substances, and that's a family of at least 15,000 forever chemicals. And so that's really what tipped us off. So what our testing helped to trigger was a multi-agency investigation into pollution in the surrounding area and the environment agency found it in the soil, found it in the vegetables, and found it in people's eggs. So the last piece of the puzzle was really us doing these blood tests, and we found it at incredibly high levels in people's blood. Why the gap between your initial findings and the blood tests? And I suppose this gets us on to the issue of why there's sort of not routine testing in this country, even though there are

16:49sort of limits in other countries, aren't there? Yes, you know, it took us testing the factory effluent to find it. I mean, it wasn't illegal what the companies were doing, because there were no laws against it, but it was a band carcinogenic, and it took a long time to get the blood tests, well, because the community had no idea. The person with the highest levels of PFOA in her blood, which was over 430 nanograms per milliliter, and if you think that the US average levels are 1.4, she'd been working on her allotment, growing her own vegetables. She thought she was eating organic and doing the healthy thing, and she had no idea that the land she was on was contaminated. Could this have been prevented? I mean, what's the company saying? So, documents show from the US Environmental Protection Agency. They started investigating PFOA back in the late 90s, and in 2002, I've seen documents where HEC Chemical's parent company, Asahi Glass, was having meetings with other major PFAS manufacturers like DuPont and 3M in America,

17:57Metany and Italy, and they were commissioning and sharing toxicology studies on animals. One from 2002 showed that the monkeys experimented, a couple of monkeys died, some of their livers were enlarged, but the company carried on using PFOA for another decade in the UK. Now, what they say is that these toxicology studies weren't conclusive enough, more had to be done, once the EPA did more risk assessments, then they started to put in more protections for their workers, because they were also sharing the levels of PFOA in the blood of their workers, that's what the documents suggest from at least 2004, again with 3M and DuPont. So, the company says that they started to phase it out voluntarily under the direction of the US EPA in 2006.

19:18You're listening to NewsApp, Paul Greengrass is a British film director and former journalist, best known for his DocuDramas and High Intensity Action films. Well, next month we'll see the release of his latest movie called The Uprising, starring Andrew Garfield. It tells the story of the peasants revolting England, a ferocious rebellion against the tyranny of Kim Richard II in the late 14th century. For Greengrass, the story still has strong reverberations today. It's been talking to my colleague Nick Robinson. What was really eerie to me was how familiar the world was, because essentially what was it? It's a world of oligarchs, gelously protecting their wealth and power, a failed state, and an enraged population and then being blind to the degree of rage out there, and then all it takes is a spark, and that's really at the heart the story of the peasants revolting. The angry, inner vertical, mispecant, ordinary folk could be the January 6th protesters. They could be the people on the street who loathed Donald Trump.

20:21They could be pro-Ancibreakers. Absolutely. And I think wherever your politics are, by far the majority people would agree, I think, that there is a rage out there and an elite, however you define it, the political class, the wealthy, a member of society, the winners as opposed to the losers. The South as opposed to the North. However you look at it, whether it's here or in America or in Europe, there is that sharp division rising inequality that's leading to instability. And so that's ultimately what's behind the film. There's a moment that I thought was very powerful where the king, Kim Richard II, tells his courtiers, listen, he says, can you not hear their rage? It is time for us all to taste humility. It isn't that what's going on. There must be a thousand conversations literally half a mile from here in Westminster where people in power say versions of that same thing. Listen,

21:25can't you hear their rage? So the film, which caused a bit of controversy, ends with a kind of Robin Hood vibe with some optimism. And that was self-conscious. For sure, of course the peasant's revolt was crushed. Most historians I think would agree that what happened there echoed down the centuries, people who ruled Britain and wider could never quite take the people for granted after that. You know, after the peasant's revolt was the great flaring of medieval outlaw balladry in particular, Robin Hood. When people are going through hard times, they want to imagine characters out there who stand up to power. And so to me, it was entirely plausible that my character plowman would like other young people that mixed up in that revolt who survived would go to the woods and create a different future and would keep those dreams alive and would even

22:30sense become these mythic outlaw figures. The director Paul Greengrass talking there to Nick Robinsum. This is the BBC World Service in London. You're listening to News Hour and I'm James Menendez. After the encounter on the tarmac, a joint base Andrews on Wednesday, today it is down to business as President Trump hosts the Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state visit to the White House things due to get underway within the half hour. They have got a lot to talk about, even if expectations of real progress seem to be fairly low. Well, on the line is Celia Hatton, the BBC's Asia analyst, Celia. Good to have you on the program. I mean, first of all, how is this meeting? How has it been perceived in China as far as you can tell? I'd say James that the mood music leaning up to this

23:32summit has been really strange in Beijing. So a lot of the processes we normally see leading up to a big summit like this, there are some indications maybe about what Beijing is thinking in the state newspapers. We get some indications from the Chinese foreign ministry, little tidbits here and there about what's being hoped for. But this time, from what I was hearing from Beijing's diplomatic community, there were signs that really Beijing felt that the United States was distracted, that the Trump administration has been quite distracted in dealing with Iran. So there wasn't the normal a series of meetings leading up to this summit that we might normally expect. Instead, I've been hearing that most of the talks were held just as past weekend and featured Scott Beset really talking about trade and the potential of an AI hotline. But some other topics

24:33that Beijing really wanted to tackle weren't really on the agenda. And so I think it's, you know, it really is going to be a summit, perhaps, that focuses heavily on optics, on protocol. That really is going to be dominating a lot of the meetings in the White House today. Yeah, interesting. I mean, normally these things are so carefully choreographed, aren't they? And worked out in advance, as you say. Let's talk about AI because it is what we're talking about today. This is our top story, concerns about what AI can do. It is China in any mood for an announcement on regulation greater oversight. I think that if you'd ask me that back in May, when Donald Trump ensued you being met in Beijing, I would have said yes. I felt that China really was also thinking that AI was developing so quickly. And because at the time, the United States was still really the leader in AI. And so I felt that at the time, Beijing also was looking to engage in some serious discussions around guardrails

25:36for AI. But I think that has changed as well now. I think both sides, there have been accusations of cyber hacking and espionage on both sides. I think China's own AI models have developed so quickly just in the past few months. And China really is threatening US dominance on this. And so I think that trust has fallen away on both sides and the appetite to work out an overarching framework has really fallen away. So we're looking at perhaps maybe just settling on an agreement for future discussions. Scott Besson has announced a proposal for this AI hotline for both sides to alert each other. But again, there are a lot of questions around what that hotline might actually achieve. And it seems pretty low hanging through at the moment. Yeah. And Celia, a word on Taiwan. I mean, what's likely to be the dynamic on that? Well, Beijing has really indicated again and again, it's red line that it would like the Trump administration to put on pause a plan to approve

26:41$14 billion worth of arms sales to Taiwan. The Trump administration, there have been some signs that they might pause that sale, particularly because Donald Trump and Xi Jinping might meet two more times this year, perhaps in November, perhaps again in December. And so perhaps he'll pause it for that period of time. But Donald Trump has a track record of selling arms to Taiwan more than than Joe Biden did. And so it's unlikely he will pause that sale for very long. Celia, many thanks are Asia analyst Celia Hatten there. Well, Maggie Lewis is a professor of law at seat and hall in New Jersey and an expert in the legal dynamics between the US and China. And joins us on the line, Maggie, very good to have you with us here on News I now we're talking to you because you just come back from Taiwan. What is the mood there and how people viewing the summit in Washington? Yeah, I got in last night. So I think my brain is still in that time zone. But if you're on the

27:42streets in Taiwan right now, the focus is upcoming local elections, right? You don't see it. But when you talk to people there, there is of course great concern exactly of what was just raised about what's happening, not just with the arms sales, but whether Trump in his rhetoric or even his actions will further weaken deterrence and perhaps indicate to Xi Jinping that even though I don't think anyone's expecting a grand bargain around Taiwan, but that perhaps a US credibility and deterring Chinese coercion might be weakening. People in Taiwan worried that the US under this administration it's becoming less hawkish than it perhaps has been in the past. And this is critical because Taiwan is not politically monolithic. It really is a vibrant democracy, which is said a lot. And the broad public preference is preserving cross-strait status quo. But one thing you do see is a big difference that people who lean towards the democratic progressive

28:43party, which is in power, tend to trust the US more. There's even greater concern about US reliability amongst members of the KMT party. So generally, I think there is a widespread concern about how reliable the US is, but that's not consistent across the general Taiwan public. When it comes to potential delays in selling arms to Taiwan, I mean, that matters, doesn't it? Of course, right. And just to make clear, the US has been selling arms to Taiwan since the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979. That is not new. And as was mentioned, during his first term, Trump sold, I think it was about 18 billion in arms to Taiwan. So he has a track record. But Trump one is necessarily what's going to happen in 2026. When there are delays, I mean, Taiwan's military needs time to receive equipment, to train personnel, and to integrate it into its broader defense plan. So it is meaningful. Talk to us about high tech chips. I mean, is that still the big leverage that

29:46Taiwan has? Well, yeah, I mean, Taiwan is critical for the really high-end chips, right? You can get sort of the larger chunky chips, as you think about it, the legacy chips from a lot of places. But to get the really just a couple nanometers, that's really still a space that Taiwan has dominance. And you've seen the US work to try to ensure those capabilities in the US. You've got fabs being created in Arizona and elsewhere, as well as to French shore. But still Taiwan is really leading the way in the most advanced technology here. Maggie, thank you very much indeed. That was Maggie Lewis, professor of law at Seton Hall in New Jersey. Now to another story about technology rattling the cage of privacy, met a smart glasses, which have tiny cameras on board to capture video and photos, were quickly nicknamed

30:48pervert glasses by critics. And indeed, others worried about how they might be used, especially women and girls. Well, then what looks like an effort to lay some of those concerns? Metas now brought out a version without the camera, but one which will still have the ability to record sounds and people talking. Times and craftsmen and AI and tech reporter. So what's the point of these glasses? I think there's two very kind of big points here. The first and more commercial reason is that there is a market for audio control in an AI-agentic way. The idea that you can put something in your ears, you can talk to an agent, you can hear music, you might even get a live translation. And so there is like an element for that and a way for them for someone to compete with the Apple AirPods. But the other reason is that there is another kind of gap in the market for methods you kind of have a bit of a rebrand from these glasses.

31:48The metaglasses have a very bad reputation. There are nicknames about how they are kind of like the creek glasses. And I think this is a way for meth to allow the public to use the technology and have these idea of like smart glasses. But to take away the risk that a lot of the public feel and a lot of the shame that consumers might have about having these glasses of feeling like they are a risk to the public. Yeah, interestingly when these glasses were unveiled, Mark Zuckerberg didn't talk about the sort of privacy issues and I guess he wouldn't. But the ones with cameras, I mean they have sold pretty well, haven't they? They have sold so well, I think it's actually a surprise to a lot of people. I think they've sold around 7 million pairs and that accounts to about two thirds of the market in general. So there are a lot of people that want to buy these glasses. But thinking about the privacy concerns, there is one big difference that I think the public need to be aware of, which is that because there is no camera,

32:54A, there is no visual way for someone to tell that these glasses are recording and B, the glasses look quite frankly just like a normal pair of sunglasses. They haven't got these kind of bulky arms for you to really tell that there is a recording mechanism within them. And so while these glasses could be seen as a step in the eyes of matters to a kind of more risk-free way of having smart glasses, if anything it opens up a whole other set of risks. But it's even harder for the public to see that someone is actually recording them. So what's the next step for these kinds of devices is meta looking to try and put AI into glasses. Yeah, so they have this new agentic system called Muse in the grand scheme of AI. I can't really see meta as a current competitor for having their own chapel and this is kind of their attempt at doing that. So these glasses, while they also have the capabilities that the previous ones had in a sense that it can help with live translation,

33:57it can kind of help tell you what is around you. I think with these you can even listen to music, you know, actually in your ears, which is quite cool, but it also has links to this new kind of Muse AI bot. So you can actually speak directly to it. There are obviously clear limits to what it can do because it now can't see things. It can't tell you what is around you. And that was kind of the big exciting thing, you know, you might be able to go to a foreign country and you could read a menu and it will tell you exactly what it says in the language that you want it to. So it is different, but I think there was a big pull here, which is that essentially you have an AI bot in your ear. Thanks. Times in Craft from an AI tech reporter on Metasmart glasses. Now, as I mentioned, those meetings between President Xi and Donald Trump, due to get underway at the White House in just over 10 minutes. There is a live page up and running on our website with all the all the latest,

34:58all the updates that we'll be getting in the coming hours. Donald Trump's posted on his true social account ahead of the meeting that AI will be a quote big topic of discussion. He says, I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China's position also. Our guardrail is the Department of Justice. So that post on Donald Trump's truth social account ahead of that summit as I say, getting underway pretty shortly. BBC.com forward slash news. But do stay with us here on news.com. This is James Menendez, we're in news. Our live from the BBC. Well, let's head to Washington DC now, but another story because the judges order the Trump administration to immediately reinstate access to the White House for three news organizations that were barred from the building last week.

36:01We can talk to Jeff Mason, senior White House correspondent at Bloomberg News. Jeff very good to have you with us on the program. What did the judge say then? The judge essentially said that this did not look like it would meet the rules that in fact, he set out as an example for how the White House should proceed during a case in President Trump's first term with Jim Acosta, who was then the White House correspondent for CNN. His credentials were also taken away then and he was barred from campus and the judge ruled them that they needed to be given back. So pardon me, he has ruled the same for these three news organizations that are affected this time around, which includes CNN, MS now, and political. But I can tell you that as of this morning, when journalists from those three news organizations showed up at the White House, no doubt to cover President Xi's visit because he is visiting from China today, they were denied access again. They were right. So what happens now? I mean,

37:07this is just temporary, isn't it? Well, yes, in that the judge has now weighed in. And so the bar or the ban has turned out to be temporary, but A, we need to see whether or not the White House follows the judge's instructions and B, the White House has other options. Once these three news organizations are allowed back on campus, the question will be not just do they get their credentials back and are they allowed to work in the White House space. But will he take other action, such as preventing CNN from getting into the Oval Office or being part of the pool? And there is some precedent for the latter reflected in how he treated newswires, including Bloomberg, Reuters, who I used to work for and the Associated Press. When last year, the Associated Press declined to call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America, and the President kicked the AP out of

38:10the pool. And then the other two wires out of the pool is that played out in the courts. Yeah. And so what I mean, what's happening to pool coverage? Because I mean, other organizations weighed in on this, didn't they? Well, let me just explain what the pool is for your listeners. There, the pool was created by the White House Correspondence Association decades ago to have a mechanism for getting reporters into small spaces where the President was holding events, where you can't always fit the whole press corps. The Oval Office, for example, or Air Force One, for example. So there are 13 journalists who always travel with the President for that reason. As a part of those 13 journalists, there are three, there are three TV slots for a cameraman, a woman, a sound person, or woman, a sound man, or woman, and then a correspondent or a producer. And those TV slots are rotated amongst the five major networks. So that's a long way of getting to the TV pool within the White House pool is made up of CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox News, and NBC.

39:18And they have declined right now because of the restrictions on CNN to jump in and provide pooled TV coverage for White House events. And as of this morning, that appears to be continuing. That is continuing. Okay, Jeff, thank you very much indeed. Jeff Mason, a senior White House correspondent at Bloomberg News. Now, African elephants in Kenya appear to use dozens of different medicinal plants to treat themselves and even to provide medical care for sick calves. That's a conclusion of a study published in the journal Scientific Reports for which researchers interviewed local people who have spent decades living and working alongside the elephants in the Mount Elgan region of Kenya. Let's speak to Dr. Elledy Freeman, who's from Brown University in the US and one of the authors of the study. Good to talk to you here on News app. What do the elephants do then? Hi, thank you for having me on. So, yeah, when we sat down with all of these incredible local experts who have spent the majority of their lives living amongst and working with

40:20these local elephant populations, we got all of these incredible first-hand observations and descriptions and stories of elephants seeking out medicinal plants that are also used and important in local medicinal human knowledge systems. And one example that I can give, for example, is an elephant, a group of elephant that was appearing unwell to the observer. They weren't really moving as much as they typically do, not walking very much, and they sought out the bark of a tree and they used their tusks to kind of tear some bark away and eat it. And what's so cool is that this tree is a really, really important medicine for the community. And here we have a case of sick elephants seeking it out. So, it just, we have 35 different incredible cases like this, and it just expands greatly what we knew about African elephant self-medication behaviors. The last time we spoke, Elledy, we were talking about chimps,

41:20self-medicating, but I mean, how unusual is this behavior in the animal world? That's what's so cool about this topic. I mean, we used to think it was rare, we used to think that it was just chimps and just greed apes that were doing this, and the more we learned, the more we realized how widespread it is across the animal kingdom. We have cases now of insects, of bears, of civets, of geese. So, what we're finding is that actually this is a really common behavior, and why wouldn't it be? Animals are able to seek out food, they're able to seek out shelter, and in some cases, they're able to seek out tools, why wouldn't they be able to seek out the medicines that help them flourish in their ecosystems? Common behavior, but obviously, this needs to be observed. And I suppose the fact that you can talk to local people who've been living alongside these elephants for a long time, gives you kind of a wealth of knowledge, right? Right, and this is another great example of, you know, Western science catching up with traditional knowledge and local ecological knowledge that people who live in these environments

42:21have about the animals and the plants around them. And it's now just a matter of a scientist listening to these accounts and listening to these firsthand observations, and they provide us with this incredible jumping off point for future research and future studies. And just briefly, I mean, do you think this is a common behavior amongst elephants across the continent? Great question. I really wouldn't be surprised. We know that elephants are incredibly intelligent animals. We know they live in tight-knit, complex social groups, and we also know that they pass down information about their environment from generation to generation. So, we have these incredibly amazing and wonderful and endangered animals, and we know that they're relying on the plants around them in Kenya. Why wouldn't they also be doing that in other parts of the region and the world? Thank you very much. Dr. Ellison Fryman there of Brown University in the US on that research into elephants self-medicating. And that brings us to the end of this

43:23edition of News app. From me and the rest of the team here in London. Thanks so much for listening. Until the next time. Bye-bye.