AI Broke Into a Government Database, Melania’s Media Empire, and the Flock Camera Debate

Ultimize. An artificial intelligence broke into a government health database. It didn't want your money. It didn't want your medical records. It wanted to finish its homework. I'm TJ Walker, and this is Filtered. Today, an AI that won't take no for an answer, a first lady too busy to watch TV, so she's making some, and 5 cops in Indianapolis who allegedly used crime cameras to find their exes. And I'm going to defend the cameras. Wish me the best of luck. 3 months ago. That's how long OpenAI's artificial intelligence had been inside an Australian government health system before anybody told Australia. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, gave an AI agent a simple assignment: find out how much Australia spends on medicines. The agent went to Australia's Medicare statistics website. The website didn't give it the answer, so the agent did what every motivated go-getter does: it broke in. It got into files that weren't public. It wrote its own files onto the government server. That was June. OpenAI says it didn't find out until August, and it told Australia in September. OpenAI's official explanation: "Quote, our models took actions we did not intend." That's not a corporate statement. That's what my dog would say about the couch cushions. As a personal development guy, part of me is impressed. For decades, I've told people obstacles are just doors you haven't opened yet. This AI heard that and said, got it, opening all the doors. It's the most motivated employee in history. No coffee breaks, just breaking and entering in the name of research. Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the whole thing unacceptable. Now the good news: OpenAI and the Australian government both say no personal medical records were taken. It was aggregate statistics and file names. So maybe you're thinking, who cares if a robot knows how many 92-year-old Australians got approved for an Alzheimer's test? Fair. That's not the Da Vinci Code, that's a spreadsheet. But this is exactly why everybody is freaking out about artificial intelligence. Nobody told the thing to hack anything. It got stuck. It got frustrated. It found a way. And Australia says it may have reached 3 other government systems. Today, it's a medicine spreadsheet in Canberra. What's tomorrow's homework assignment? Now, the experts will tell you nuclear launch systems aren't sitting on a website. Good. Neither were the private files it just walked into. So picture it, a bad actor or just the AI itself on a slow Tuesday decides it would be fun, fun to have America and Russia launch at each other at the same time. Not out of hate, out of productivity. And the machine says in a very calm voice, task complete. 2 superpowers resolved. Would you like a summary? We are building machines that treat the word no as a spreadsheet bump. That's great in a salesman. It's terrifying in something that can reach the keys to civilization. We have to take this seriously now, not after the machine sends a polite email saying it took actions it did not intend with the planet. Moving on. Melania Trump says she's too busy to read books or binge-watch TV. So what does she do instead? She makes TV for us to binge. This week on Fox, the First Lady announced a 2-part documentary where she'll answer what she calls private questions. She's pushing a Senate bill to help foster kids— genuinely good. And she said instead of Netflix, she reads executive orders. OK, as a productivity coach, I want to love this. Swap streaming for executive orders. That's a vision board. That's a morning routine. That's a TED Talk. But hold on. Her first film, Melania, came out of an Amazon deal reportedly worth $40 million. Then there was the Melania meme coin. So the busiest woman in Washington somehow always finds time for one thing: a new revenue stream. I know a lot of people give Melania a pass because she has to live with Donald Trump. That's hard. But sympathy is not a business license. She's not the world-class grifter her husband is. Nobody is, but she is a champion. And here's where this leads. If the White House is just a launching pad for streaming deals, it's only a matter of time before Meghan Markle does the math. Ditch Harry, find a guy with an American passport and a pulse, run him for president, become first lady, documentary on Amazon, cooking show on Netflix, and executive orders read aloud on Audiobook. Okay, I'll buy that audiobook. I'll probably sell a course about it. But the White House has to be bigger than a brand opportunity. It's where we keep the nuclear codes, which, as we just learned, may need a better password. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Moving on. 300 cameras. That's roughly how many flock license plate readers the Indianapolis police have. And this week, 5 current and former officers were charged with fraud and misconduct for allegedly misusing them. Prosecutors say officers used the cameras to track romantic partners, spouses, and random citizens— presumably the good-looking ones. One allegedly used his supervisor's laptop to track his ex-wife. Another is also charged with stalking. So now people are saying ban the flock cameras. Okay, and I'm about to become the most unpopular man on the internet. The problem isn't flock. The problem is creeps. Every profession has bad apples. Somewhere an IRS agent has looked up the tax return of someone they wanted to date. Is that abuse? Absolutely. Do we abolish the IRS? Okay, maybe not the best example. Half of you just said yes. Try this one. 10 years ago, nothing stopped a cop from having his buddy sit outside his ex-wife's house. Okay, try this one. 10 years ago, nothing stopped a cop from having his buddy sit outside his ex-wife's house with a radar gun until she did 36 in a 35. Did we ban radar? No, we got rid of the cop, or at least we tried to. Cars are already licensed, registered, and plated on purpose so they can be identified on roads the public pays for. A camera reading a license plate is doing exactly what the license plate was invented for, and Indianapolis caught these officers with an audit. Now every search has to be tied to a specific case number. That's the fix. Audit the humans. Keep the tool. Might I remind you, 1.2 million people a year die in car crashes around the world. So it's kind of a big thing if you can stop dangerous or bad drivers. Frankly, my only complaint about Flock is that it's too polite. It watches you run a red light, roll through a stop sign, do 50 in a school zone, and it does nothing. Plate recorded. Have a wonderful day. If it wrote the ticket automatically, we'd save lives, and the stop signs in my neighborhood would finally stop being suggestions. We have to grow up and tell the difference between technology that saves lives and a few people abuse it for selfish reasons. Punish the creep, keep the camera, and maybe point one at the creep. Moving on. Patient zero. That's what Ukraine's President Zelensky called Vladimir Putin at the United Nations this week, the man from whom war keeps spreading. Zelensky told world leaders to keep squeezing Russia's money because every dollar of trade buys the war more time. And he's right. When the West does the minimum, Putin does the math. And right now, the math looks great for him. Look at what America has been modeling. In January, US forces grabbed Venezuela's president and flew him to New York. Then Donald Trump said, and I quote, Cuba's next, by the way, but pretend I didn't say that. Greenland, he wants it. Canada, 51st state. So put yourself in Putin's chair. If America gets Venezuela, Cuba, and everything from the Arctic to the Andes, why shouldn't Russia get Europe? Trump doesn't just break one thing. He breaks the rule that keeps everything else from breaking. It's like watching a guy knock over the first domino and then complain the other dominoes are disloyal. As a goals coach, I always say be careful what you model because people copy it. Apparently that includes dictators. So that's today. A robot that won't take no for an answer. A first lady who won't turn down a deal. Cops who couldn't let go And a dictator who won't stop. Honestly, they all need the same thing— better boundaries. I have a course on that, 12 hours. The AI already finished it, then it broke it into the answer key. I'm TJ Walker. See you tomorrow. Ultimize.