{"slug": "andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-to-man-who-planned-to", "title": "Andrew Hastie says AI advised him to reply ‘congratulations!’ to man who planned to end life with assisted dying", "summary": "Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday that Microsoft Copilot suggested he reply \"congratulations!\", \"great to hear from you\" or \"that is wonderful news!\" to a terminally ill constituent who wrote to say he planned to end his own life through voluntary assisted dying. Hastie cited the episode to argue for AI run by Australians, while Australia's cyber chief told the same inquiry the technology is needed to fend off \"highly capable malicious cyber actors\".", "body_md": "# Andrew Hastie says AI advised him to reply ‘congratulations!’ to man who planned to end life with assisted dying\n\nBy Luca IttimaniSource: \n\n[The Guardian Technology](https://www.theguardian.com/us/technology)\nLiberal MP speaks of AI’s shortcomings as cyber chief tells inquiry the tech is needed to fend off ‘highly capable malicious cyber actors’\n\n- Get our [new political email](https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl) ,[free app](https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3) or[daily news podcast](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl)\n\nWhen a man with a terminal illness wrote to his local MP Andrew Hastie, telling him he planned on ending his own life with voluntary assisted dying, Microsoft [Copilot](https://www.machinebrief.com/compare/github-copilot-vs-cursor) suggested Hastie reply with “congratulations!”, “great to hear from you” or “that is wonderful news!”.\n\nHastie shared the episode at a parliamentary inquiry on Friday to underline the shortcomings of the American-run software as he called for AI run by Australians.\n\n[Continue reading...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/18/andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-to-man-who-planned-to-end-life-with-assisted-dying)\n\nGet AI news in your inbox\n\nDaily digest of what matters in AI.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-to-man-who-planned-to", "canonical_source": "https://www.machinebrief.com/news/andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-t-dpqp", "published_at": "2026-09-18 09:05:43+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-18 10:24:24.502984+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-policy", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Andrew Hastie", "Microsoft Copilot", "Microsoft", "Australian Parliament"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-to-man-who-planned-to", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-to-man-who-planned-to.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-to-man-who-planned-to.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/andrew-hastie-says-ai-advised-him-to-reply-congratulations-to-man-who-planned-to.jsonld"}}