Anika Begay
In this photo illustration, the home page of OpenAI’s ChatGPT app appears on a laptop screen on February 3, 2023. This week, OpenAI said it had used its AI models to detect covert influence operations.
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Leon Neal/Getty Images Europe
OpenAI says it banned a group of ChatGPT accounts after finding evidence that the users were linked to an Iranian group attempting to sow division among U.S. voters.
In a statement Friday, OpenAI said it discovered online articles and social media comments created with the help of ChatGPT. The content was not widely circulated, but it focused on a range of divisive issues, including the U.S. presidential election, Israel’s war in Gaza, and Israel’s participation in the Olympic Games. The AI-generated materials appealed to both liberal and conservative audiences.
“This operation does not appear to have achieved significant public engagement. Most of the social media posts we identified received few or no likes, shares, or comments,” OpenAI said.
The investigation found that AI-generated long-form articles were posted on websites that pretended to be news sources. Meanwhile, OpenAI said that the now-banned accounts composed social media comments, in both English and Spanish, asking ChatGPT to rewrite comments already posted by other social media users.
“They interspersed their political content with commentary on fashion and beauty, perhaps to appear more authentic or in an attempt to build a following,” the company said.
OpenAI’s internal investigation comes a week after a report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center showed how groups linked to the Iranian government were using a variety of online tactics in an attempt to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
A day after Microsoft released the report, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said it had been hacked and accused Iranian actors of stealing sensitive internal documents. The campaign did not provide specific evidence. On Wednesday, Google Threat Analysis Group said it had detected and disrupted a phishing operation by Iranian hackers targeting both the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns.
What is the motive behind the Iran-related operation?
OpenAI said the accounts were linked to a covert operation known as Storm-2035. Last week, Microsoft researchers discovered that the same group was behind four websites pretending to be American news outlets.
The fake sites have amplified polarizing messages on hot-button issues related to LGBTQ rights and the Israel-Hamas conflict. The goal is to incite chaos and foment polarization among American voters ahead of Election Day, according to Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center.
“Iran is just focused on trying to prevent an election from happening,” Watts told NPR last week.
Both Microsoft and OpenAI have reported that AI-generated websites and content have not generated many page views or much online engagement.
