OpenAI caught Russians and Iranians using ChatGPT for influence campaigns

OpenAI said in a blog post on Thursday that it banned Russian and Iranian accounts that were using the company's artificial intelligence tools to help with influence operations in multiple countries. The operatives said they managed to get their false narratives picked up by news outlets, and in once case, prompted a response from a member of the European Parliament, according to internal reports the operations produced using OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT.

OpenAI investigated the impact of the different campaigns the accounts mentioned and found that those focused on placing false narratives in established media outlets appeared to have reached a wider audience than campaigns that focused on using fake social media accounts to spread their message.

The Russian operations targeted countries in Latin America and appeared aimed at undermining support for Ukraine and influencing local politics, OpenAI said. The accounts appeared to be mostly using ChatGPT to write reports detailing their work to unspecified higher ups, OpenAI said. The company said one of these reports appeared to describe the widest-reaching influence operation OpenAI has come across so far, because it led to public response from a political figure.