OpenAI has removed accounts from China and North Korea that it identified as using its technology for activities such as surveillance and opinion-influence operations.
The activities are ways authoritarian regimes could try to leverage AI against the U.S. as well as their own people, OpenAI said in a report, adding that it used AI tools to detect the operations. OpenAI did not disclose the number of accounts affected or the timeframe of the removals.
In one case, users leveraged ChatGPT to generate Spanish-language news articles critical of the United States, which were later published by mainstream Latin American news outlets under a Chinese company’s byline. Another instance involved actors potentially linked to North Korea using AI-generated resumes and online profiles to secure jobs at Western firms fraudulently.
Additionally, ChatGPT accounts linked to a financial fraud operation in Cambodia used AI to translate and generate content across platforms such as X and Facebook.
The U.S. government has previously raised concerns about China’s use of AI for internal repression, misinformation campaigns, and threats to U.S. security. OpenAI’s ChatGPT remains the most widely used AI chatbot, with over 400 million weekly active users.
The company is currently in discussions to raise up to $40 billion at a valuation of $300 billion, potentially marking one of the largest private funding rounds in history.
