OpenAI says Iran, Russia influence ops busted

OpenAI has reported shutting down two influence operations, one from Russia and one from Iran, that used ChatGPT to spread propaganda. The Russian operation used ChatGPT to create fake journalist personas and run a think-tank to covertly peddle anti-Ukraine propaganda in Latin America and Europe. According to OpenAI, the Russian group, linked to Politologia, also known as La Compania, used ChatGPT to document their campaigns and exaggerate their impact.

The group, considered a successor to organizations associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency, attempted to deceive schools and provoke reactions from politicians. OpenAI blocked accounts from Russia and Iran, but the propagandists found ways to circumvent the restrictions by using VPNs and entering prompts in their native language. Some of the episodes described in the operators’ internal reports match incidents reported by the investigative journalism consortium Forbidden Stories.

OpenAI's lead investigator for intelligence and investigations, Ben Nimmo, noted that the company's findings provided insight into the global reach of Russian operations aimed at smearing Ukraine. The company’s report highlights the ease with which state actors can exploit widely available AI tools to peddle sophisticated propaganda against adversaries on a mass scale.

Brief written by urgent.news from Al-Monitor, New Voice of Ukraine — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.