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.In this campaign, the Russian operatives said they impersonated a regional educational authority in Peru and tricked some schools into organizing activities about Ukraine that featured Stepan Bandera.

Bandera is a controversial figure, admired by nationalists for leading a drive for Ukrainian independence before and during World War II.He is reviled by others, including in Poland, because his movement sided with the Nazis and killed Poles and Jews.

Peruvian outlet Extra reported that one such event did take place at a Peruvian school.A Polish news report about the school event prompted a far-right Polish member of the European Parliament to suggest banning the entry of people who professed support for Bandera."The Russian fake thus both fed on, and fed into, hist...