OpenAI said on Friday that it had disrupted an Iranian influence campaign that was using ChatGPT to generate content related to the U.S. presidential election and other topics.
The network, known as “Storm 2035,” used its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot to create content, including “commentary on candidates on both sides of the US presidential election,” which was then shared on social media.
OpenAI has banned these accounts from using its service, noting that the activity “does not appear to have garnered meaningful audience engagement” as the identified social media posts received few to no likes, shares or comments.
“While this operation did not result in any meaningful audience engagement, we take seriously any attempt to use our services for foreign influence operations,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post.
“We have therefore removed the account from our services and then shared the threat information with government, campaign and industry stakeholders as part of our efforts to support the broader community in stopping this activity,” it added.
The operation involved using ChatGPT to create long-form articles and publishing them on five websites posing as progressive and conservative news outlets, as well as short social media comments in English and Spanish from X and Instagram accounts posing as both progressive and conservative.
According to OpenAI, the content was mostly focused on the Gaza conflict, Israel’s presence in the Olympics, and the US presidential election, but some also focused on Venezuelan politics, Latino rights in the US, and Scottish independence.
The AI startup said the accounts used in the campaign sprinkled this content with “commentary on fashion and beauty” to “appear more authentic or to gain more followers.”
OpenAI’s disruption of the Iranian influence operation comes after former President Trump’s campaign said over the weekend that some of the party’s internal communications had been hacked by “foreign sources hostile to the United States.”
The Trump campaign pointed to a Microsoft report on Iranian influence operations targeting the 2024 election, which revealed that Iranian hackers “compromised the accounts of senior officials” of the president’s campaign in June.
The report also provides information about Storm 2035, noting that the group “poses as a news organization” and “actively engages with US voter groups on both ends of the political spectrum, pushing polarizing messages on issues such as US presidential candidates, LGBTQ rights, and the Israel-Hamas conflict.”
OpenAI said in a blog post on Friday that it “benefited from operational information published by Microsoft last week.”
