OpenAI finds a secret recording device in its office, uses its AI to figure out what it is

If you need more proof that our lives are quickly turning into a 'Mission Impossible' movie, we present to you the latest news coming from OpenAI.

In a post on Tuesday, OpenAI said that it had discovered a "sophisticated recording device" hidden inside one of the company's offices.

Turns out, an employee planted the device to an unknown end, and he was, in OpenAI's wording, "terminated," prompting some commenters to jokingly wonder what, exactly, that means.

The company also said it used its own models to "understand the device and where it had come from." Guess you can't even do spy stuff without the help of AI these days.

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The U.S. Department of Justice has more details on the case. The employee in question is a 35-year-old Saudi national named Abdulrahman Alfozan, who worked as an OpenAI engineer and was arrested by the FBI on Oct. 9.

The DoJ published a photo of Alfozan checking the recording device he had planted in OpenAI's office. Credit: justice.gov

According to the prosecutors, he inserted the device into a USB port on the back of a TV set in an OpenAI executive conference room in one of the company's San Francisco offices. The device, wrapped in toilet paper, was installed on Sept. 28 and was discovered a few days later. OpenAI says the device's contents were encrypted.

If you see something like this plugged in your TV, you've probably gone too far in your AI research. Credit: justice.gov

Alfozan also left a bag containing another recording device and a few other items in another room in the building. He is charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications, according to the FBI. If found guilty, Alfozan could be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison and fined up to $250,000.

OpenAI says it currently has no indications that Alfozan successfully obtained model weights, source code, or customer data. The room where the device was planted, however, was a place where "highly confidential" technical, commercial, and strategic information was frequently discussed.

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