OpenAI Bans Suspected China-Linked Accounts For Seeking Surveillance Proposals (reuters.com) 8
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Reuters: OpenAI said on Tuesday it has banned several ChatGPT accounts with suspected links to the Chinese government entities after the users asked for proposals to monitor social media conversations. In its latest public threat report (PDF), OpenAI said some individuals had asked its chatbot to outline social media 'listening' tools and other monitoring concepts, violating the startup's national security policy.
The San Francisco-based firm's report raises safety concerns over potential misuse of generative AI amid growing competition between the U.S. and China to shape the technology's development and rules. OpenAI said it also banned several Chinese-language accounts that used ChatGPT to assist phishing and malware campaigns and asked the model to research additional automation that could be achieved through China's DeepSeek. It also banned accounts tied to suspected Russian-speaking criminal groups that used the chatbot to help develop certain malware, OpenAI said.
The San Francisco-based firm's report raises safety concerns over potential misuse of generative AI amid growing competition between the U.S. and China to shape the technology's development and rules. OpenAI said it also banned several Chinese-language accounts that used ChatGPT to assist phishing and malware campaigns and asked the model to research additional automation that could be achieved through China's DeepSeek. It also banned accounts tied to suspected Russian-speaking criminal groups that used the chatbot to help develop certain malware, OpenAI said.
This is why we can't have cool toys (Score:4, Insightful)
"misuse of generative AI" (Score:2)
Why (Score:3)
Why should China need to ask an LLM for surveillance techniques? They are the ones who invent the good ones. Does any western company produce a product comparable to the great firewall that can detect if you're using an encrypted connection for something allowed or as a proxy to access forbidden content? China does since many years, probably using AI techniques. And even if they would try to ask LLM for it, they have good alternatives to ChatGPT. DeepSeek, Qwen, etc. are uncensored for them and do not trigger alerts in western companies like OpenAI seems to have for such questions.
Re: (Score:2)
It's fairly obvious this is done to produce headlines about how concerned OpenAI is with safety. (Not to be confused with actual safety.)
Also the abstract idea of "blocking" or otherwise inconveniencing Chynah, regardless of what that might actually achieve, will get them political points - a critical resource for doing business in the US this year. Looking forward to OpenAI's designation as "too big to fail" when the bubble pops.
Re: (Score:2)
It won't be a too big to fail like bailout, probably. Look what internet companies did not fail when the dotcom bubble popped.
A thousand startups wrapping the OpenAI API and a system prompt into some service will fail then. OpenAI is already an infrastructure provider, ChatGPT is only the tip of the iceberg what they are doing.
Ah China, the communist paradise (Score:1)
China: We have AI!
Also China: Can I has some AI?