The irony of OpenAI crying foul over spying

Americans can rest easy – for the moment, at least. The fine folks at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have thwarted a major national security threat.

On October 9, the FBI arrested 35-year-old engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi citizen employed at the California-based artificial intelligence company OpenAI, the maker of the chatbot ChatGPT, and a firm that describes its mission as ensuring that “artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity”.

A press release from the United States Department of Justice said that Alfozan was accused of installing a “surreptitious audio recording device” in an executive conference room at the OpenAI offices in San Francisco.

The statement quoted Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton’s assessment that “this serious situation underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative”. (For those who have not yet got the memo, US President Donald Trump recently decreed that the term “artificial intelligence” be changed to “super intelligence” or “SI.”)

FBI director Kash Patel concurred that “protecting American SI innovation is essential to safeguarding our nation’s economic strength and national security”, and assured everyone that the FBI would continue doing its part “to ensure our country maintains its competitive edge”.

So much for the separation of corporation and state in the world’s self-appointed greatest democracy.

The covert device was reported to have been concealed in toilet paper and attached to the back of a television monitor. The Gizmodo website has noted with amusement that, despite being cast as a “sophisticated” spying apparatus, the device in question can in fact be easily ordered online “for the low low price of $13.99”.

If convicted, Alfozan faces up to five years in jail and a fine of $250,000.

Now, some of you may still be asking what the big deal is – and why the US government is acting like it’s 1950 and the Soviets are stealing our nuclear secrets.