DBT Bureau
Bengaluru, 17 August 2024
ChatGPT-maker, OpenAI had taken down accounts linked to Iran that was generating content about the US presidential election using ChatGPT, the company said in a blog post on Friday.
“This week we identified and took down a cluster of ChatGPT accounts that were generating content for a covert Iranian influence operation identified as Storm-2035. We have banned these accounts from using our services, and we continue to monitor for any further attempts to violate our policies,” the company said.
According to OpenAI, the operation used ChatGPT to generate content focused on a number of topics—including commentary on candidates on both sides in the US presidential election – which it then shared via social media accounts and websites.
However, such influence peddling was not able to receive any meaningful audience engagement, it noted.
According to the blog post, the operation generated content about several topics including the conflict in Gaza, Israel’s presence at the Olympic Games, and the US presidential election along with a fewer content on politics in Venezuela, the rights of Latinx communities in the US (both in Spanish and English), and Scottish independence. Interestingly, these groups interspersed their political content with comments about fashion and beauty for appearing more authentic or in an attempt to build a following, it said.
“Our investigation revealed that this operation used ChatGPT for two purposes: generating long-form articles and shorter social media comments. The first workstream produced articles on US politics and global events, published on five websites that posed as both progressive and conservative news outlets,” it said.
“The second workstream created short comments in English and Spanish, which were posted on social media. We identified a dozen accounts on X and one on Instagram involved in this operation. Some of the X accounts posed as progressives, and others as conservatives. They generated some of these comments by asking our models to rewrite comments posted by other social media users,” it added explaining the modus operandi of this influence peddling operation.
