San Francisco · OpenAI · FBI · The Guardian Technology
OpenAI employee arrested after recording device caught in office
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OpenAI said it has found a hidden recording device in one of its offices and has referred the matter to the FBI.
Key facts
- Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, was arrested on 9 October, according to a press release from the US Department of Justice
- If convicted, Alfozan faces five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines
- Alfozan allegedly plugged an encrypted recording device, concealed within toilet paper, into a TV in an executive conference room in OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters on 28 September
- Meanwhile, Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, said in a recent interview that the world should accept “bad things” happening with AI in exchange for its benefits
Summary
The San Francisco-based AI company said it discovered the “sophisticated recording device” and used one of its “models to understand the device and where it had come from”. The company has identified “that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier”, adding: “now, they have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, was arrested on 9 October, according to a press release from the US Department of Justice. Alfozan allegedly plugged an encrypted recording device, concealed within toilet paper, into a TV in an executive conference room in OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters on 28 September.