OpenAI Disrupts Iranian Covert Influence Campaign
Artificial intelligence company OpenAI says it has disrupted covert influence campaigns originating from Iran, Russia, China and a private company based in Israel.
Artificial intelligence company OpenAI says it has disrupted covert influence campaigns originating from Iran, Russia, China and a private company based in Israel.
The 66-year-old moderate conservative, who is also a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, went to the Iranian Interior Ministry headquarters in Tehran to register his candidacy on Friday, ending days of speculations about his intentions.
Thursday night, he implicitly confirmed his presence in the elections by publishing a tweet showing a screenshot of his online taxi app with the residence of the Supreme Leader as the origin and two destinations, first the Interior Ministry of and second the office of the President of Iran on Pastor Street, hinting that he will win the election.
It is widely believed that Larijani has sought assurances from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to avoid disqualification, a fate he faced during the 2021 elections allegedly due to his daughter's residency in the US.
Addressing the reporters, the veteran politician said national unity in society has been significantly harmed by divisions. "In my envisioned government, every skilled and capable individual, regardless of their political affiliation, will be assigned a role. The government will not be the exclusive domain of one party or faction."
Larijani, an insider for many years without political party affiliation, was a top figure in the Islamist political right, known as the Principlist camp. Khamenei appointed him to numerous high-ranking positions, including chief of the state broadcaster (IRIB) and various state councils. He served as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and Iran's top nuclear negotiator from 2005 to 2007.
Candidate registration is scheduled from May 30 to June 3, with the Guardian Council expected to complete vetting within two weeks. Official campaigning will commence after that, leading up to the election on June 28.
Confirmed known registrants so far include reformist Mostafa Kavakebian and conservative figure Saeed Jalili.
The company, which launched AI system ChatGPT in 2022, said on Thursday that it identified five campaigns involving “deceptive attempts to manipulate public opinion or influence political outcomes without revealing the true identity or intentions of the actors behind them.”
Open AI said that it terminated accounts associated with an Iranian network called International Union of Virtual Media, two Russian operations, dubbed Bad Grammer and Doppelganger; a Chinese campaign known as Spamouflage; and an Israeli operation dubbed Zero Zeno.
The threat actors used OpenAI's powerful language models for tasks like generating text and images that were posted across social media as well as comments, articles, social media profiles, and debugging code for bots and websites. According to OpenAI, in some cases the ChatGPT tools were exploited to produce content with “fewer language errors than would have been possible for human operators.”
The Iranian group -- the International Union of Virtual Media -- was disrupted for using OpenAI to create articles, headlines and content posted on Iranian state-linked websites, the company said.
The company led by CEO Sam Altman said these operations "do not appear to have benefited from meaningfully increased audience engagement or reach as a result of our services."
“We are committed to developing safe and responsible AI, which involves designing our models with safety in mind and proactively intervening against malicious use,” the California-based start-up said in a statement posted on its website.
Microsoft disclosed in February that state-backed hackers from Iran, Russia and China have been leveraging tools developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI to enhance their cyber espionage capabilities.
It followed revelations in November that Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) had issued a warning that Iran, Russia and China are likely to plan to influence the upcoming elections in the United States and other countries later this year.
