OpenAI said its chatbot service ChatGPT refused to assist an individual with ties to Chinese law enforcement in planning an online smear campaign against the Japanese prime minister. In its latest update on "Combatting the Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence," the San Francisco-based startup disclosed that the user's request included revisions to multiple status reports related to a wider range of covert influence operations targeting both domestic and foreign adversaries.
OpenAI judged based on the evidence it obtained that these actions showed that Chinese law enforcement agencies were trying to suppress dissent in a "large-scale, resource-intensive and ongoing" operation.
Regarding the relevant accusations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded at a regular press conference on Thursday: "I am not aware of the situation you mentioned, and I cannot see any basis for this accusation."
The news comes as OpenAI rival Anthropic PBC decided to relax its signature AI security "guardrail" commitments, while still resisting pressure from the U.S. Department of Defense to weaken related security restrictions.
OpenAI said on Wednesday that it has recently identified a series of cases of inappropriate behavior using its models, including online romance scams targeting Indonesian people, social media content farms with ties to Russia, and more accounts thought to possibly originate in China seeking information from U.S. officials.
According to OpenAI, this plan against Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae appeared in mid-October last year, just before her election. At the time, Gao Shi publicly criticized the human rights situation in China's Inner Mongolia region. Relevant users tried to use ChatGPT to formulate a plan to amplify negative comments about Gao Shi, portray him as a far-right figure, and increase public pressure on the Internet.
Since then, the Japanese prime minister has drawn criticism from China for remarks about Taiwan, a self-governing island that China considers part of its own territory. The diplomatic tensions triggered by this series of disputes continue to affect tourism and trade between China and Japan.