OpenAI said it found a “sophisticated recording device” hidden in one of its offices and used its own AI to identify who planted the device.
“We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier,” OpenAI wrote in an X post on Tuesday. “We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.”
A statement from the Justice Department said that the employee in question was 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national. Alfozan was arrested on October 9 and charged with using an electronic device to intercept oral communications. Alfozan made his first appearance in federal court on Tuesday, the statement said.
According to the DOJ, a complaint said that an OpenAI employee found a USB device surreptitiously placed on the back of a television located in an “executive conference room” of OpenAI’s San Francisco office. The device was “concealed in toilet paper,” the statement said.
The complaint further said that CCTV footage showed Alfozan near the conference room on multiple dates prior to the device’s discovery.
“According to the complaint, meetings in the executive conference room where Recording Device 1 was discovered frequently involved discussions of highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans, and business-development opportunities, as well as nonpublic information about OpenAI’s technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships,” the DOJ said.
OpenAI said that it found no evidence that the employee improperly accessed or manipulated model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was fired, OpenAI said.
It’s unclear exactly how OpenAI’s models were used to identify the employee. The company said that the case was an example of how AI can help address “sophisticated security threats.”
A spokesperson for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The announcement comes on the heels of a cluster of firings at OpenAI unrelated to the recording device. In the prior case, the company let go of three safety and alignment employees who it alleged had “violated clear policies on handling sensitive information.”
The workers, Jasmine Wang, Mikita Balesni, and Tomek Korbak, published a letter disputing some of the claims circulating about their conduct. They wrote that they were concerned about the lack of clarity around their firings, as well as the way they might chill transparency at the company.
OpenAI stood by the dismissals. The company published an internal note that said, “Our internal investigation uncovered a significant breach of trust beyond what’s outlined in the letter they published and we stand by the decision to not continue their employment.”
