OpenAI says it found a 'hidden' recording device planted in its office

OpenAI said it found a recording device "hidden" in one of its offices and reported the matter to the FBI. Bloomberg/Getty Images 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."The company 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. Read next Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Lloyd Lee is a reporter at Business Insider covering frontier technologies, with a focus on how they're being deployed in the real world and the gaps and tensions that emerge as people, companies, and regulators respond. His coverage has featured autonomous vehicles, EVs, robotics, brain-computer interfaces, and AI.Lloyd's reporting on the progress of Alphabet's Waymo and Tesla's autonomous ambitions was recognized by the San Francisco Press Club with a Bay Area Journalism Award.Before joining Business Insider, he was a local reporter for Almanac News and Palo Alto Weekly, covering housing issues, small businesses, and notable Silicon Valley characters.Lloyd is based in San Francisco.He can be reached via email lloydlee@businessinsider.com, or by phone at 646-768-1630, or Signal at lloyd.71. OpenAI