OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, stated in its report titled ‘Disrupting deceptive uses of AI by covert influence operations’ that it acted within 24 hours to disrupt a covert operation that sought to influence the ongoing Lok Sabha elections 2024 in India.
This influence campaign was called “Zero Zeno”, and was found to be run by a political campaign management firm in Israel named STOIC.
The report stated that threat actors tried to leverage OpenAI’s powerful language models to generate articles, comments, and social media profiles aimed at criticising the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and praise the Congress.
“In May, we disrupted some activity focused on the Indian elections less than 24 hours after it began,” the report by OpenAI said.
“The network began generating comments that focused on India, criticised the ruling BJP party and praised the opposition Congress party,” the report noted.
OpenAI also stated that it banned a cluster of accounts operated from Israel, used for generating and editing content for an influence operation spanning X, Instagram, Facebook, websites, and YouTube.
“We banned a cluster of accounts operated from Israel that were being used to generate and edit content for an influence operation that spanned X, Facebook, Instagram, websites, and YouTube. The network was operated by STOIC, a political campaign management firm in Israel. In honor of the founder of the stoic school of philosophy, and to reflect the low levels of engagement that the network attracted, we have nicknamed it ‘Zero Zeno” the OpenAI report said.
Israel’s Commercial Company STOIC Generated Content
“A commercial company in Israel called STOIC, generating content about the Gaza conflict, and to a lesser extent the Histadrut trade unions organization in Israel and the Indian elections. We have nicknamed this operation “Zero Zeno” for the founder of the STOIC school of philosophy, and to reflect the low levels of engagement that its various campaigns attracted,” the report said.
“This operation targeted audiences in Canada, the United States and Israel with content in English and Hebrew. In early May, it began targeting audiences in India with English-language content,” the company stated in its report.
BJP Responds To Report, Calls It ‘Dangerous Threat’
Responding to the report, the BJP called it a “dangerous threat” to the democracy.
“It is absolutely clear and obvious that BJP was and is the target of influence operations, misinformation and foreign interference, being done by and/or on behalf of some Indian political parties,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT.
“This is very dangerous threat to our democracy. It is clear vested interests in India and outside are clearly driving this and needs to be deeply scrutinised/investigated and exposed. My view at this point is that these platforms could have released this much earlier, and not so late when elections are ending,” he added.
OpenAI, in its report, also mentioned that it disrupted five covert operations in the last three months, that sought to use their models for deceptive activity across the internet.
“Our investigations into suspected covert influence operations (IO) are part of a broader strategy to meet our goal of safe AI deployment,” OpenAI said.
