OpenAI bugging case raises questions about AI lab security

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Prosecutors say a former OpenAI engineer used one of the company’s own AI tools to find out where its executives met, then hid a sophisticated recording device in that room. The case is raising questions about how the nation’s leading AI labs guard their secrets as their technology moves deeper into national security work. Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national, is charged with illegally using a device to intercept oral communications. Prosecutors say he placed a customized recorder behind a television in an executive conference room at OpenAI’s San Francisco offices in September. OpenAI security removed the device within about two days and later captured Alfozan on camera looking for it, according to court filings.