‘Sophisticated recording device’ found in OpenAI conference room, FBI and the company say

WASHINGTON (AP) — An engineer at OpenAI has been charged with secretly installing a recording device inside a conference room in what officials said Tuesday was an effort to capture sensitive conversations about the company’s technology. The employee, identified as a 35-year-old Saudi national named Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested Friday, a week after the ChatGPT maker discovered an audio recording device hidden inside a company conference room, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco. The complaint did not identify the company, but the company confirmed in a separate statement that it had discovered a “sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices,” reported the finding to the FBI and fired the employee.