OpenAI Engineer Arrested for Allegedly Using Chatbot to Build Surveillance Device

Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national engineer at OpenAI, was arrested on October 9 for concealing an audio recording device wrapped in toilet paper inside a USB port on a television in an executive conference room. The device was allegedly built using prompts entered via his wife's chatbot account between September 24 and 30, covering topics like building a continuous audio recorder and encryption. OpenAI stated there were no indications of him accessing model weights, source code, or customer data, and he has been fired. If convicted, Alfozan faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.