OpenAI cracks down on users developing social media surveillance tool using ChatGPT

Doh! It's proven that anytime you release something to the World Wide Web, some people – usually a lot – will abuse it. So it's probably not surprising that people are abusing ChatGPT in ways against OpenAI's policies and privacy laws. Developers have difficulty catching everything, but they bring their ban hammer when they do.

OpenAI recently published a report highlighting some attempted misuses of its ChatGPT service. The developer caught users in China exploiting ChatGPT's "reasoning" capabilities to develop a tool to surveil social media platforms. They asked the chatbot to advise them on creating a business strategy and to check the coding of the tool.

OpenAI noted that its mission is to build "democratic" AI models, a technology that should benefit everyone by enforcing some common-sense rules. The company has actively looked for potential misuses or disruptions by various stakeholders and described a couple coming out ...