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An OpenAI engineer has been arrested and charged for using (or endeavoring to use) an audio recording device to spy on confidential company communications. That’s according to the US Department of Justice, and while commercial espionage is nothing new, there’s a certain sardonic twist to this one: it seems the accused employee did so with the help of AI. Oh, and some toilet paper.
According to FBI director Kash Patel’s summary of the complaint, Saudi Arabian national Abdulrahman Alfozan “allegedly concealed a covert recording device inside his employer’s executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology.”
In case you hadn’t heard, that’s what the US bigwigs are calling AI now: superintelligence. Courtesy of President Trump, of course, who said last month that the Administration will use this term in place of artificial intelligence “in any applicable setting.”
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The FBI director also said, “Protecting American SI innovation is essential to safeguarding our nation’s economic strength and national security, and the FBI views that mission as one of our highest counterintelligence priorities.”
The complaint says that Alfozan had worked for OpenAI since July 2025 as an engineer, and at the end of last month OpenAI discovered a USB audio recording device plugged into a conference room TV. According to the Justice Department, the device, which had been installed for a couple of days before discovery, was “concealed in toilet paper.”
The complaint also alleges that Alfozans’ spouse’s “chatbot” account (no mention of whether that’s a ChatGPT account or something else) submitted prompts related to things such as “build[ing] a continuous audio recorder”, “improv[ing] audio and live listening”, and “encrypt[ing] the SD card.” There were allegedly also prompts relating to the specific recording device that was found.
The conference room in question seems to have been an important one. The Department of Justice explains:
“According to the complaint, meetings in the executive conference room where Recording Device 1 was discovered frequently involved discussions of highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans, and business-development opportunities, as well as nonpublic information about Open AI’s technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships.”
Various appendages of the state seem to be taking this very seriously. Which isn’t surprising, of course, given AI development—no, I’m not calling it ‘SI’—is deemed important to national security and prosperity.
Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton said: “This serious situation underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative… The intelligence community remains committed to safeguarding America’s cutting-edge intellectual property from foreign threats.”
US Attorney Craig H. Missakian for the Northern District of California seems to agree: “For us it is a matter of national security. This arrest highlights our relentless efforts in partnership with the FBI to identify and prosecute those who seek to steal our technology, as alleged in the complaint.”
My question, however, is this: If the allegations are true, would Alfozan have been able to do this without the use of an AI chatbot? Snakes and tails, and all that.
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