A hacker stole OpenAI secrets, raising fears that China could, too

SAN FRANCISCO — Early last year, a hacker gained access to the internal messaging systems of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and stole details about the design of the company’s artificial intelligence technologies.

The hacker lifted details from discussions in an online forum where employees talked about OpenAI’s latest technologies, according to two people familiar with the incident, but did not get into the systems where the company houses and builds its AI.

OpenAI executives revealed the incident to employees during an all-hands meeting at the company’s San Francisco offices in April 2023 and informed its board of directors, according to the two people, who discussed sensitive information about the company on the condition of anonymity.

But the executives decided not to share the news publicly because no information about customers or partners had been stolen, the two people said. The executives did not consider the incident a threat to national security because they believed the hacker was a private individual with no known ties to a foreign government. The company did not inform the FBI or anyone else in law enforcement.

For some OpenAI employees, the news raised fears that foreign adversaries such as China could steal AI technology that — while now mostly a work and research tool — could eventually endanger U.S. national security. It also led to questions about how seriously OpenAI was treating security, and exposed fractures inside the company about the risks of AI.

After the breach, Leopold Aschenbrenner, an OpenAI technical program manager focused on ensuring that future AI technologies do not cause serious harm, sent a memo to OpenAI’s board of directors, arguing that the company was not doing enough to prevent the Chinese government and other foreign adversaries from stealing its secrets.

Aschenbrenner said OpenAI had fired him this spring for leaking other information outside the company and argued that his dismissal had been politically motivated. He alluded to the breach on a recent podcast, but details of the incident have not been previously reported. He said OpenAI’s security wasn’t strong enough to protect against the theft of key secrets if foreign actors were to infiltrate the company.

“We appreciate the concerns Leopold raised while at OpenAI, and this did not lead to his separation,” said an OpenAI spokesperson, Liz Bourgeois. Referring to the company’s efforts to build artificial general intelligence, a machine that can do anything the human brain can do, she added, “While we share his commitment to building safe AGI, we disagree with many of the claims he has since made about our work. This includes his characterizations of our security, notably this incident, which we addressed and shared with our board before he joined the company.”

Fears that a hack of a U.S. technology company might have links to China are not unreasonable. Last month, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, testified on Capitol Hill about how Chinese hackers used the tech giant’s systems to launch a wide-ranging attack on federal government networks.

However, under federal and California law, OpenAI cannot prevent people from working at the company because of their nationality, and policy researchers have said that barring foreign talent from U.S. projects could significantly impede the progress of AI in the United States.

“We need the best and brightest minds working on this technology,” Matt Knight, OpenAI’s head of security, told The New York Times in an interview. “It comes with some risks, and we need to figure those out.”