US Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton said a purported effort to clandestinely record meetings at OpenAI underscores the threat to America’s national security amid the competition for the top spot in the world’s artificial intelligence race.
“This grim scenario underscores the national security imperative of winning the worldwide super intelligence competition – and the importance of President Trump leading the way in the development of the Super Intelligence Force,” Clayton said in a statement issued by the US Justice Department on Oct. 13.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi who is a fellow engineer at OpenAI, was detained on Oct. 9 and charged with using or attempting to use any device to intercept oral communications, the department said.
The purported recording device was discovered on Sept. 30, hidden behind a television in an executive conference room in OpenAI’s San Francisco office. The investigators discovered that a similar recording device was in Alfozan’s bag.
OpenAI said there was no evidence Alfozan had improperly accessed or extracted its model weights, source code, or customer data. It fired him and reported the incident to the FBI.
The probe is still active. However, the police have not publicly claimed that Alfozan was working for any foreign government.
The case comes as Washington steps up efforts to safeguard high-value AI technology amid rising competition.
