A campaign dubbed “Zero Zeno”, orchestrated by an Israeli political campaign management firm STOIC, attempted to sway the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in India, as revealed by OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.
In response to OpenAI’s findings, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has condemned this as a “dangerous threat” to democracy. Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar emphasized that OpenAI should have alerted the public when the threat was initially detected in May.
“It is absolutely clear and obvious that BJP was and is the target of influence operations, misinformation, and foreign interference, being done by and/or on behalf of some Indian political parties,” Chandrasekhar expressed on X (formerly Twitter).
OpenAI reported that the threat was identified in May, although the exact date remains undisclosed. This period coincided with four of the seven phases of the Lok Sabha elections.
“This is a very dangerous threat to our democracy. It is clear vested interests in India and outside are driving this and it needs to be deeply scrutinised, investigated, and exposed,” Chandrasekhar asserted, adding that the platforms could have released this information earlier, not towards the end of the elections.
OpenAI promptly acted within 24 hours to disrupt the “deceptive” use of artificial intelligence (AI) in this covert operation. The threat actors utilized OpenAI’s language models to fabricate comments, articles, and social media profiles criticizing the ruling BJP and lauding the Congress party.
“In May, the network began generating comments that focused on India, criticised the ruling BJP party, and praised the Opposition Congress party. We disrupted some activity focused on the Indian elections less than 24 hours after it began,” OpenAI disclosed.
The company banned a cluster of accounts operated from Israel, responsible for generating and editing content across various platforms. This operation targeted audiences in Canada, the United States, Israel, and India with content in English and Hebrew, aiming to influence public opinion through deceptive means.
