In early 2023, hackers managed to breach OpenAI's internal messaging systems and steal information about the company's AI technologies.
The New York Times reported in a report on Friday that the company concealed the incident from its customers and relevant authorities, and only informed its employees.
Executives decided not to go public because no customer or partner information was stolen, and they did not consider the incident a national security threat because they believed the hacker was a private individual with no known ties to a foreign government. The company did not notify the FBI or anyone else in law enforcement.
The hacker was able to access Hart's conversations during an online forum for OpenAI employees , where they were discussing the latest artificial intelligence technologies the company is developing.
The newspaper pointed out that the hacker was unable to penetrate the systems that host and train GPT models, which are the basic artificial intelligence systems that OpenAI is famous for.
The newspaper reported, citing two sources within the company, that "some OpenAI employees had previously warned that countries like China could exploit such attacks to steal artificial intelligence technology," which could endanger US national security.
The company has seen several AI safety researchers resign over disagreements over “superconsensus,” a concept that aims to find ways for humans to control super-intelligent AI.
Earlier, the company's CEO, Sam Altman, was fired, but later returned to his position.