OpenAI said on Friday it had taken down accounts of an Iranian group for using its ChatGPT chatbot to generate content meant for influencing the US presidential election and other issues. The operation, identified as Storm-2035, used ChatGPT to generate content focused on topics such as commentary on the candidates on both sides in the US elections, the conflict in Gaza and Israel's presence at the Olympic Games and then shared it via social media accounts and websites, Open AI said. Investigation by the Microsoft-backed AI company showed ChatGPT was used for generating long-form articles and shorter social media comments. OpenAI said the operation did not appear to have achieved meaningful audience engagement. The majority of the identified social media posts received few or no likes, shares or comments and the company did not see indications of web articles being shared across social media.

Microsoft researchers said on Friday that Iran government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a "high-ranking official" on the US presidential campaign in June, weeks after breaching the account of a county-level US official. The breaches were part of Iranian groups' increasing attempts to influence the US presidential election in November, the researchers said in a report that did not provide any further detail on the apparent official in question. The report follows recent statements by senior US intelligence officials that they had seen Iran ramp up use of clandestine social media accounts with the aim to use them to try to sow political discord in the US. The report also reveals how Russia and China are exploiting US political polarization to advance their own divisive messaging in a consequential election year. Iran's mission to the UN in New York told Reuters in a statement that its cyber capabilities were "defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces" and that it had no plans to launch cyber-attacks.