OpenAI opens election center as midterm voting nears

OpenAI has set up an Election Operations Center to watch for misuse of ChatGPT and its other tools through the Nov. 3 midterms, the company told Politico in an exclusive published Wednesday.

Politico reported that the center would begin running this week and stay open until all votes are counted. It said the group will track real-time events and field reports of unexpected behavior from OpenAI’s models or suspected breaks of its rules. Politico said the effort is led by Josh Lawson, OpenAI’s head of civic and strategic risk. “The Elections Operations Center builds on that yearslong work, bringing our teams together to respond quickly to emerging issues and enforce our policies as people head to the polls,” Lawson told Politico.

What OpenAI’s own page says

OpenAI’s election safeguards page, last updated Oct. 20, does not mention the center. It lists other steps for the midterms.

The company says ChatGPT now shows registration rules, deadlines and polling places from Democracy Works, a nonprofit that compiles the details with state and local election officials. Answers link to official sources. After polls close, ChatGPT will show live vote counts from The Associated Press for races in the U.S. and Brazil, OpenAI says.

OpenAI says requests for images showing election interference, or images that may discourage voting, now come back as cartoon-style drawings rather than lifelike pictures. The goal is to keep a made-up scene from passing as evidence, it says. Its rules against interference still apply to the cartoons.

The company says it has offered voting-system makers registered with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and state election offices free access to its models for cyber defense. It says it still bans political ads and bulk campaign messaging, while allowing campaigns to use its tools for internal work such as planning, writing and translation.

Our read: The concrete pieces here are testable. Voters can check whether ChatGPT’s polling-place answers match their county’s site, and whether a request for a fake photo of ballot tampering comes back as a cartoon. The operations center is harder to judge. Nearly everything known about it comes from what OpenAI told one outlet, and its own safeguards page is silent on it. OpenAI has published reports on influence operations since February 2024, so it has a track record to build on. The test after Nov. 3 is whether the company says what the center found, how many accounts it acted on and why. A war room that reports nothing back asks voters to take the company’s word for it, and the same standard applies to every AI company with a chatbot in the race.

Gemini edits files in chat

Google says Gemini users can now create, preview and edit documents, PDFs, slide decks, spreadsheets and code inside a chat, according to a blog post Thursday. Users can type edits in a full-screen view or highlight text and ask Gemini to change it. PDFs work on the web and on phones; Docs, Sheets, slide decks, Markdown, text files and code work on the web only. Google says the feature is available to all users in every language the Gemini app supports.

Malaysia seizes AI-chip servers at airport

Customs officers at Kuala Lumpur International Airport seized 30 servers holding advanced AI chips worth nearly 49.5 million ringgit, including tax, officials told a press conference Wednesday, according to Malaysia’s state broadcaster RTM. The airport’s customs director, Aspalila Ag. Tuah, said the servers were found Oct. 15 during an inspection of a warehouse in the airport’s free trade zone. She said they had come from one Asian country and were to be re-exported to another. A syndicate falsely declared them as electronic components to avoid detection and used Malaysia as a transit route to get around export restrictions, she said. Aspalila said the chips could be used to develop military technology. She said such shipments require approval and a permit from Malaysia’s trade ministry under the Strategic Trade Act 2010.

Also today

Canada plans to buy into Cohere: our story. Later this morning: a New York bill that would let the state limit frontier AI training, and Google and XREAL’s first wired Android XR glasses.

What’s next

Politico reported that OpenAI’s center will run until all votes are counted. Malaysian customs says the airport case is being investigated under Section 12 of the Strategic Trade Act 2010.

Sources: OpenAI, Politico, Google, RTM