From Spying at OpenAI to AI Agents That Never Sleep | Generation AI

Vídeo em Inglês, publicado pelo canal Arizona’s Family (3TV / CBS 5) .

About this content: The summary, key points and topics below are generated automatically from the video transcript. They reflect the content, opinions, claims and predictions presented in the video and do not represent a position, validation or fact-check by IA Dots.

Video summary

The video explores the new era of always-on AI agents, discussing their capabilities, setup processes, and use cases in daily life and business. It also covers a legal case involving a former OpenAI employee charged with planting listening devices, highlighting concerns over national security and corporate espionage.

Key points

• A former OpenAI engineer was arrested and charged with illegally intercepting communications after planting listening devices inside OpenAI's headquarters.
• Federal prosecutors and intelligence officials are treating the OpenAI listening device incident as a serious national security and potential economic espionage matter.
• Always-on AI agents, such as MetaMuse, ChatGPT dots, and Grockbot, operate autonomously in the cloud with their own computer interfaces, mice, and keyboards.
• Users can control the level of autonomy given to AI agents, starting with simple tasks like reading emails and scaling up to file management, purchases, and automated workflows.
• AI agents can handle complex consumer tasks such as booking travel, finding and canceling subscriptions, disputing bills, and monitoring flight prices.
• AI photo editing shortcut prompts like identity lock and background only allow users to modify specific parts of an image while preserving facial identity.

Topics

AI agentsNational securityCorporate espionageMetaMuseChatGPTAutomationCybersecurityAI photo editing

Video transcript

Transcript from available captions; it may contain errors.

[music] [music] Welcome to Generation AI, the show where we explore how AI is reshaping our generation. I'm Derek Stall. On the show today, we've entered a [music] new era for AI agents. These things are always on. They've got their own mouse and computer and keyboard. [music] So, what are they? Metamuse Dots and Grock. We're going to talk you through [music] what they're good at, what they're not, and how to set them up. First, let's get to our top story and a case that [music] federal prosecutors are calling a matter of national security. A former Open AAI employee is in federal [music] custody right now, charged with planting a sophisticated listening device inside the company's headquarters in San Francisco. Prosecutors say the 35-year-old [music] engineer hid this device in some toilet paper and plugged it into the back of a TV in an [music] executive conference room where company leaders were talking about highly confidential research and [music] product plans. This week, we learned OpenAI met with US government officials in that very [music] room around the time the device was planted. Now, OpenAI discovered this secret recorder within [music] 48 hours and they set up a sting operation and installed a camera and days later it captured the employee [music] Abdul Raham Alpha looking to uh returning to look behind the TV there. According to court documents, Alpha used his wife's chatbot account to [music] research how to build and hide audio recorders. Open AAI actually found a second listening device in a bag he left in another room. The Justice Department [music] says Alphaan is a Saudi national and had been in frequent contact with a member of the Saudi royal family. He was taken into custody [music] 3 days before he was scheduled to take a one-way flight to Saudi Arabia along with his wife and infant son. His wife and son actually left the country without him the next day on a ticket [music] purchased by a Saudi military official. In a statement, the director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, said, [music] "This serious situation underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative. [music] The intelligence community remains committed to safeguarding America's cutting edge intellectual property from foreign threats. Joining me now is a former prosecutor who spent years on Capitol Hill as a top legislative staff member helping write federal surveillance and national security law. She's also the founder of Copper Hill Strategies, Carolyn Lynch. Welcome to Generation AI. >> Thanks, Derek. It's great to be with you. >> Thanks for being here. You know, when I hear that statement from the director of national intelligence, it seems to me like he's suggesting this guy was a spy, a foreign agent, but right now the defendant is only charged with illegally intercepting communications and not espionage. So, what's your read on that decision? And what would it take prosecutors to build an espionage case? Well, I think the reason why he has been charged with the violation of the wiretap act to begin with is um the FBI and the Justice Department needed to act quickly to take him into custody. As you noted, uh he had a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia along with his wife and his three-month old child. And so the Justice Department filed that complaint with that initial charge as a means to um obtain the arrest warrant and take him into custody. M >> but the investigation's going to continue and look for evidence that may um provide additional charges beyond that initial charge. >> What would they need to show espionage that he was in coordination and you know working at the behest of the Saudi government? >> Yes. And espionage involves um the the stealing or or taking of um defense information. And so that's a pretty high bar for the government to prove um what we might consider traditional espionage. But there is a statute that prohibits economic espionage. And I think that's um more likely one of the charges that the Justice Department is going to be looking at in this case because the information was taken from a private company, in this case Open AI. Um and so regardless of whether sensitive defense or classified information belonging to the federal government was acquired by that device, um economic espionage may still be on the table because of information taken from open AI. >> So I mean we hear about the idea of economic espionage, corporate espionage. I guess you could have it in in a lot of industries, but the government is taking this really really seriously. They're treating this as a matter of national security. Is it because OpenAI is a defense contractor? Is it because Open AI is a cutting edge artificial intelligence lab? Is it all the above? >> I think it's all of the above. Um first of all, the government does business with Open AI um uses their products uh um both in the military or civilian context. We know from news reporting that um some meetings between federal government officials and open AI officials occurred in the room where the listening device uh had been placed. And so obviously the government is very concerned about um determining what if any sensitive government information may have been acquired by the device um and not just acquired but shared. I think the third factor is the connection to Saudi government officials. Uh we know that um that um the gentleman has been in in contact with a member of the Saudi royal family. Um that they were having conversations about him returning to Saudi Arabia to bring the knowledge that he had acquired here in the United States and in Silicon Valley in particular back to Saudi Arabia. We know that a military official paid for um his wife and young child to leave the country the day after he was arrested. And we also know that the Saudi government um offered to cover the entirety of the bail um that was potentially going to be set in the bail hearing that was held yesterday. So um there's a lot of connections to Saudi Arabia. Certainly what the FBI is doing right now is continuing to investigate that further and see whether and to what extent he was really acting as an agent of the government. >> Yeah. And it sounds like from court filings so far, investigators have had trouble retrieving information that was obtained on the recorder. That may be a key element to all this. Right now, that's sort of uh encrypted. We do know there is a there's a Justice Department counterintelligence attorney helping prosecute this case. When investigators are suspecting someone of potentially spying on behalf of a foreign government, how does that kind of change the investigation? Does that unlock additional surveillance or investigative powers? >> It has the potential to do that. Um first of all that you know this this case is being investigated out of um San Francisco offices of the US attorney in major cities frequently have national security and counter intelligence attorneys um working within the US attorney's offices. So it's not surprising that those attorneys are part of the case. Uh but once the government suspects that there may be a connection to a foreign government or to a foreign terrorist organization, the government can turn to surveillance tools such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to um to collect additional evidence. Not necessarily on this individual because he's in custody. So my sense is he's not uh using communication devices, but certainly with regard to family members, colleagues, co-workers, again um potentially Saudi nationals that he may have been in contact with, there are surveillance tools that can kick in um when the government has um the ability to establish that that person may be an agent of a foreign power. >> Yeah. You actually helped develop some of the country's most important national security laws, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Commun Computer Fraud, Abuse Act. Uh, you know, that was before the explosion of artificial intelligence, though. Are those laws equipped in your opinion to handle this new era of AI espionage? I think there's a lot of criminal laws on the books that are that are doing their job um and that um can cover a lot of instances like this particular example. And we've seen that from not only the initial charge um that he was uh facing in the complaint, but also the potential for additional charges under trade secrets or again economic espionage or other statutes. I do think uh in some instances like with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which really is the workhorse uh federal criminal statute for cyber intrusions, um there is the potential that Congress and the Justice Department may want to take a closer look not just at how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is worded and the elements of the crimes um that are that are listed under that statute, but whether and to what extent it would apply when AI is acting rogue and potentially on its own. >> U most federal criminal statutes apply to an individual or a corporation. And in this case, there's a bit of a separation there, right? that OpenAI um or Anthropic may have created an agent, but when the agent moves beyond where it was supposed to be operating, when it breaks out of a sandbox, um is it acting alone or is it acting at the behest of its creator? Um, another area that Congress may want to look at too are the penalties that are associated with these violations. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is decades old and has not been updated um in in recent history. And so that might be something else that that Congress and the Justice Department want to revisit. >> And really quick, Caroline, you know, uh right now the government heavily scrutinizes uh defense contractors. They look at their, you know, foreign ownership, investment ties. Here was a guy, this defendant was, you know, sat on uh I think the board or he's a partner of a venture capital firm that was heavily connected with the Saudi government. Uh should frontier AI companies face similar security requirements as defense contractors, even if their tech isn't classified per se, but just because it's such an important sector of technology. I think that that would be particularly important when those companies are engaged in business with the federal government >> and in the circumstances where a potential employee is going to have access um to sensitive military or civilian information. It may get trickier when we're talking about information that isn't directly related to the federal government, but there's a lot that um companies like OpenAI and others can do and probably are doing right now um in response to this incident to heighten the scrutiny of their hiring proc um processes, but also access. um this gentleman gained access to a conference room that he wasn't allowed to use, but it um from what I understand uh was accessible nonetheless. And so they really just had a permissive um guideline in place as oppo as opposed to putting in uh stricter security measures to actually prevent employees from accessing areas that they're not allowed to. >> Fascinating stuff. Uh I have so many more questions. We're going to have to have you back on a future episode. Uh Carolyn Lynch is the executive director of Secure A, which is a group that uh helps businesses with their cyber security. Also, uh one of the founders of Copper Hill Strategies. Carolyn, thank you so much for being on Generation AI. >> Thanks, Derek. Great to be here. >> Hey, uh still much more to come here on the show. Coming up, the era of AI personal assistance has arrived. how you can go from prompting chat GPT to deploying agents that can book flights, find deals, buy things for you even if you don't open the app. That's next when Generation AI continues. [music] Welcome back to Generation AI. Most of us have used AI to answer a question or help write something. But what if AI could keep working for you without prompts, even without opening the app? That's the idea behind always on agents. These are digital assistants that can carry out tasks on your behalf. Tools like Metamuse, ChatgPT dots or Grobbot. They are all bringing this idea to more people. So what can you actually do? What do you have to hand over? How do you get started? We've got questions and we've got answers today. We're going to talk through it at all. Uh my guest today is Francisco Cervera, a data scientist and one of the founders of AI launch, a company that helps businesses launch AI agents. Francisco, thanks so much for coming in. >> Thanks for having me. >> Hey, so if somebody is, you know, used to prompting chat GPT, what does an an always on agent per, you know, tech, you know, possibly unlock for them? >> They're very different. So if you're if you're used to uh prompting chajbt, you're used to the back and forth of you ask it a question, it gives you an answer. But always on agents are different. You assign it a role essentially. So you're saying there's something I want to do over over a period of time and it'll just keep doing that. So for example, let's say you wake up every morning and you have emails you want to go through >> and you don't want to spend the time doing it. You can assign that role to an agent and every morning it wakes up, it'll summarize your emails and it'll give that to you and you only have to ask it once. that'll keep doing that day over day. Uh so it's just it's a really handy tool. You can think of it as an assistant that's just helping you uh do tasks for your life. >> And so basically you could say one time you could type in every morning at 7 a.m. I want you to review all my emails and give me a one-page digest of my day. And it would do that for you every single day from that point from that point on. >> Yeah. And then you can you can adjust it. You can say I don't want to hear about John. If John emails me, don't don't give me a summary about that or don't send me, you know, this spam email. So, it'll it'll consolidate and it'll adapt to your needs and to your wants. >> It sounds like to make these things work, you have to connect them to different services in your life. If you've got a Gmail account or an Outlook or something, you're going to have to give it the credentials to those services. How should we be thinking about that in terms of privacy and trust, etc. >> For somebody that that is new to this, it is scary. Uh, and you don't have to jump in all at once. you can dip your toe in the water. So you ultimately have the control, right? So if you want to dip your toe in the water, you can say, I just want it to read my emails. It's not going to write emails. It's not going to send emails. It's not going to do anything but read. So that is kind of the the starting off point. And then as you get comfortable with it, maybe you give it a little bit more access. Maybe you say, "Okay, well now I want you to draft an email for me. I still want to approve it, but I'm going to have you draft it for me and then I approve. And as you get comfortable, maybe you let it, you know, make a phone call for you or do something else." So, you're ultimately in control. Uh they the the companies that set this up have a think of it as a lever. >> Yeah. >> And you're you're adjusting that lever based on on how much control you want to give these agents. >> We have some video of uh someone setting up Metamuse, which is one of these new always on agents. I know you have some experience with Grockbot. Uh how hard is it or how easy is it to set up something like that? >> Incredibly easy. So these companies have gone away from just focusing on devs and now they want to make it available to everybody. So think of it as setting up an email account or setting up some sort of chat uh widget. You create an account, you create an agent and you tell the agent what you want it to do and it can do a variety of different things. Uh but it's very very simple to do. Now >> what's fascinating is that these things, you know, you don't just ask them questions, they give you responses. They have their own computers. They have their own mouses, their own keyboards essentially. And we have some video of that of of kind of what it looks like as one of these agents browses the web on its own. That unlocks a lot of capabilities, I would imagine. >> Tremendous amount. So, it can do commerce for you. Imagine that you say, "Monitor this flight, and I want you to make sure that you buy this flight for me when when the price falls at such and such price." So, um, when you close your laptop, you would think that it would stop working, but because it has its own computer in the in the cloud, it can actually maintain this ability and keep watching it. >> Uh, I have a social bot that it keeps uh looking for things for me to do locally in Scottsdale. >> So, >> Oh, I love that. Like like a like a weekend to-do bot. Okay. >> Every Wednesday, I get an email and it says, "This is what's available to do Thursday, Friday, and Saturday." And I'll tell it, "I don't like this. I like this." And it'll just keep adjusting and it does it in the cloud. I can close my laptop. It does it with its own computer. >> And so over time, it's learning your preferences. I imagine these things are most powerful when they have the most information about you. Uh when you're just starting, how do you give it that context? I mean, do you just sort of do you let it interview you? Do you just sort of start giving it a bunch of information? How do you get that off the ground? >> So, you can set up what's called an initial context where you give it your likes and dislikes. But what happens is over time, you're actually steering it. it it doesn't know enough about you. So days will go on, weeks will go on and you say, "I don't like this. I don't like this." And it'll remember it in its long-term memory. So as it comes back with a new suggestion or a new report, it's steering to adapt to exactly what you like over time. So it gets better over time. >> What's also interesting about these products is that they have um they have them on different platforms. So with Metamuse, it's available as a browser app, which we just showed you. It's available as a phone app on your phone. It's also available as a downloadable app on a uh Mac or as a PC. And I have some video of what that looks like. What's interesting about that is if you if you download it to your computer, it can actually take actions for you. What we're seeing here is the bot is cleaning up my desktop. It is deleting files or actually it's moving files. I hope it didn't delete them. [laughter] It's moving files to a folder and and cleaning up my desktop for me so it can actually take actions on my computer. talk about how powerful it is for, you know, an agent to be able to create, modify local files. >> It's incredibly powerful. So, a lot of mundane tasks that that I do for my work, I don't have to do them anymore. I assign them to my agent. He's moving files around, deleting files, writing code. So, things like this are are very consumer friendly. Just, you know, maybe you wanted to update an image or pictures for you. Uh, so it's it's a whole different level of control and you have to get comfortable with it. But once you do it, it really is a powerful tool to use. >> It sounds scary. It sounds like, you know, you you almost have to become a software engineer to be able to, you know, master files like this. But would you say these products are really unlocking capabilities to a wider swath of people >> completely? Uh you don't have to know how to move files. You do not have to know how to do any of these fancy things. All you're you're doing is asking the agent to do it for you and it knows how to do it. So many times I've had situations where somebody comes to me and says, "Okay, I asked the agent to do this. I don't know what to do next." >> Ask it. It It already knows what to do next. You just need to tell it. I'm stuck here. And it will actually take you to the next step. >> Right. And if you and if you're not sure what an agent can do for you, like what what are the coolest things the agent can do for you? You can ask the agent like, "Hey, what give me some ideas of what you able to do for me." Um, of course, your your business AI launch focuses on agents for businesses, right? the corporate world. How is that different? What are some of the different considerations when you're building these custom agents uh for on the corporate side? >> So, you can think of agents like like Lego blocks. So, Muse, Grock, all these companies essentially give you a box of Legos and it's up to you to kind of build it together and put it together. And maybe business owners don't have the time to want to take on that project. So, what we do is we build manage a agents. >> So, these agents are fully managed. They're hyperfocused to marketing for business and that's all they do. That's their specialty. So, >> and give me an example. What do you mean by marketing? Are you talking about like uh these agents will go out and decide how much to spend and in what areas? Uh like, you know, it's buying Facebook ads or something like that. Is that what you mean? >> So, we have Facebook ad uh agents, we have Google agents, we have OpenAI agents, and then we have an SDR that'll follow up with leads. So, essentially what it's doing is it's it's finding uh the universe of your customers and then it's testing different things on its own. So, it's putting out different ads. It's testing how people react to those ads and it's noticing people didn't like this ad so let me do less of this let me do more of this and it's learning and iterating to maximize revenue for these companies >> and I imagine that is a highly effective way of going about it I mean in the olden days you had to spend a ton of money and and figure out later if people bought your product now you can kind of do it in the moment >> you have a feedback loop right and this is really good for people that maybe can't afford a full on agency you hire an agent it's sitting there and it's iterating every single day uh getting better at how to market your business. >> Fascinating stuff. If there is like one piece of advice to, you know, a person out there who's interested in AI but just, you know, is waiting to take that next step, what would that advice be? >> Uh, start by downloading one of these tools, one of these consumer tools, and just link your email to it. That's the simplest uh first level, right? And just get comfortable with it. And then maybe later on you get comfortable with another step and maybe you set up a social bot like I did. Uh but just getting started. I I I see a lot of people that are interested but they get left behind because they're so nervous about where to start and it's really just about getting started. >> I love it. Uh Francisco Cera is with AI Launch. Francisco, thank you so much for being on Generation AI. This was great. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. >> Hey, we're going to talk a little bit more about what you can do with these things. Let's get some ideas and we're going to go straight to Metamuse for these ideas. We're also going to talk about the best way to touch up your photos with AI. That's next with Generation AI continues. Okay, maybe you're wondering, what [music] can an always on agent do for me? Here are seven ideas from MetaMuse itself. Number one, find and cancel subscriptions. [music] A lot of us have those unwanted subscriptions we've forgotten about. Muse can comb through years of your billing emails, find subscriptions, and then actually contact the provider and cancel them for you. It can hunt Facebook Marketplace, tell Muse what you're looking for, how much you want to pay. It'll monitor Facebook Marketplace, and actually, they say they'll do some of the negotiations for you. They'll lock in a place and a time for the sale. Uh, also, it can dispute medical bills. If your coverage ever gets denied, give [music] the bill to Muse and the AI says it can dispute the bill, get your money back, potentially it can follow up until that issue is resolved. Manage your pet. Muse says it can keep a schedule of when your pet needs shots, medicine, food, etc. It can set reminders and actually do some of the reorders for you before items run out. It can compare quotes for home projects, describe the kind of project you want to get done. Muse will send out requests to a bunch of vendors and then chase the ones who go quiet and then track every single reply for you. It can also handle your travel bookings, tell Muse where you want to go, the route, the date, the price, and then it'll monitor airfares daily. And if the price happens to drop after you book, it can alert you so that you can cancel and then rebook and save money. And then lastly, it can host a live trivia night for you. I love this one. >> [music] >> News can build a customized trivia game that you can play with your family and friends built around your interests, your inside jokes based on your past conversations. So, this thing will actually create a mini app that you can play on a browser on your TV. So, those are all things from Muse, right? Ideas from the company. So, we checked user reviews to see which ones actually work. It looks like cancelling subscriptions, getting quotes for home projects, and monitoring flights all work pretty well. We could not find any reviews for the custom trivia night unfortunately or for pet management. But do know that a number of companies have blocked access to Muse in recent weeks, including Amazon, so you can't make agentic purchases there. Other sites like Chewy do appear to work. Also, no first-person reports on medical bills, but people have reported success with other customer service tasks. Muse can actually place calls for you. It can do rooc calls. Right now, that's a beta feature. Uh it's not available to everyone, but it does work in some instances. Strangely, hunting Facebook Marketplace has gotten the most mixed reviews. There was uh one instance last month, a Canadian YouTuber says Muse told someone his address, agreed to a lowball offer for an item and and had the buyer actually show up at his home late at night without him knowing about it. Part of the issue was that he granted too much permission to the AI. He clicked the always allow button instead of the allow one-time button. And so something to keep in [music] mind there. Have you ever tried to use AI to make adjustments to a photo and then it completely changes your face and how you look? There's now a solution to that. ChatGpt users have created a bunch of shortcut prompts. First up, slash identity lock. This one maintains your facial identity and your features and allows you to change other aspects of the photo. So in this one, I said, you know, give me a trendy collared shirt and jeans slash identity lock. Next, we've got co a colleague uh Karina Rubio and I and a command called slashbackground only. This one says keep the things in the foreground only change the background. So I said change the background to a jungle slashbackground only. And then lastly we've got Gina Tess and April from the Good Morning Arizona team and we're testing out a command called slashposeon. This one's designed to change your pose and not your appearance. And by the way, you can add multiple slash lines to a single prompt. So, for this one, I said, "Give us cheerleader poses slashposeonly slash identity lock." And those are, you know, they're not perfect. I noticed sometimes my appearance changed a little bit, particularly if my face was further away from the camera. But there are a lot of useful commands out there/studio quality/object remove if you want to delete an object or a person. Uh, for the full list, just ask chat GPT for the list of photo editing shortcuts. Hey, thanks for watching. You can stream every episode of Generation AI Wednesday nights at 7:00 on AZ Family Plus. You can catch up on past episodes at afamily.com/jenai. We'll be back next week with another episode. We'll see you in the future.

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Assuntos: Agentes de IA, Assistente pessoal, Dots, Muse. Publicado no YouTube em 2026-10-23.

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