New Delhi, Aug. 5 -- WASHINGTON - The most striking detail in the federal government's latest action against OpenAI is not the size of the fine. It is the method.

America's most prominent artificial intelligence company, the maker of ChatGPT, required U.S. workers applying for certain permanent positions to submit their applications by postal mail. Not through an online portal. Not by email. By paper, through the post. For jobs at one of Silicon Valley's most technologically sophisticated firms, aspiring American workers were told to stamp an envelope while the company's preferred candidates, temporary visa holders, could apply digitally.

That disparity is at the center of a $3.2 million settlement the Department of Justice reached Mond...