While it was difficult to make it follow instructions, GPT-2 was still reasonably good at generating SEO-spam websites, and reasonably easy to make it do so. AI slop was a very obvious usecase for LLMs as capable as GPT-2, and we are talking about an era were everyone was already concerned about the way "fake news" on social media was being used to manipulate people. Perhaps even more concerned than we are today.

But all evidence suggests OpenAI also had strong ulterior motives. They were busy readying the API groundwork for monetising it, and wanted to delay any competition by as much as possible.