OpenAI has banned accounts connected to Chinese operatives that leveraged ChatGPT to create social media influence campaigns aimed at American discussions about tariffs and AI data centers, the company disclosed on Wednesday.
Axios reports that the banned Chinese campaigns, while apparently unsuccessful in gaining significant online traction, demonstrate how actors aligned with Beijing are experimenting with AI tools to magnify existing political and economic fault lines within the United States.
OpenAI revealed that its investigators identified two distinct operations that employed ChatGPT to produce social media posts, comments, and political cartoons focused on American technology policy. The first operation, internally labeled “Data Center Bandwagon,” generated commentary and comic strips asserting that AI data centers were increasing electricity costs for American households. The second operation, called “Tech and Tariffs,” utilized ChatGPT to craft content and political cartoons criticizing the tariff policies of the Trump administration and the U.S. pursuit of technological supremacy on the global stage.
“This was not a case of an influence operation creating a debate,” said Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI’s intelligence and investigations team, in comments to reporters. “The debate existed already. This was an influence operation from China trying to interfere in it.”
OpenAI acknowledged that neither campaign succeeded in attracting substantial engagement online. However, an official from the company informed reporters that this marks what appears to be the first instance of a China-linked operation employing OpenAI’s models to intervene in the specific debate surrounding AI data centers.
The data center campaign involved users whom OpenAI suspects were affiliated with a Chinese government contractor. These individuals prompted ChatGPT to generate comic strips addressing electrical grid capacity and electricity pricing. The resulting images were subsequently published on the social media platform X through accounts that appeared to be inauthentic, paired with links to legitimate news articles concerning power demands from data center facilities.
A different group, which OpenAI could not definitively link to any specific actor, employed ChatGPT to produce political cartoons depicting President Trump in ways that criticized American technology and trade policies. One such cartoon portrayed Trump wearing pants decorated with the American flag and bearing the phrase “America First,” while wielding a mallet inscribed with “Tech Dominance” and using it to strike a wall labeled “Global Future.”
OpenAI characterized these campaigns as an early indication of how foreign influence operators may increasingly deploy artificial intelligence tools to mass-produce content targeting contentious political issues in the United States. The company’s detection and subsequent banning of these accounts highlights the growing challenge that AI developers face in preventing their technologies from being co-opted for state-sponsored information operations.
AI is not only the hottest topic of discussion in the race between America and China, but also a weapon used on the American people. Breitbart News social media director and author Wynton Hall explains in his instant bestseller, Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI, that conservatives must develop a plan to deal work with AI that avoids the landmines outlined in this lawsuit, but still captures the benefits of this powerful technology.
Read more at Axios here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.