PRC-linked influence operations are targeting AI debates in the US

Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We advance this mission by deploying our innovations to build democratic AI: AI shaped by democratic principles, governed by common-sense rules and designed to help people solve hard problems while protecting them from real harm. That mission also requires identifying and disrupting attempts by authoritarian regimes and their proxies to use AI systems to coerce critics, surveil communities or covertly interfere in democratic societies.

In this report, we describe two clusters of ChatGPT accounts likely originating from China that we banned after they used our models in support of apparent covert influence operations that promoted narratives in an attempt to manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and wider tech policies.

The first cluster generated social media comments and images claiming that data center buildouts for AI were increasing electricity prices for average families. We named this cluster the “Data Center Bandwagon” campaign.

The second cluster generated comments and images criticizing US tariffs as attempts to dominate technological competition and specified in their prompts that the content should not include China’s leader Xi Jinping in the output and instead include only President Trump. This cluster was connected to a network of likely inauthentic social media accounts that were also likely targeting OpenAI by claiming ChatGPT user data had been compromised. These allegations were entirely false. We named this second cluster the “Tech and Tariffs” campaign.

The targeting of OpenAI and US data center buildouts is significant not because the operation appears to have shifted public opinion, but because it shows PRC-origin influence operators testing narratives against AI infrastructure – a foundation of US technological leadership, economic growth and the broader democratic AI ecosystem. The operation sought to exploit and amplify existing public concerns about energy prices and local impacts of data center development, but we found no evidence of meaningful breakout beyond its own activity. Foreign influence operations have long sought to latch onto existing local issues and sincerely held beliefs, using them to build credibility, amplify divisions or exacerbate public distrust. In this case, the operators attempted to covertly insert themselves into an ongoing American debate about the future of the country’s AI capabilities while hiding who they were and what motivated them.

By publishing these findings, we aim to help our industry, governments, civil society and the public better identify and disrupt attempts by foreign threat actors to manipulate legitimate public debates, weaken democratic institutions and advance totalitarianism with AI characteristics - the use of AI for surveillance, censorship and control over political, social and private life.