OpenAI says it has banned two clusters of ChatGPT accounts it believes are operating from China, which used its models for covert influence campaigns targeting U.S. tech and policy debates, including one called “Data Center Bandwagon,” that produced social media comments and comic strips blaming AI data centers for rising household electricity bills. Whoever was operating the accounts prompted ChatGPT in Simplified Chinese via VPNs, and posed on X as Americans from a range of backgrounds. Yet OpenAI’s full threat report found that the activity generated virtually no authentic engagement.
A second cluster, "Tech and Tariffs," generated anti-tariff cartoons under instructions to depict President Trump but never Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and was linked to a network of fake X accounts spreading false claims that ChatGPT user data had been stolen.
