- China used ChatGPT to generate comments, posts, and cartoons
- The content capitalized on issues surrounding data centers and tariffs
- The material was shared on social media to exacerbate existing tensions
OpenAI has banned a number of accounts that it says were linked to social media influence campaigns surrounding the growing opposition to data centers and President Trump’s tariffs on foreign imports.
The two campaigns, named “Data Center Bandwagon” and “Tech and Tariffs”, used ChatGPT to generate posts, comments and cartoons intended to sow political division in the US.
China’s intention was to deepen the divide by drumming up online engagement with AI generated posts, OpenAI said, but the campaigns failed to gain any traction.
China exacerbates existing tensions
The negative effects of data center construction and the additional costs imposed on consumers by tariffs are existing areas of contention within US society, but they weren’t narratives invented by China.
Instead, according to OpenAI, these campaigns were designed to increase the scale of the issues and broaden their visibility among online groups and on social media sites such as X.
It is the first time that OpenAI models have been used in a Chinese foreign influence campaign, a spokesperson told Axios.
OpenAI said that a Chinese government contractor was responsible for the data center campaign, which shared posts drawing on existing concerns surrounding power grid capacity and electricity prices in areas where data centers were planned or constructed.
OpenAI’s account of a foreign country using AI to capitalize on political issues adds some limited validity to recent Republican claims that the entire data center opposition movement being a Chinese influence campaign, but does little to address the very real, tangible effects that data center projects are having on local communities in the US.
A group of Republicans recently called upon FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate anti-data center sentiment, alleging that the rising tide of opposition is being fueled by China, as the inclusion of similar phrasing around water usage, energy constraints, transparency surrounding approval, and utility bill use “language too similar to be coincidental”.
