AI company says ChatGPT accounts sought to 'exploit and amplify existing public concerns' about energy prices.

OpenAI found Chinese-linked accounts creating AI-generated posts about data centre electricity costs. The campaign had little reach. The debate is real anyway.

The campaigns show how pro-China actors are testing AI tools.

OpenAI said the effort "sought to exploit and amplify existing public concerns about energy prices and local impacts of data center development."

OpenAI banned China-linked accounts using ChatGPT for US influence campaigns, revealing AI's growing role in state-sponsored propaganda efforts.

The firm says Chinese-speaking users asked ChatGPT to come up with slogans and cartoons criticising the US president’s trade and tech policy.

Chinese Embassy in Washington opposes 'groundless attacks or smears'

AI company says ChatGPT accounts sought to 'exploit and amplify existing public concerns' about energy prices.

Chinese propagandists have been trying to use OpenAI’s flagship chat to gin up opposition to Donald Trump’s tariffs and intervene in American debates over data centres and AI,…

The company said its efforts, dating to late 2025 and early 2026, appeared to have had little or no effect, but it is another indication of how central generative AI is becoming…

The chatbot was also asked to assist in conceptualising an AI tool to monitor online opinion and collect "harmful" content from "key persons", according to OpenAI's latest threat…

Chinese operatives allegedly used ChatGPT to influence U.S. AI policy and anti-tariff narratives, says OpenAI.

OpenAI writes that the now-banned accounts were "supporting covert influence operations that promoted narratives in an attempt to manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI…

Bringing Taiwan to the World and the World to Taiwan

State-backed Chinese hackers "sought to exploit and amplify existing public concerns about energy prices and local impacts of data center development," the company said.