OpenAI has disrupted a covert Russian influence campaign that used ChatGPT to generate social media posts by banning a cluster of accounts. The operators accessed the platform through VPNs from Russia and promoted the fictitious "International Burke Institute," including German-language Telegram content critical of the EU and the German government. The campaign's reach stayed small, but OpenAI warns the infrastructure behind it could have been scaled up over time.

The AI company said the incident "illustrates how influence actors can use AI as a supporting tool within a broader effort to manufacture authority."

The accounts promoted a fake Israeli think tank complete with plagiarized academic articles and a "sovereignty index" that praised Russia