Sam Altman‘s OpenAI has banned two clusters of ChatGPT accounts that it says are operating from China. In a blog post, the company said that these ChatGPT accounts used its models for covert influence campaigns targeting US 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 Twitter as Americans from a range of backgrounds. Yet OpenAI’s full threat report found that the activity generated virtually no authentic engagement.In its report, OpenAI describes the two clusters of ChatGPT accounts likely originating from China that the company banned after they used its 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. Though OpenAI did not share the exact number of accounts banned, they are likely to be in hundreds.
Why OpenAI banned hundreds of ChatGPT accounts
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,” said the company in the blog post.
Behaviour of banned ChatGPT accounts
According to the report, “The accounts we banned sought to influence two groups of audiences. They primarily targeted US audiences and generated English-language short comments and images claiming that data centers and AI applications were increasing electricity demand and causing higher costs for ordinary Americans.” For example, they asked for comic strips about a power grid operator’s capacity auction prices based on reporting from a legitimate regional paper. They asked ChatGPT to focus the comments on rising capacity prices as a consequence of peak electricity demand, framing the new demand as coming from data centers and AI applications and argued that these costs were ultimately passed to ordinary households. The comments and images were posted on X by a set of likely inauthentic accounts, alongside links to legitimate news stories about the power grid operator’s capacity auctions and data center power demand.
