China could be co-opting ChatGPT to suppress dissidents

While it is no secret that artificial intelligence can be used for nefarious purposes, a new report claims that China is working with AI on an unprecedented scale — and using the tool to target its enemies. This is just one way, according to the report, that China is employing AI behind the scenes to disrupt global operations.

‘Sprawling Chinese influence operation’

The report, published by tech conglomerate OpenAI, claims that China is using the company’s chatbot, ChatGPT, as a “diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression,” said CNN. A “sprawling Chinese influence operation” is being employed largely for the purpose of “intimidating Chinese dissidents abroad, including by impersonating U.S. immigration officials.” Though the exact number of users is unknown, the operation “appeared to involve hundreds of Chinese operators and thousands of fake online accounts on various social media platforms.”

OpenAI’s report “offers one of the most vivid examples yet of how authoritarian regimes can use AI tools to document their censorship efforts,” said CNN. In the case of China impersonating U.S. officials, this was done to “warn a U.S.-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had supposedly broken the law.” ChatGPT “served as a journal for the Chinese operative to keep track” of their own covert operations.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

China is also geopolitically implementing ChatGPT, according to the report; several Chinese accounts “generated English-language emails to state-level U.S. officials or policy analysts working in business and finance, inviting targets to participate in paid consultations,” said Reuters. China’s use of AI also involves more targeted, nonpolitical scams: One group of ChatGPT accounts “used the chatbot to run a dating scam targeting Indonesian men and likely defrauded hundreds of victims a month.”

ChatGPT fights back

China’s AI use is heavy-handed, but there are signs that some of ChatGPT’s built-in safeguards are working. In October 2025, the chatbot “refused to assist an individual associated with Chinese law enforcement in planning an online campaign to discredit” Japanese politician Sanae Takaichi, said Bloomberg. The user allegedly asked ChatGPT to create a “plan that would amplify negative comments” about Takaichi, who became Japan’s prime minister later that month.

But ChatGPT “refused to provide advice on this plan,” said OpenAI’s report, and the user was forced to abandon their efforts. There is evidence, however, that the smear campaign against Takaichi “went ahead, likely using locally hosted Chinese AI models,” said Axios. And many of the other influence-peddling operations described in the report “reflect the same old tools and tactics that influence operators typically use in online campaigns — just supercharged with AI.”

OpenAI’s report “clearly demonstrates the way that China is actively employing AI tools to enhance information operations,” Michael Horowitz, a former Pentagon official and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said to CNN. The AI competition between China and the United States is “continuing to intensify,” and this is “not just taking place at the frontier but in how China’s government is planning and implementing the day-to-day of their surveillance and information apparatus.”