Suspected Chinese government operatives used ChatGPT to shape mass surveillance proposals, OpenAI says

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/07/politics/china-chatgpt-surveillance

8 Comments

  1. “Suspected Chinese government operatives asked [ChatGPT](https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/tech/chatgpt-agent-think-and-act-for-you-new-update) to help write proposal for a tool to conduct large-scale surveillance and to help promote another that allegedly scans social media accounts for “extremist speech.”

    In one case, a ChatGPT user “likely connected to a [Chinese] government entity” asked the AI model to help write a proposal for a tool that analyzes the travel movements and police records of the Uyghur minority and other “high-risk” people.

    Another Chinese-speaking user asked ChatGPT for help designing “promotional materials” for a tool that purportedly scans X, Facebook and other social media platforms for political and religious content

    The OpenAI report includes several other examples of just how commonplace AI is in the daily operations of state-backed and criminal hackers, along with other scammers. Suspected Russian, North Korean and Chinese hackers have all used ChatGPT to perform tasks like refining their coding or make the phishing links they send to targets more plausible.

    One way state actors are using AI is to improve in areas where they had weaknesses in the past. For instance, Chinese and Russian state actors have often struggled to avoid basic language errors in influence operations on social media.”

  2. And companies, universities, or other innovation networks keep recruiting AI “engineers” and “technologists”, while obviously we have no problem with the social effect of these technologies… Innovation must progress even if it would cost our lives! /s

  3. Not sure if we should be more worried about Chinese government operatives using ChatGPT or OpenAI looking over your shoulder at every prompt. This is the exact shit why local LLMs are going to become the norm.

  4. Eightimmortals on

    “CNN asked OpenAI if it was aware of US military or intelligence agencies using ChatGPT for hacking operations. The company did not directly answer the question”

    Of course they didn’t.

  5. You’d have be pretty dumb to believe this obvious propaganda

    Open AI wants military level budget

  6. PandaCheese2016 on

    So OpenAI is keeping tabs on suspicious queries from “Chinese-speaking users?”

    I just asked ChatGPT how to remotely give Trump severe incontinence. Guess I’m on a list now.

    Answer was “he may already have it” btw.