Chinese Official's Use of ChatGPT Revealed a Global Intimidation Opperation

New submitter sabbede shares a report from CNN Politics: A sprawling Chinese influence operation -- accidentally revealed by a Chinese law enforcement official's use of ChatGPT -- focused on intimidating Chinese dissidents abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials, according to a new report from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression, OpenAI said. In one instance, Chinese operators allegedly disguised themselves as US immigration officials to warn a US-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had supposedly broken the law, according to the ChatGPT user. In another case, they describe an effort to use forged documents from a US county court to try to get a Chinese dissident's social media account taken down. "This is what Chinese modern transnational repression looks like," Ben Nimmo, principal investigator at OpenAI, told reporters ahead of the report's release. "It's not just digital. It's not just about trolling. It's industrialized. It's about trying to hit critics of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] with everything, everywhere, all at once."

Michael Horowitz, a former Pentagon official focused on emerging technologies, said the report from OpenAI "clearly demonstrates the way that China is actively employing AI tools to enhance information operations. US-China AI competition is continuing to intensify. This competition 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."

Privacy

[abulafia]

Because their overseers don't have access to ChatGPT logs, would be my guess.

Hegseth successfully forced Anthropic to compromise their integrity because he's a fascist who doesn't respect the rule of law. It really is that simple.

Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if you criticize Trump? Same thing. Welcome to New China, where the flag is Orange.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]

https://www.fox26houston.com/n... [fox26houston.com]

Just a couple of examples.

Re:

[afaiktoit]

Petey boy is threatening anthropic for unfiltered use of their AI too.

Re: Trump

[HnT]

Why do you people not move to China then? You seem to think it is oh sooo amazing there, and oh so horrible in the US.
Move there then! Flee the horrible evil US! Do it!

You Americans, all of you, are the absolute 1% and 0.1% of the entire world, you are so completely unbelievably overly entitled you do not even begin to understand how fortunate you are, with or without Cheeto-dust.

Turtles all the way down

[mhocker]

So the Chinese are impersonating US immigration officials, who are themselves impersonating NYC police for raids on Columbia university. I feel like this is turning into a "turtles all the way down" situation.

Wonder if it's real...

[OneOfMany07]

Not that I have reason to believe one way or another (would get brownie points from big orange meanie though).

Could be the CCP was baiting OpenAI to see what they'd do.

Or OpenAI invented it wholesale (wouldn't be that hard to generate using AI, right?).

And I still think any monitoring should be protected somehow from any one individual's actions. Like make it hard to fake records, only allow AI agents to review other user's logs (without a special pointer to specific messages, given out by the monitoring system), etc... But that'd be expensive and/or not perfect, so no reason to even try.

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[Ogive17]

Well - if that official disappears you'll know the truth.

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[sabbede]

Did I typo it? Could be. Otherwise, all I did was slightly truncate the headline. Removed, I think, "An" and "Accidental". So it would fit.

Sign me up!

[Sloppy]

It's about trying to hit critics of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] with everything, everywhere, all at once.

Ok. I hereby want to say: Fuck the CCP. I criticize you. You're wrong about everything. Taiwan is a separate county and CCP needs to bow to their authority over mainland China even though it's a different country. (Sorry if that last sentence doesn't make any sense, but it's the thought that counts (right?) and also I'm joining Falun Gong so maybe religion simply broke my brain. But I wholeheartedly believe it!)

Tear down the wall. I want to see you invaded by the Mongols again. I support the Mongols. And Taiwan. And Japan. And South Korea. And Pakistan and India too. I hope they all invade you. I hope they're all already undermining your economy and security. I support all their solid, very compelling claims on "your" territory.

Is this enough, or is there some form I need to go fill out? I wish to subscribe to your intimidation service.

Re:

[aRTeeNLCH]

Honestly, that likely won't do. I mean, you'll be at risk of troubles if you travel there, but based on that, they won't reach out to you. You'll need to marry a Chinese dissident or so. I'm not quite sure you want their service that badly...

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[guygo]

... and their leader DOES look like Winnie the Pooh!

Good Ole Slashdot

[organgtool]

This oppens the door for me to oppine for better times.

Consequences?

[sentiblue]

I'm not surprised at the intimidation campaign. But I am surprised that the guy was revealing this to OpenAI. My guess is he'll be forced to take early retirement, or even worst, disappear from "public life".