One Mistake, Big Leak: Chinese Official's ChatGPT ‘Diary’ Exposes Secret Campaign

Last Updated:February 26, 2026, 08:27 IST

The report underscored growing concerns over the use of artificial intelligence tools in global information operations.

A sprawling Chinese influence operation aimed at intimidating dissidents abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials, was inadvertently exposed after a Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT as a personal journal, CNN reported, citing a report by OpenAI.

The report detailed how the official allegedly documented elements of a covert campaign on the AI chatbot, treating it like a running diary to plan and track efforts to silence critics of the Chinese government overseas.

OpenAI said the user appeared to rely on ChatGPT as a running journal diary to document the alleged covert campaign aimed at intimidating Chinese dissidents living abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials. It said the operation involved hundreds of participants and thousands of fake social media accounts across multiple platforms.

According to the report, operators in one instance allegedly posed as US immigration officials to warn a US-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had violated American law. In another case, forged documents purporting to be from a US county court were reportedly used in an attempt to pressure social media platforms into removing a dissident’s account.

OpenAI investigators said that the chatbot was primarily used for planning and record-keeping, rather than generating campaign content. The company banned the account after identifying suspicious activity.

“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."

The ChatGPT user also described fabricating the death of a Chinese dissident by creating a fake obituary and images of a gravestone. OpenAI said that the investigators later matched these descriptions with false rumours that circulated online in 2023 about the dissident’s death, which were reported at the time by Voice of America’s Chinese-language service.

In another case, the user allegedly asked AI tool to draft a plan to undermine incoming Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi by amplifying online anger over US tariffs on Japanese goods. OpenAI said that the ChatGPT refused to comply with that request, but similar online narratives later surfaced.

The report underscored growing concerns over the use of artificial intelligence tools in global information operations. Analysts said that the US-China competition over AI dominance now extends beyond technology development into how the tools are deployed in influence campaigns and surveillance.

Michael Horowitz, a former Pentagon official focused on emerging technologies, told CNN that the findings demonstrate how China is employing AI tools to enhance information operations.

“US-China AI competition is continuing to intensify," said Horowtiz, who is now a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “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."

The report came amid a battle between the US and China for supremacy over AI. At stake is how the technology is used on the battlefield and in the boardroom of the world’s two biggest economies.

The Pentagon is in a standoff with another prominent AI company, Anthropic, over the use of its AI model. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to comply with demands to peel back safeguards on its AI model or risk losing a lucrative Pentagon contract.

(With inputs from agencies)

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