X, the company formerly known as Twitter, is getting a lot of play over a claim that it discovered 200 accounts “posting in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy.” The announcement, from the company’s “global affairs” division — the polite name for a company’s lobbying apparatus — includes sample posts, which contain obviously AI-generated images about Big Tech’s greed.
Pro-industry boosters are parading this around as proof that America’s data center backlash is fake — a psy-op by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I don’t expect that claim to go over very well with the many Americans who have their own reasons for not wanting a colossal box of AI in their neighborhood. I think the argument is instead intended to intimidate the AI-wary, because nobody likes being called a Communist stooge. I’m kind of grossed out by the tactic.
To be clear, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some attempted influence of this type coming at the U.S. by way of bot farms in China. But as usual, there are mountain-sized caveats:
Based on the images, these seem to be the same low-effort, low-engagement bots OpenAI pointed to in June. I don’t think the Americans most receptive to anti-AI propaganda respond well to obvious AI art.
These 200 accounts were just one-thousandth of a 200,000-account farm X says it busted. X didn’t say what the other 199,800 accounts were doing.
Just because bots are based in China doesn’t mean the Chinese government has anything to do with them.
CCP meddling (if real) doesn’t automatically make a U.S. movement fake.
Chinese bot farms can have Western clients, and pro-AI lobbyists have been caught doing false flags before.
Fake posts on hot-button topics are often attempts to farm engagement, not to manipulate politics.
I personally wouldn’t rule out the CCP trying to influence U.S. AI politics, but I wouldn’t expect it to look like this. The CCP would have to know that a tiny, low-effort campaign using AI slop would backfire, serving mostly to give the pro-AI lobby a tool for intimidating its opponents.
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