Pro-AI super PAC backed by Greg Brockman and Marc Andreessen ran fake anti-AI sockpuppet accounts on X, investigation finds

Circumstantial evidence suggests that the company Memelord is running two anonymous accounts that are closely aligned with Leading the Future.

One account attacks the PAC’s critics, while the other impersonates them to make their opposition look deranged.

A few months ago, I found an anonymous sockpuppet account linked to the OpenAI/a16z super PAC. Now, @TaylorLorenz and I have uncovered two more — and they're even more brazen than the first.

In fact, these accounts didn’t do much to hide their apparent connection to Leading the Future.

One was created only ten days after their c4 affiliate, @BuildAmericanAI, was incorporated. When Build American AI publicly launched, both accounts retweeted/replied to it.

The first, @DoomersAreDumb, is basically an even-edgier version of the previous account I covered: an anonymous attack dog targeting critics of the AI industry as well as OpenAI’s competitors.

This really is grotesque. Nice to hear it's "not part of their core strategy" I guess.

The second account seems to be a false-flag anti-AI activist.

@JonathanDoomer claims to be an AI skeptic who quit his 20-year career as an engineer to warn about AI. In reality, the account seems to be a straw man designed to discredit the PAC’s opponents.

Various posts from the fake doomer account adopt absurd and weak arguments that seem designed for ridicule.

He argues that China should win the AI arms race, an odd position for a supposed AI opponent. He also claims the RAISE Act was good because it slows innovation.

@UnrealRealist19 @allTheYud they clearly used this picture

The account also sometimes shows signs of the unique worldview associated with Leading The Future.

It attacks Dario Amodei (the CEO of OpenAI’s chief rival) and Alex Bores (whom Leading The Future is spending to defeat), despite the account otherwise claiming to be pro-tech.

He sometimes veers toward violent or dehumanizing language, discussing mailing dryer lint to corporate headquarters, calling Sam Altman a murderous insect, and posting a photo depicting the outline of an assault rifle in response to a warning about AI.

I was also shocked to find that both of the new sockpuppet accounts we identified, with a combined follower count of less than two thousand, are followed by not just the super PAC’s head @JVlasto, but also OpenAI’s own @jasonkwon, who oversees global affairs.

On Monday, OpenAI put out a statement disavowing any connection to the PAC.

I find this argument uncompelling, in part because I don’t think DC will care whether it’s OpenAI or its President threatening to end political careers over AI regulation.

This could be a coincidence — maybe Kwon found both of these small, anonymous accounts organically.

But the last sockpuppet we identified, with fewer than one hundred followers, was followed by Anna Brockman, the wife of Greg Brockman and funder of Leading the Future.

LOL "John Doomer". These guys are klutzes.

If I ran the OpenAI/a16z super PAC, I would simply not pollute the commons with repeated, egregious astroturfing.

Alas!

Meanwhile, the pro-AI @doomersaredumb also uses off-color messages to attack the fake doomer and OpenAI’s critics, or just to achieve virality.

Posts from the account reference masturbation, deepfakes targeting intimate partners, swallowing semen, cannibalism, and Mossad.

At one point, the last sockpuppet revealed specific information about intra-coalitional politics in an astroturfed child safety group that I think was most likely fed to the PAC by OpenAI’s global affairs team.

come on guys

They also appear to have run at least one other sockpuppet account in the past, attacking journalists and nonprofits with misleading claims and paid ads.

More recently, many of their posts have also been mysteriously boosted by OnlyFans bots.

In two separate cases, the account uses videos depicting real people with disabilities to ridicule anti-AI protesters.