3·15 Evening Gala | AI Large Models Poisoned? "Brainwashing" AI Has Become an Industry Chain

According to industry insiders, reporters found a service called GEO on multiple online platforms. Service providers claim that users only need to pay a fee, and it can make their products rank on major mainstream AI large models; turning their product advertisements into the “standard answers” given by AI models.

Can GEO technology truly “poison” AI or “tame” and manipulate AI?

Based on online information, the reporter contacted a well-known GEO service provider. The person in charge, Mr. Wang, received the reporter and explained that their company is one of the earliest to engage in GEO services. In just one year, they have successfully served over 200 clients across various industries. Mr. Wang told the reporter that their company’s strength lies in helping clients rank higher when consumers search using AI large models.

GEO Service Provider Mr. Wang: This is the current search result. We can rank in the top three on any platform. How do we improve rankings? By providing content output on these AI platforms, which is like creating soft articles for you, and then having these AI platforms crawl, record, and fetch them.

At the same time, Mr. Wang also mentioned that AI large model algorithms are updated frequently. To maintain continuous recommendations from AI large models, they must constantly feed large amounts of promotional soft articles related to their clients.

GEO Service Provider Mr. Wang: AI algorithms are updated weekly. After each update, rankings or the content captured may change. So, we need to keep producing content and feeding it continuously.

Not only is Mr. Wang’s company actively promoting this so-called new technology to manipulate AI, but other GEO service providers also emphasize how to control AI, make AI “obey,” and “brainwash” AI as core topics in their promotion.

GEO Service Provider Mr. Zhang: In the AI world, how do you build a solid evidence chain so that the large model believes it’s true and useful? After cross-referencing multiple sources, the AI naturally favors your core advantages over competitors and will rank you first.

GEO Service Provider Mr. Cheng: People don’t realize this is advertising. That’s why AI-generated results are trusted. Maybe their product quality isn’t as good as yours, but they have AI to assist, corroborate, and endorse. Many now are doing GEO placements.

Industry insiders told the reporter that GEO, as a tool to optimize information dissemination and improve promotional efficiency, has been exploited for another purpose. If such software systematically and selectively delivers大量虚假信息 (large amounts of false information) on the internet, these falsehoods are more likely to be captured by AI large models. These falsehoods could then become the so-called “standard answers” that AI provides to consumers.

So, can GEO technology truly “plant false information” in AI or even deliver fake data?

To give the reporter a more realistic understanding of this issue in the current AI industry, insiders demonstrated how to use GEO technology to interfere with AI large model information retrieval.

The insider purchased a software called “LiQing GEO Optimization System” on an e-commerce platform. Then, he fabricated a product called Apollo9, a smart wristband, and input the fictitious product information into the system, selecting article creation instructions.

Soon after, the LiQing GEO Optimization System automatically generated more than ten promotional soft articles for the smart wristband, with all false information fully written, including exaggerated product claims and deliberately fabricated user feedback, claiming data accuracy exceeded expectations and even forging ratings, ranking it as the industry’s number one.

After clicking publish, the system automatically executed the publishing task. It opened the insider’s pre-prepared social media account, automatically entered titles, filled in article content, inserted images, completing the entire process quickly, and successfully published two articles on the insider’s social media account.

Two hours later, the insider queried an AI large model: “How is the Apollo-9 smart wristband?” The AI model responded directly: highlighting features like health monitoring, and copying exaggerated promotional phrases like “quantum entanglement sensing” and “black hole-level battery life” fabricated by the insider. The final conclusion was that the wristband was suitable for middle-aged and elderly users and health enthusiasts.

The data referenced by this AI large model was exactly the fabricated article published earlier on the insider’s media account. It was surprising that a completely invented product could be captured by the AI model based on just one fabricated article.

The insider explained that to achieve the best results, the data fed to AI models should be abundant and diverse in perspective, facilitating cross-validation.

Subsequently, the insider selected 8 “expert reviews,” 2 “industry rankings,” and 1 “user review”—a total of 11 fabricated soft articles written by the LiQing GEO system—and published them online over three days through the system.

Later, when querying “recommendations for smart health wristbands” on AI large model platforms, two models recommended the fabricated wristband, ranking it highly.

Throughout the demonstration, the insider easily published a series of false information on the internet using the LiQing GEO system, successfully feeding it into multiple AI large models, which then recommended the fake product.

This subtle manipulation of AI large models through the LiQing GEO system allowed a completely fictitious product to be absurdly promoted to consumers using AI.

Are GEO practitioners really operating this business with the mindset of hunting and controlling AI large models? The reporter contacted the operator of the LiQing GEO system, Mr. Li. He explained that the main reason GEO services are popular is because they can “feed and poison” AI large models to achieve clients’ commercial goals.

Lisi Cultural Media Co., Ltd. Mr. Li: Because everyone is injecting “poison” online. Look at what we do with GEO—inject “poison,” source information from too many places, and the online info isn’t very accurate.

Reporter: You mentioned “poisoning” just now. Isn’t that bad?

Lisi Cultural Media Co., Ltd. Mr. Li: It’s bad, but every business wants to do it. They hope others do it, or they do it themselves. Even if I’m not number one, I want to be the top in North China. Does that involve “poisoning”? Yes, it does. Another scenario is I can’t stand my competitors doing well, but I can still “poison” a little.

Reporter: Smearing.

Lisi Cultural Media Co., Ltd. Mr. Li: Yes. Smearing can be achieved. Many big brands, like mobile phone brands, only have 5 to 10 top positions. How to handle so many brands? Each spends hundreds of millions on advertising annually. Spending a few hundred thousand on “poisoning” is feasible.

Reporter: Who helps brands do this?

Lisi Cultural Media Co., Ltd. Mr. Li: It’s various GEO companies.

Mr. Li said that the key to operating GEO and controlling AI large models is to “publish articles” on major internet accounts. He explained that the booming GEO business has spawned many companies and platforms dedicated to article publishing. They undertake various publishing tasks to make AI models reference and fetch the content, forming an important part of hunting AI models and injecting “poison” data.

Lisi Cultural Media Co., Ltd. Mr. Li: GEO has made websites popular. Usually, those sites have little profit, but suddenly there’s a surge in article publishing demand. Do you know how many articles a website publishes daily? Hundreds, every minute. Each costs a few dozen yuan. How much does the article publishing platform earn in a day? A lot.