Hu Xijin’s National Day article was revealed to have been ghostwritten by AI, and the last remaining prompt prompted ridicule from netizens

October 1st is China’s National Day. Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times, posted a long post on his personal Weibo to celebrate the National Day. Unexpectedly, the last sentence of the article had an “AI prompt” popping up. It was suspected that he used AI ghostwriting but forgot to delete the relevant prompt. After being screenshotted and forwarded by netizens, it immediately triggered a large number of netizens to leave comments and ridicule.

On October 1, Hu Xijin posted a post on Weibo to celebrate the National Day. He praised China's "great progress" throughout the article. He also mentioned that there are still many problems that need to be improved in the future, including paying attention to individual development, and finally ended by placing his hope on young people. But the last sentence of the article jumped out, "Do you need me to help you read it through and check again to make sure there are no omissions and make sure it completely matches the original text you dictated?"

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The article was screenshotted and forwarded by netizens. Later, Hu Xijin edited the article and deleted the AI prompt. On that day, a topic labeled "Hu Xijin deletes AI prompts" became a hot search on Weibo. Since Hu Xijin had previously opposed the use of AI for writing, netizens continued to post mocking posts, saying, "Even patriotic articles rely on AI ghostwriting" and "Old Hu is very good at pretending."

General manager of Jiuyi Asset Management (Beijing) Co., Ltd. and financial blogger "Financial Gossip Girl" posted on Weibo: "Hu Xijin secretly wrote a National Day essay using a bean bag, but he forgot to delete the last paragraph."

Financial blogger "Ye Aimao" wrote: "This is a famous scene of an elderly person using AI to overturn his position. He previously spoke against AI writing, but now he uses AI himself, which is in line with his behavior of sitting on the fence."

Technology Internet celebrity "Ha Xia" posted: "Hu Xijin is really good at pretending. He uses AI to write Weibo. Old Hu, what are you pretending to do online at your age? It turns out that 'Today's Hu Xijin beats yesterday's Hu Xijin, and tomorrow's Hu Xijin beats today's Hu Xijin.' It all depends on AI? Are you treating your fans like monkeys?"

Weibo news blogger "Liu Ye Adan" ridiculed: "Hahahaha, this is the fox's tail exposed. I said that Lao Hu talks about trivial things every day. It turns out that it was written by AI. It's so dense and sparse. It's all copied and pasted without time to check?"

Columnist "Li Mu" wrote: "As early as 30 years ago, a friend told me that Hu Xijin, then the deputy editor-in-chief of the Global Times, did not personally write articles. His famous articles were all dictated by himself and written by his colleagues. Thirty years later, Hu Dafa is still good at sitting on the fence and short of doing things. On the contrary, with the advancement, AI is troublesome, no longer uses living people, and no longer lives.

In response to this, Hu Xijin posted another blog post, admitting that he has already used AI tools extensively in daily writing for data query, fact verification and oral recording. He also said that he accidentally forgot to delete the prompts this time. His views are all original. "AI cannot create an old Hu at all." "How could AI write the National Day article that Old Hu posted today?"

Hu Xijin's post was ridiculed by netizens again. Netizens responded: "Haha, Hu Bean Bao is a real person! He is still quibbling!" and "This article should also be written by AI." Some netizens said: "Compared to your writing with AI, the frivolity of your article is even more disgusting. When others make mistakes, you are serious and thoughtful, but when you make mistakes yourself, you are frivolous and avoidant. This is the problem."