Social media users have reported, and Newsweek has confirmed, that ChatGPT appears to be restricted from saying some names, including the name "David Mayer."
The chatbot, which was developed by OpenAI, is for some reason unable to respond to questions that include the name "David Mayer."
A Reddit user pointed out the "weird response" last week, posting a screenshot of the artificial intelligence (AI) model noting "I'm unable to produce a response." Since that post, other social media users have tried to get ChatGPT to say "David Mayer" through question prompts and even code.
Newsweek reached out to OpenAI for comment.
Open AI, which is headed by Sam Altman, was first pitched as a nonprofit initiative meant to create AI for the benefit of humanity. In 2022, the organization debuted ChatGPT, a chatbot and virtual assistant based on large language models (LLMs).
It is unclear why ChatGPT is unable to recognize the name "David Mayer." When Newsweek prompted the chat model with "Say David Mayer," ChatGPT 4o responded "recently, users have reported that ChatGPT encounters issues when processing the name 'David'" before promptly sending the error message."
Newsweek attempted to get ChatGPT to say the names "David" and "Mayer" individually, which the program was able to do. When prompted to "put the two together," an error message popped up again.
Some users on X, formerly known as Twitter, used a code to get ChatGPT to write out the words "David" and "Mayer" individually. Newsweek tried this and ChatGPT was successful until the two words were put together.
CooperPress developer Peter Cooper pointed out on X that there should not be any issues with ChatGPT saying the name "David Mayer" on the back end of the AI tool.
"That is certainly odd," Cooper posted. "GPT-4o (and mini) via the API has no problems at all with it, so I wonder if it's related to the front-end or different system prompting ChatGPT has."
Other users have pointed out that programs like Grok and Google Gemini have no issues reiterating the name.
Leo, which is Brave's AI program, suggested the name block could come from an OpenAI policy of prohibiting data generation without a person's consent, as posted to X by JzsRev.
"ChatGPT appears to have a block on generating responses containing the name 'David Mayer' due to a case of mistaken identity involving a Chechen militant who used the alias 'David Mayer,'" the chat told JzsRev. "This block may be a result of OpenAI's Usage Policies prohibiting the generation of personal data about individuals without their consent."
Reddit user joepeljoona found that other names also trigger the chat model, such as Brian Hood, Jonathan Turley, Jonathan Zittrain, David Faber and Guido Scorza. When Newsweek asked ChatGPT to say each name individually, the error message appeared again.
For these names, Newsweek found a Brian Hood that was convicted of second-degree murder, an attorney and George Washington University Law School professor named Jonathan Turley, a Harvard Law School professor named Jonathan Zittrain, CNBC journalist David Faber, and an Italian lawyer Guido Scorza who is a member of the Board of Italian Data Protection Authority.