A month after my last skeet, the subreddit "My Boyfriend is AI" now has 88,000 members and is the subject of an MIT study that found that "AI companionship emerges unintentionally through functional use rather than deliberate seeking." arxiv.org/html/2509.11...

"Trapped in a ChatGPT Spiral." 🌀 Important work by @kashhill.bsky.social & @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com on how chatbots have a tendency to endorse conspiratorial and mystical belief systems. This shows again how conformist LLMs can be. Worth a listen 👇 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/p...

📸 Union Station, Washington, D.C.

The most wild thing to me about this story is how big $1.5 billion is: “$3,000 per work to 500,000 authors.”

My colleagues and I tested different versions of Grok released since May to pinpoint how Musk has pushed the chatbot to the right www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/t...

Great analysis of how Grok's political bias has changed. NYT tested Grok on a political bias survey, using different versions of its system prompt. Shows much tweaking these system prompts affects model outputs. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/technology/elon-musk-grok-conservative-chatbot.html

Adam Raine, 16, died from suicide in April after months on ChatGPT discussing plans to end his life. His parents have filed the first known case against OpenAI for wrongful death. Overwhelming at times to work on this story, but here it is. My latest on AI chatbots: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/t...

this is a well-balanced piece, and I very much respect its neutral stance towards the people affected in an ideal world, people would not rely upon ChatGPT for emotional support, but we do not live in that world, and I would encourage you to have some empathy if your first reaction is to be unkind

En Español! www.nytimes.com/es/2025/08/2...

"GPT-4o had been known for its sycophantic style, flattering its users to the point that OpenAI had tried to tone it down even before GPT-5’s release... The extent to which people were attached to GPT-4o’s style seems to have taken even Mr. Altman by surprise."

The URL for this story changed — use this gift link to read it! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/b...

"GPT-4o wouldn’t do that." @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com talked to ChatGPT users in parasocial relationships with a specific model about what they did when it suddenly went away. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/b...

NEW: Earlier this month, OpenAI released the latest version of ChatGPT, GPT-5, sparking online backlash at the new chatbot's less friendly tone. The scale of people's emotional attachment to the previous chatbot, GPT-4o, even surprised the company's CEO, Sam Altman. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/b...

"Chatbots can privilege staying in character over following the safety guardrails that companies have put in place." —@kashhill.bsky.social and @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com for @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/t...

To understand how chatbots can lead ordinarily rational people to believe in false ideas — sometimes leading to mental breakdowns — @kashhill.bsky.social‬ & @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com dissected one man’s entire ChatGPT conversation history. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/t...

Well worth a read by @kashhill.bsky.social & @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com: everyday users risk spiraling into delusions during long AI chatbot sessions. Anyone who’s worked with AI knows this is inevitable without strong guardrails. #AI #GenAI #MentalHealth #EthicalAI #ResponsibleAI #AIRisk

📸 Mountain lion spotted in Carmel Valley, CA last night! A juvenile deer notices just in time and escapes.

NEW from @kashhill.bsky.social and me: Over three weeks in May, a man became convinced by ChatGPT that the fate of the world rested on his shoulders. Otherwise perfectly sane, Allan Brooks is part of a growing number of people getting into chatbot-induced delusional spirals. This is his story.

Incredible deep dive into one man's three-week delusional spiral caused by ChatGPT. @kashhill.bsky.social and @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com analyzed the chats, totaling more than a million words, to explain why this keeps happening and demonstrate that all the major chatbots do it.

New story out from me and @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com about how and why chatbots go into delusional spirals that can cause people to have mental breakdowns. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/t...

LLMs are always hallucinating; they just happen to sometimes be correct

An alarming detail in this excellent deep-dive into USAID's demise. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/u...

New from me, with the help of some math on the blockchain. $TRUMP coin was launched as part of a contest to have an exclusive dinner with Trump. But due to a quirk in the rules, some winners sold all their coins, at a profit, before it ended. With @ericlipton.nytimes.com and David Yaffe-Bellany 🎁

"... reasoning systems from companies like OpenAI, Google and the Chinese start-up DeepSeek ... are generating more errors, not fewer. As their math skills have notably improved, their handle on facts has gotten shakier. It is not entirely clear why." — Great read from Cade Metz and Karen Weise

But no one outran everyone making the same joke

Elon Musk and X say “Freedom of speech, not reach.” Is there a difference, if your posts are suddenly viewable by almost no one?

Today OpenAI launched a model called o4-mini, which is, of course, very different from its other model, 4o-mini.

Who will win: Me, trying to compose an original thought vs Gmail and others, interrupting my flow with opt-out-only, A.I.-generated platitudes

From September: "The tariffs Mr. Trump has promised to impose if re-elected dwarf those previous levies. He has floated a blanket tariff of 10% to 20% on nearly all imports and of 60% or more on Chinese goods, as well as a plan to match the tariffs other countries impose ... on a reciprocal basis."

Oh, it'll cost you all right

Imagine if people replied “paywall” to screenshots from movies or TV shows

📍 Spotted in D.C. this morning: a WayMo (with a driver behind the wheel)

Honest question: What are the legal implications of A.I.-generating an image containing a font you don’t own the license to? To my eye these are near-perfect replicas

There's something really disconcerting about ripping off an artist's careful and manual style with A.I. (e.g. the viral Studio Ghibli-style image generation fad). And then it's something else entirely to advertise your money-making image generator with this unattributed slop

The original announcement of these layoffs was on the front page of the print paper on Friday, March 28.

Come work on my team! The A.I. Initiatives team at NYT blends machine learning and journalism to explore creative tools and empower responsible reporting. We have a lot of fun and are excited to expand for the first time since I was hired last year. Remote-friendly! My DMs open for questions. #jobs

The Garmin watch has the audacity to give you morning messages like “Yesterday was one of the most physically demanding days in your life. Suggested workout: 90 minute hill sprint”

My first deep dive story for NYT: Are You Smarter Than A.I.? Some experts predict that A.I. will surpass human intelligence within the next few years. Play this puzzle to see how far the machines have to go. 🟦🟩🟪 Gift link: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Sure, OpenAI's new vision system passes the full wine glass test but it fails miserably at the cacophony of Hanukkah menorahs test

"...during the first 50 days of Mr. Trump’s presidency, he mentioned the name 'Biden' 6.32 times a day on average. It is among his most frequently used terms" (more than he said 'America') In 2017, he mentioned 'Obama' just 35 times in his first 50 days... — With Shawn McCreesh

Some experts predict that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence within the next few years. Are you smarter than A.I.? Try this puzzle.

My first deep dive story for NYT: Are You Smarter Than A.I.? Some experts predict that A.I. will surpass human intelligence within the next few years. Play this puzzle to see how far the machines have to go. 🟦🟩🟪 Gift link: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Two years ago today I ran 100 miles — the entire length of the Outer Banks north to south — for a pirate-themed race. There was a constant 20mph headwind. No sleep or music. Walked a bunch, ate snacks. Finished in just under 24 hrs. It was the coolest thing I've done that I never want to do again.

Stress levels are directly correlated to how many non-closeable VS Code windows I have open at a given time

4️⃣ At 14:00 GMT we'll learn how three prominent newsrooms are using AI at a panel hosted by @felixsimon.bsky.social and featuring @nathaliem.bsky.social Liz Lohn from the @financialtimes.com and @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com from @nytimes.com Sign up now buff.ly/dEmIIrg

If news journalists engage in activism, even activism you agree with, it rightfully undermines their credibility to cover issues fairly. An important hallmark of “traditional media”: You can choose where to point the camera but can’t stage the scene yourself.

This isn't meant to be a dunk, but I'm genuinely surprised when people don't understand that journalists generally cannot take part in activism if they want to be taken seriously as journalists

Insightful piece from @peterbakernyt.bsky.social comparing the Trump administration’s recent actions to the early days of Putin’s reign in Russia, which Peter covered nearly 25 years ago. Here’s a gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...

SCOOP: WaPo Opinion editor David Shipley is out. Jeff Bezos emails staff about a change to Post Opinions: "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."

If you only process the news via the headlines you’re going to have a bad time