Why does ChatGPT refuse to say the name Jonathan Zittrain' Anytime the bot should write those words, it simply shuts down instead, offering a blunt error message: 'I'm unable to produce a response.' This has been a mystery for at least a year, and now we're closer to some answers. Writing for The Atlantic this week, Zittrain, a Harvard professor and the director of its Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, explores this strange phenomenon'what he calls the 'personal-name guillotine.' As he gleaned after reaching out to OpenAI, 'There are a tiny number of names that ChatGPT treats this way, which explains why so few have been found. Names may be omitted from ChatGPT either because of privacy requests or to avoid persistent hallucinations by the AI.' Reasonable, but Zittrain never made any such privacy request, and he is unaware of any falsehoods generated by the program in response to queries about himself. Ultimately, the situation is a reminder that whatever mystique...
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