Certain names make ChatGPT grind to a halt, and we know why (via) Benj Edwards on the really weird behavior where ChatGPT stops output with an error rather than producing the names David Mayer, Brian Hood, Jonathan Turley, Jonathan Zittrain, David Faber or Guido Scorza.
The OpenAI API is entirely unaffected - this problem affects the consumer ChatGPT apps only.
It turns out many of those names are examples of individuals who have complained about being defamed by ChatGPT in the last. Brian Hood is the Australian mayor who was a victim of lurid ChatGPT hallucinations back in March 2023, and settled with OpenAI out of court.
Recent articles
- Video + notes on upgrading a Datasette plugin for the latest 1.0 alpha, with help from uv and OpenAI Codex CLI - 6th November 2025
- Code research projects with async coding agents like Claude Code and Codex - 6th November 2025
- A new SQL-powered permissions system in Datasette 1.0a20 - 4th November 2025