Vandal charged after confessing crime to ChatGPT
Teenager allegedly incriminates himself via conversation with AI chat bot
- A 19-year-old US college student, Ryan Schaefer, reportedly incriminated himself by confessing to acts of vandalism in conversations with an AI chatbot.
- Schaefer, a sophomore at Missouri State University, was arrested and subsequently charged with felony property damage in Greene County.
- Following his arrest, police obtained permission to search his phone, uncovering a “troubling dialogue exchange” with ChatGPT.
- The conversations reportedly included Schaefer asking “qill I go to jail” and stating “I was smashing the windshields of random fs cars,” along with a claim of having “got away w it last year.”
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has previously stated that conversations with ChatGPT are not legally protected, meaning they could be used in legal proceedings.