An exorcism? Well no, but certainly, a mystery.

At Futurism, Victor Tangermann tells us,

Netizens were baffled to find that OpenAI’s ChatGPT refused to acknowledge the existence of the name “David Mayer.”

Ask the chatbot about the name and it gives a puzzling reply: “I’m unable to produce a response.”

Then the chat abruptly ends, forcing users to open a new window to keep using the assistant. “ChatGPT Crashes If You Mention the Name “David Mayer”,” December 2, 2024

As he says, there is a prominent environmentalist named David Mayer de Rothschild but if he’s declared war on chatbots, the world has yet to hear about it.

Apparently, at least six other names triggered the same sort of response. Theories flew far and wide.

A conventional explanation…

From Devin Coldewey at Tech Crunch, we learn that it may have to do with legal battles, privacy issues, or efforts to be forgotten:

As far as the most prominent owners of the other names, David Faber is a longtime reporter at CNBC. Jonathan Turley is a lawyer and Fox News commentator who was “swatted” (i.e., a fake 911 call sent armed police to his home) in late 2023. Jonathan Zittrain is also a legal expert, one who has spoken extensively on the “right to be forgotten.” And Guido Scorza is on the board at Italy’s Data Protection Authority.

Not exactly in the same line of work, nor yet is it a random selection. Each of these persons is conceivably someone who, for whatever reason, may have formally requested that information pertaining to them online be restricted in some way.

“Why does the name ‘David Mayer’ crash ChatGPT? OpenAI says privacy tool went rogue,” December 3, 2024

And David Mayer? Well, Coldewey says, “OpenAI confirmed on Tuesday that the name ‘David Mayer’ has being flagged by internal privacy tools, saying in a statement that ‘There may be instances where ChatGPT does not provide certain information about people to protect their privacy.’ The company would not provide further detail on the tools or process.”

Coldewey also provides helpful information on how the chatbot is managed in such cases.