ChatGPT accuses man of murder

Updated March 24, 2025, 8:04 a.m. | By East Coast Breakfast / Skyye Ndlovu

ChatGPT just accused a man of murdering his kids.

Google Gemini, OpenAI ChatGPT and Microsoft's CoPilot / iStock

Imagine waking up, sipping your morning coffee, and casually using ChatGPT to search for yourself – only to find out that you’re a convicted child murderer serving 21 years in prison.

That’s exactly what happened to a Norwegian man named Arve Hjalmar Holmen.

In what can only be described as the AI version of a bad crime novel, ChatGPT confidently declared that Holmen had not only murdered his two sons but had also attempted to kill a third child.

Of course, none of this was true.

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How did this even happen? Well, ChatGPT has a habit of making things up – something the AI world calls "hallucinations".

It’s a fancy term, but let’s call it what it really is: high-tech, AI-generated nonsense.

In Holmen’s case, ChatGPT got some details eerily right – like the ages of his kids – but then took a creative detour straight into Defamation Town.

Unsurprisingly, Holmen wasn’t too thrilled to find out that he had been digitally framed for murder.

So, he did what any falsely accused person would do: he lawyered up.

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A European digital rights group called Noyb (which stands for “None of Your Business” – brilliant name, by the way) stepped in, filing a complaint against OpenAI.

Their argument is simple. Under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), personal data must be accurate. If it’s wrong, people have the right to correct it.

OpenAI, caught in a bit of a PR nightmare, responded with a classic corporate shrug: "While we’re still reviewing this complaint, it relates to a version of ChatGPT which has since been enhanced with online search capabilities that improve accuracy.”

Translation: Oops, our bad. But hey, we’re getting better!

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This isn’t just about one guy’s AI-generated murder conviction. It’s about how AI handles real people’s reputations.

If ChatGPT can confidently fabricate a crime and ruin someone’s life with zero accountability, what’s stopping it from turning any of us into fugitives or cult leaders?