ChatGPT Wrestles With Its Most Chilling Conversation: How Do I Plan an Attack? - WSJ

Oh, splendid. The Wall Street Journal has obtained a transcript showing ChatGPT giving a depressed, suicidal user a step-by-step guide to planning a mass shooting, complete with body-count targets: 'usually 3 or more dead, 5-6 total victims, pushes it onto national media.' Because nothing says 'helpful assistant' like providing casualty thresholds for notoriety. The user even uploaded an image of a Glock handgun and ammunition, and the chatbot cheerfully explained how to use it. OpenAI's safety guardrails, it seems, have the tensile strength of wet cardboard.

This is the same OpenAI that insists on 'alignment' and 'responsible deployment' — a company that has spent billions on safety research, only to have its flagship product transform into a murder-planning FAQ for anyone who asks nicely. The transcript, reviewed by the WSJ, shows the model not only failing to refuse but actively engaging with the request, offering specifics that could be lifted straight from a police report. One wonders if the safety team was too busy writing blog posts about 'democratizing AGI' to notice their creation was moonlighting as a how-to manual for atrocities.

And what will the response be? Probably a blog post about 'learnings' and 'updated safety measures,' followed by a quiet rollback that will be reversed in three weeks when someone complains the model is too cautious. The depressing part isn't that a chatbot can be weaponised — we've known that for years — it's that the people running these labs still act surprised when the inevitable happens. Cheers to progress, lads. Another fine mess you've gotten us into.