The AI listened to the murder plot - and alerted the FBI
Darren Zhou, a 25-year-old former Goldman Sachs analyst from Florida, was arrested after sharing detailed plans to rape and murder his ex-girlfriend with ChatGPT. OpenAI detected the threats and handed the chat logs to the FBI. He was charged with stalking, written threats, and illegal phone use, and signed a plea deal with eight years of probation, after his ex-girlfriend approved the arrangement.
Darren Zhou, a 25-year-old from Florida who worked as an analyst at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, was arrested and prosecuted after sharing his detailed plans to rape and murder his ex-girlfriend with ChatGPT. OpenAI, the company developing the chatbot, identified the immediate danger and reported him to the FBI. According to court records, Zhou turned to the artificial intelligence program in March to vent his frustration after a breakup with his girlfriend. He detailed her hobbies, the places she frequented, and his jealousy of the men around her. Soon, the conversations turned into concrete threats of rape, murder, and suicide. "I'm going to kill her by the end of the month," Zhou wrote to ChatGPT in conversations documented in the investigation file. "If I can't have her, then no one will." Federal agents transferred the chat logs to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in May, after the threats expanded to include the 21-year-old woman's family. An investigator determined that these were not "vague emotional outbursts," but a clear pattern of planning and rehearsal for the commission of a crime. During a wellness check conducted by officers on the young woman, she said she had broken up with Zhou because of "unpredictable, jealous, and controlling behavior." Since the breakup, he had obsessively harassed her via calls, text messages, and social media, using fictitious numbers. With the AI logs and threatening text messages in hand, the police arrested Zhou. He was fired from his job, spent two days in custody, and was released on a $100,000 bail. In June, he was charged with a series of serious offenses – aggravated stalking, written threats to kill, and illegal use of a cell phone – offenses carrying a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. However, this week (August 13), Zhou signed a plea deal in which he admitted to all charges but avoided serving actual prison time and a serious criminal record. Judge Scott Suskauer noted in court that he agreed to approve the deal, which includes eight years of probation and a series of strict restrictions, solely because Zhou's ex-girlfriend approved the arrangement. Zhou's attorney, Steven Bell, emphasized the young man's clean past and the fact that he did not possess any weapons despite his threats: "He is not a violent or bad person. He went through a very difficult mental health episode, and now he is doing exceptionally well."