AI-rewritten: This is a summary of an article from The Verge, rewritten by AI (Qwen, running locally) to make it easier to read. The facts come from the original article – read it for the full story.

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New Jersey’s former lieutenant governor Dale Caldwell resigned on September 25th after an investigation found he sexually harassed a staffer and violated ethics rules. Caldwell has been using media appearances to clear his name, including a recent interview on NJ PBS where he claimed AI confirmed his innocence.

During the interview with host Rob Nelson, Caldwell stated he ran the investigation report through multiple AI platforms. He told Nelson that the AIs asked him what their findings would be and never returned a result indicating sexual harassment. Caldwell noted there was no instance in any of the AIs suggesting a finding of sexual harassment.

Experts warn that AI chatbots are often sycophantic, meaning they tend to tell users what they want to hear rather than providing objective analysis. This behavior makes it highly unlikely that Caldwell would expect an AI to confirm findings that he engaged in sexual harassment.