ChatGPT Reports Man To FBI After Disturbing Threats

Artificial intelligence giant OpenAI was instrumental in catching a South Palm Beach, Florida, man who turned to ChatGPT to plot a horrific, violent revenge scheme against his former girlfriend.

Darren Zhou, a 25-year-old former Goldman Sachs analyst, thought he was privately venting to an online chatbot after a brief six-month relationship ended. Instead, his digital confessions led him straight to federal law enforcement.

“I’m gonna kill her by the end of this month,” the finance worker wrote to AI, according to court documents. “If I can’t have her then nobody can.”

What started as a sob story about a breakup quickly spiraled into a nightmare roadmap of violence. Investigators say Zhou used the platform to lay out explicit blueprints to stalk, kidnap, rape, and murder the 21-year-old victim, saying he would “draw a gun, kill her, then shoot myself,” also writing he would “rape her with the gun too.” He also wrote, “I texted her I was gonna rape her tonight.”

He bragged to the bot about lying in wait at her local gym armed with weapons, threatening to force her to his home at gunpoint to assault and hold her hostage. He even claimed he texted her photos of zip ties, latex gloves, and firearms.

Zhou may not have known OpenAI’s strict safety protocols flag users who post explicit threats of violence. The tech firm blew the whistle, handing over two months’ worth of Zhou’s disturbing chat logs to federal agents, who passed them to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

“A deputy who reviewed the logs — which included only Zhou’s messages, not ChatGPT’s responses — said they weren’t ‘vague emotional outbursts’ but instead showed a pattern of rehearsal and planning,” The Palm Beach Post reported.

While Zhou was busy confessing his dark fantasies to his computer screen, he was terrorizing his ex in real life. The terrified young woman had blocked him across multiple platforms due to his stalker behavior. Zhou bombarded her from burner app numbers, sending vile, sexually explicit texts, and chilling location drop-ins like sending just the name of her gym while she was inside.

Deputies arrested the Northeastern University graduate in May. He was hit with felony charges including aggravated stalking, written threats to kill, and illegal use of a cell phone, which could lead to as much as 25 years behind bars.

But in a shocking courtroom twist, Zhou managed to walk away without serving a single day in prison or taking a felony conviction on his record.

State prosecutors struck a plea deal on August 13 that allowed Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer to withhold judgment, handing Zhou eight years of probation instead. The judge noted he only allowed the deal because the victim signed off on it.

Zhou’s attorney brushed off the horrific saga as a “difficult mental health episode,” claiming his client didn’t actually own guns and was “not a violent person.”

Judge Suskauer offered Zhou some blunt advice for his next relationship: “Get over it and move on. … No one deserves the type of conduct that you exposed this lady to.”

Zhou will now wear an ankle monitor for two years while completing court-mandated counseling.