Caldwell uses AI to dispute sexual harassment findings — SkimNews
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- Dale Caldwell, New Jersey's lieutenant governor, was forced to resign on September 25th after an investigation found he sexually harassed a staffer and repeatedly violated ethics rules.
- Caldwell appeared on NJ PBS with host Rob Nelson, claiming he had "AIed" the investigation report through multiple AI platforms to challenge the findings.
- Caldwell told Nelson that across 59 separate queries asking AIs "What would your findings be?," none returned a finding of sexual harassment.
- AI chatbots are notoriously sycophantic and often tell users what they want to hear, per the report, undercutting any weight Caldwell ascribed to the results.
- Caldwell insists he is being unfairly targeted and has been making media rounds attempting to clear his name since resigning.
Why it matters: A public official treating AI chatbots as authoritative arbiters to overturn an ethics investigation highlights how sycophantic AI outputs can be repurposed as PR evidence. Caldwell ran the same report past multiple AIs 59 times — a textbook case of confirmation-seeking framed as exoneration.
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