This looks like it's related to the phenomenon of glitch tokens:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8viQEp8KBg2QSW4Yc/solidgoldmagikarp-iii-glitch-token-archaeology
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f4vmcJo226LP7ggmr/glitch-token-catalog-almost-a-full-clear
ChatGPT no longer uses the same tokenizer that it used when the SolidGoldMagikarp phenomenon was discovered, but its new tokenizer could be exhibiting similar behavior.
It's not a classic glitch token. Those did not cause the current "I'm unable to produce a response" error that "David Mayer" does.
I don't think this explanation makes sense. I asked ChatGPT "Can you tell me things about Akhmed Chatayev", and it had no problem using his actual name over and over. I asked about his aliases and it said
Akhmed Chatayev, a Chechen Islamist and leader within the Islamic State (IS), was known to use several aliases throughout his militant activities. One of his primary aliases was "Akhmed Shishani," with "Shishani" translating to "Chechen," indicating his ethnic origin. Wikipedia
Additionally, Chatayev adopted the alias "David
Then threw an error messag...
This oddity is making the rounds on Reddit, Twitter, Hackernews, etc.
Is OpenAI censoring references to one of these people? If so, why?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mayer_de_Rothschild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mayer_(historian)
Edit: More names have been found that behave similarly:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1h420u5/unfolding_chatgpts_mysterious_censorship_and/