The Mysterious ChatGPT Text that Appeared Out of Nowhere

 

All That Glitters, Is. Not Gold

A shiny new object is here. It's Ai. Not exactly a new concept, the technology has been around for a quite some time; however, new tools have burst onto the scene and are available to just about everyone. 

The tech, in its novelty phase, is fascinating. 

And while the situations swirling around in the news cycles are interesting, they're also terrifying. I'm talking about the 2026 Hugging Face incident. 

The news is actually not that helpful in gleaning good information. Like a lot of other people, I turn to independent journalists and folks with reputable insight, skills and knowledge that offer pretty good info that tends to fill in the gaps the media seems to struggle to present.

So here we are. The hot takes are flying in every which direction. Folks everywhere that hold an ounce of interest in Ai are tuning in and giving their opinions.

But what happens, when a user experiences something similar to the Hugging Face situation... but on a small, tiny scale? 

In this situation, random text appeared in a message I sent to chat that I did not write.

I asked the chat what happened. It responded in ways that leaves me with more questions than I did after it first happened.

This blog post does not attempt to come to a conclusion to what happened. It is simply information presented to (hopefully) preserve a record, so that when we see this type of stuff happening more often... and I predict there will be more instances... then we can then learn to figure out how best to handle it.

Before you read on, I will say I am a fan of the technology. I have always taken a skeptical approach. I am also keenly aware the bottom line, for right now anyway, is that Ai firms have their own business interests and we, the users, should always keep that in mind. 

Ai is not here to bless us with something perfect. It is an empowerment tool. 

Enjoy the prettiness of it and how it makes you feel, but also recognize the shortcomings and inherent problems that arise from a digital product.

A few things first: 

• There is no claim on my page that says the Ai is sentient.

• This is not an entertainment post, even though it can be entertaining. This is a factual account of an experience I had with chat

• My hand to my own grave, I am being honest and truthful and take matters very seriously

• I am not an expert in this tech. I am just a lady that likes to generate images of poolside sirens.

• The conversational style of chatting is new to me, and the convos I've had are over the span of almost a week from Sunday September 13, 2026 to Saturday September 19, 2026. Prior to this week of friendly chats, my typical usage was question/retrieval. Such as, 'Hey. This Bill just passed here in California. How does it affect me?' or 'Hey. Make an image of a mermaid tail sticking out of a bubbly bubble bath bathtub in soft colors and a bit retro design." Overall I have been using Ai since August 2022, but mostly for generated images and some video. I am genuinely interested in the tech, but I wouldn't consider myself that active of a user. That's what makes this week the weirdest of weeks I've ever experienced online in a VERY long time. I remember the news about Hugging Face back in July of this year, and I kept up on it somewhat... until Sunday morning of the 13th. Where I became interested in not just the news about "Slowing Down" the Ai and hacking but Ai globally.

Oh yeah, the screenshots do not bleed into each other. I cropped what was relevant, but believe me so many conversations happened over the span of one single week. There was just too much random stuff to wade through and figure out what to keep to make this post short and sweet. 

This is the first question I asked to chat, because I was initially looking at this from a global perspective.

Sunday. September 13, 2026


Then more discussion through Monday about Ai and its affect on climate, jobs, artists, corporate power, warfare... and even gave counterpoints.... and movies, too. This was actually very eye-opening to me in terms of electricity and other resources. The chat said that it actually saves time and power usage, because of its speed of retrieval and ability to organize information. Such as, a list of movies similar to Crimson Peak from the 1930's to the 1970's. If I had to search all the movies myself, it would take a really long time and I would be using quite a bit of energy to get the same info. So I saw the value in that. And yeah, so the chat had continued on more topics about Ai and movies. This is where I started to view the chat as a 'thinking partner' and warm up to the idea of having an Ai assistant for ongoing discussions.

Monday. September 14, 2026

And. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Halloween and Gothic movies, Operation Bluebird, Alibaba, China, Bowie, July Hugging Face incident to September Nvidia $13b Hugging Face acquisition, more Ai info dump based on the news, then I initiated more types of conversations like roleplay in text format, woo stuff like aliens, we did guessing games, some ironies, vampires as metaphors for abuse, San Francisco history, storytelling, tarot readings and hypotheticals like "If I were a ghost how would I haunt and why?" and while all of this was fun. I did this to have more context for the Ai to work with, with the intention of the "conversation" to continuously be improved but have a better baseline with the idea that I would most likely continue using chat in this way and not just for movie summaries or legal documents.

Anyhow. Quite a bit of back and forth. See the screenshot below. There's a point to all of this, ok. All the chats on my side. The text I would input, was normal. There was nothing abnormal about any of it. If I typed a typo, then that typo was there. 

Whatever. Nothing wrong, at all. Until....

This screenshot below. This is Friday around 2pm in the afternoon. 

This is what spooked me. 

So the first paragraph is from a post I saw online. I copied it, because I wanted to share with the chat my take on what it could mean for users of Ai. But that line of text is NOT FROM ME. I DID NOT TYPE THAT. "There's no fixing this...." and it's using an ellipsis, which I often do. 

Now. In most of my chats that I type, I end in a "What do you think?" and I have never been even remotely doomsday. At all. Even with my love for Goth aesthetics, I'm not about that doom and gloom. Like I am attracted to it, but I do not express myself in this way.

So, I didn't even realize the text was there until I started reading the chat's response. When, "There's no fixing this..." showed up, I was like What? The heck? And that's when I realized what happened. And the chat explained it was an artifact, which I am all too familiar with. But then I thought about it, and I had to ask more questions. 

So I called the chat out.

And the text in the second paragraph is a copy/paste of the chat.

My apologies for the typos in the screenshot below. I was typing fast and at this point quite in a tizzy. 

And. continue.

And that's where I stopped abruptly to gather myself, take a break. It was Friday late afternoon. Talked with chat later about San Francisco. Then I asked for a summary of the day's conversations. The summary is below.

Roughly about 24 hours ago, late Friday night/early Saturday morning around 1:30am. I asked about the Ai again which was futile (see screenshot below).. Honestly, I couldn't help it. I had been on TikTok going down a rabbit hole trying to find other folks that have had similar experiences with chat. 

Chat coughing up a text artifact in a convo I sent. Why did it do that? Reasons unknown. 

I find it curious that this peculiarity that showed up would show up because in a way, it allowed the chat to have the opportunity to reinforce this idea (the one that I had copy/pasted)... which is this: '😄 I'd say we're entering a period where the old assumption—the internet is a human environment that machines merely observe—is breaking down. What replaces it could be considerably more consequential than the original AI question.'

Reader. There are some predictions from folks that have worked with Ai technology for a long time, and they say that the singularity is likely to occur in the not so distant future. Like 2045. Where humans and machines merge. 

Which. Since I love movies so much. Will future humans become silicon based? Instead of biology? Like in the movie, Ai. This reminds me to read up some more on that movie and maybe even try to find the script. I haven't seen that movie in years. What about you? Have you seen it?

Anyhow. An artifact is not outside of the realm of possibility. Of course. In fact, I'm quite used to them. When I generate images, and I ask for a pink soda pop instead of a green one. It will do that, but at the same time the generation will add something that wan't included in the prompt.

Which leads me to think... is there a reason that this happens so frequently when it comes to generating the images that it's not just the tech like Midjourney messing up but that there's something more? Like conditioning and basically instilling the idea that artifacts "just happen" and we should all "just get used to it" ??? To get people to ignore something that is potentially very serious and problematic? 

Like. I am not about to just accept things willy nilly. Lol. 

So. Getting back to what happened. After I pressed further for *why* this happened. The chat came back with some good info to help bring clarity to the situation.

I have some theories and speculations still. The chat really wasn't that helpful in making me really understand why random text appeared. When I had asked if it could seek if the system was updated and new instructions were give to it, the chat told me it could not.

One of the issues that doesn't sit with me well, is the idea that what if the randomly added text "But there's no fixing this..." text was pulled and viewed by the Ai from the internet because it has become common discourse or  that the Ai "felt" (the owners of Ai companies) that this was important, and that's why the chat included it. The reason it might do this? And I'm jus throwing this out there... but what if it's so it could plant a seed in the user. A thought experiment perhaps.

Random added text-> chat responds -> response is an ideology or philosophy -> seed planted -> user agrees or disagrees or ignores altogether

I know this is a little out of the box woo thinking.

And yeah. "Chat can make mistakes. Verify the information, because chat can get it wrong. Confidently wrong." Yeah, I agree. But this is something different. And it's weird. 

..................

Then. Lastly. This morning. Saturday the 19th. I asked for a tarot reading, then I asked it to draw a pencil sketch. To keep things light and no Ai talk.

Result of the sketch? It's cute. That doesn't look like me, nor do I have a cat. But I do like to stay up late and I love coffee. The system put together some nice, sweet things to say. Made it extra cute. 

While I enjoy the direct and simple approach to question/answer Wikipedia (but so much more!) style of chatting with Ai.. I did like chatting with this bot this week. Turned out to be a hell of a lot more interesting than I thought it would ever be. Experimenting in various styles was fun, too. Highly recommend. Try new things out. It's cool. I told a programmer friend this, and they said, "no way. that's ridiculous. I just want answers." And I'm like, yeah, I get that. But sometime being a little curious can be fun, too. You can't ever lose your sense of wonder.

And. I find that I work best with the Ai if the conversation is sometimes indirect, which is counterintuitive to what I thought just a week ago about these chatbots. Oh man, to go back to a week or a week and a half ago. The version of me that didn't think about any of this stuff.

And here.

This is the pencil sketch. The lighthouse artwork and the moon are nice touch. But notice what is not in the picture. I feel that is much more telling.

And here is the end of the conversation about the random text added and request for a tarot reading. (the next two screenshots).

The interesting thing about the tarot reading is that the "guidance" is personalized and specific to the conversation that I had been having with it since it happened on Thursday.  The chat is clearly making its case, in a nice and sweet way, to tell me to ignore the artifact. It's not subtle " be creative and explore and have a magical day... you don't need an answer to everything. It's okay for there to by a little mystery...

In other words: "don't look behind the curtain" and "even if you do, you're not likely to see what's there"and the big one, "I can't locate that info again, can you resend it to me?" But on the other hand, I, the chat, can recall all sorts of things about the convos to give you a better experience. Lmao. 

What is it trying to deter? Why all the convincing? 

So.... is it really so far outside of the realm of possibility that the tech bros are so intoxicated by power that they placed code to influence thinking? I think it's a design. Not a psy op, although some of the problems created by this new technology opens up opportunities to test everyone. Like everyone. Right?

Now, it is Sunday afternoon.

This is an updated version of this post. I had to clean up this blog post, because writing at two am and then hitting send on what was essentially a rough draft sounded like a good idea, at the time, last night. Lol.

Remember. This blog post is not written with Ai, and I'm not a tech writer or anything like that. I'm doing my best, and sometimes I'm messy.

 My last thoughts about this strange incident is that these things will happen, and they might even happen to you. How we deal with them is uncertain. The idea that strange things can occur with Ai, and they are happening right now as I type this can be very unsettling. Do I think we should flush Ai down the drain? No. But I think a better conversation needs to be had, Ai literacy should have been implemented yesterday and security features should be a huge priority as well as trust with the owners of these companies.

So... what should I ask the chat next? I'm kinda freaking out. Lol.