The Case of Elias Thorne, Imaginary Man AI Chatbots Are Obsessed With

Researchers at Cornell examined roughly 20,000 AI-generated stories from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google models. The fictional character Elias Thorne, portrayed as a lighthouse keeper, clockmaker, librarian, and explorer, appeared in 88% of the stories. The repetition results from safety and alignment training that restricts copyrighted and risky content, producing a shallow, recycled knowledge base.