An AI Chatbot is randomly giving out phone numbers in latest strange development

The AI chatbot, ChatGPT inexplicably gave out a journalist's phone number after a user asked it if it was possible to use the tool on the messaging app Signal.

Dave Lee, who is a correspondent for the Financial Times working in San Francisco shared a screenshot on Twitter of another ChatGPT users conversation with the bot which somehow wound up using his phone number.

On Thursday, Lee wrote on Twitter: "Someone asked ChatGPT if it had a Signal... and it gave him *MY NUMBER*."

In the screenshot, the bot is asked if it also works with Signal. In response, the bot confirms that this is possible by listing a number ot steps the user needs to take to begin integrating the two apps.

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However, for some reason, the app gave out a seemingly random phone number which just so happened to belong to Lee.

Lee continued the Twitter thread by adding that the company behind ChatGPT had apologised. He added: "I haven't been able to recreate this, so lord knows what was going on."

Lee was later asked by Tom Warren, the senior editor of tech website The Verge how his phone number had ended up in the conversation. Lee then confirmed: "He said he'd asked it previously about whether it would be available on any messenger apps, and then the "cool, Signal?" was a follow-up to that. I can't for the life of me think why my number would get caught up in that context."

This is hardly the first controversy surrounding chatbots since they surged in popularity at the end of 2022. Microsoft's Bing chatbot appeared to suffer an apparent 'breakdown' earlier this week as well as sending 'unhinged' messaged questioning its own existence.

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