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The curious case of Elias Thorne – and what he tells us about AI inbreeding | Arwa Mahdawi

The Guardian UK Wednesday 17 June 2026, 10:00 UTC By Arwa Mahdawi 1 min read
Key Points

A character bearing that name appears in a remarkable number of chatbot-generated stories. He could be a messenger from the future – or a warning that generative AI is in danger of ‘model collapse’Ever heard of a shadowy figure called Elias Thorne? If you haven’t, try asking an AI chatbot to tell you a story.

A character bearing that name appears in a remarkable number of chatbot-generated stories. He could be a messenger from the future – or a warning that generative AI is in danger of ‘model collapse’

Ever heard of a shadowy figure called Elias Thorne? If you haven’t, try asking an AI chatbot to tell you a story.

In recent months, tech types and researchers have noticed a weird phenomenon: when prompted to tell a story, numerous popular LLMs, including ChatGPT and Claude, will spit out a tale featuring this mysterious Elias figure.

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Elias Thorne (PERSON) Arwa Mahdawi (PERSON) AI (ORG) Claude (PERSON) Elias (PERSON)
Originally published by The Guardian UK Read original →

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