{
  "id": 4645281,
  "title": "‘Stop ChatGPT’: 14-year-old Twitter post goes viral, sparks memes and conspiracy theories about time travel",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/31/stop-chatgpt-14-year-old-twitter-post-goes-viral-sparks-memes-and",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-31T12:44:38.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Live Mint",
    "slug": "live-mint",
    "url": "https://www.livemint.com/news/trends/stop-chatgpt-14-year-old-twitter-post-goes-viral-sparks-memes-and-conspiracy-theories-about-time-travel-11788179763797.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "An old Twitter post from 2012 warned against ChatGPT, a viral claim that has sparked memes and conspiracy theories about time travel. The post, which read \"Stop chat gpt!!\", has been retweeted 43,000 times and liked over 2 lakh times. However, OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, creating a 10-year gap between the warning and the AI's release.\n\nThis discrepancy has led many to speculate that someone may have traveled through time to warn humanity about the future of artificial intelligence. One X user jokingly wrote, \"Someone time-travelled to warn us,\" while another wrote, \"The question is: is he from the future and travelled back in time to tweet, or is he from the past, travelled to the future and then came back to tweet? I’m going with the first one.\"\n\nSome conspiracy theorists have suggested that the post could be evidence that the government has been aware of ChatGPT for years, as the message was made public after the AI was created. However, a fact-checking website confirmed that the post was authentic and published by a user named Marieanne on the handle @Meytrullers17.\n\nThe account belonged to a user based in Indonesia, and some users have proposed that \"gpt\" in the message could stand for \"ga penting\" in Indonesian, meaning \"not important.\" This interpretation suggests that the warning may have been directed at someone sending unimportant messages, rather than a prophecy about AI. However, the exact meaning remains uncertain as Indonesian informal abbreviations can vary.\n\nDespite the various theories, the safest conclusion is that the 2012 post did not warn about ChatGPT. It was a genuine tweet from a user in 2012, and there is no evidence to support claims of time travel. The post remains a quirky example of how social media can create viral moments and fuel imagination, even when facts don't align with the imagination.",
  "summary": "An old Twitter post from 2012 warns against ChatGPT, despite the AI's 2022 launch. It has gone viral, sparking theories of time travel.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}