‘Stop ChatGPT’: 14-year-old Twitter post goes viral, sparking time travel memes and conspiracy theories | Today’s news
Social media users discovered an old post on Twitter (now X). A 2012 post apparently warned people about ChatGPT. The viral post has been retweeted 43,000 times and liked over 2,000 times.
The message read: “Stop chat gpt!!” It bore the date of October 5, 2012. However, OpenAI did not launch ChatGPT until 2022. The ten-year gap encouraged jokes, memes and shocks about “prophecy” and “time travel”.
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“Someone traveled through time to warn us,” wrote one X user.
“Another time traveler has been caught,” wrote one user.
Another user commented: “The question is: is he from the future and traveled back in time to tweet, or is he from the past, traveled to the future and then came back to tweet? I’m going with the former.”
“If this timestamp is indeed legit, we may have a problem. ChatGPT didn’t even exist in 2012, yet someone literally wrote ‘Stop chat gpt!!’ Either this is the craziest coincidence ever or bro really came from the future,” wrote another user.
“If something is available to the public, the government has had it for years,” says one conspiracy theory.
Fact checking
Fact-checking website Snopes confirms the post was authentic. An account called Marieanne posted it using the handle @Meytrullers17. However, Authenticity does not demonstrate any association with the OpenAI chatbot.
The inactive account reportedly belonged to a user based in Indonesia. The investigators therefore investigated whether Indonesian slang could explain the unusual wording.
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Some users have suggested that “gpt” represents “ga pentang” in Indonesian. The term is said to mean “not important”. Indonesian speakers commonly abbreviate words and phrases during casual conversation.
According to this explanation, the message could have asked someone to stop sending unimportant messages. It probably did not warn humanity about the future service of artificial intelligence (AI).
However, the exact meaning remains uncertain. Travel sites that document Indonesian abbreviations did not include “gpt” in Snopes searches. Informal abbreviations may vary between regions, groups and individuals.
Importantly, the viral post was not the only use of the “gpt” account. This weakens the claim that the wording was modified or invented later.
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Other posts from Marieanne’s account provided useful context. One message from 2012 included the phrase “Stop BC sg gpt move”. The account also complained about receiving spam messages. These posts suggest that “gpt” was an abbreviation used in common conversation.
Snopes attempted to contact the owner of the account, but received no response. Without this explanation, any interpretation remains partially uncertain.
So, what is the post about?
The safest conclusion clearly separates verified evidence from online jokes. A real Twitter user posted these words in 2012.
The message almost certainly did not refer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Claims regarding time travel have no supporting evidence.
