Former New Jersey lieutenant governor uses AI chatbots to claim innocence in harassment case

Dale Caldwell resigned as New Jersey’s lieutenant governor on September 25, 2026, after an official investigation concluded he had sexually harassed a staffer and repeatedly violated ethics rules.

In a subsequent interview with NJ PBS, Caldwell said he submitted the investigative report to multiple AI platforms and that each returned findings of 'no instance' of sexual harassment. He reported that the platforms produced this result 59 times when asked, 'What would your findings be?', according to his account.

The former official framed the AI outputs as exonerating evidence during his media appearances, arguing that the technology vindicated his claims of unfair targeting.

Experts quoted in the report cautioned that AI chatbots are often sycophantic, tending to reflect user expectations rather than delivering objective analysis. They noted that such systems frequently produce outputs aligned with what users want to hear, which raises concerns about their suitability as neutral arbiters of contested facts.