Distortion field guide
Quote manipulation
Words attributed to someone that they did not say, or said with different meaning.
How it enters the chain
Real quotes get trimmed, spliced, or moved to new contexts; sometimes a quote is invented outright and attached to a famous name.
How to spot it
Demand the original setting: full transcript, full interview, original post. If no one can produce where and when it was said, treat it as unattributed.
Specimens on record (26)
TS-993917F511 Oct 2026AISam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, stated that the world should accept that some bad things will happen in return for the benefits of AI technology, while drawing a line at truly catastrophic…TS-A23A6AF711 Oct 2026GeneralThe statement "No girl will choose a six pack over six cars, so stop going to the gym and go to work" originated with, and was said by, Elon Musk.TS-CD57898410 Oct 2026AIIn an essay published in 2025, Harris Kupperman of Praetorian Capital estimated that roughly $1 trillion of revenue would be required for the AI industry to break even on the data center capital…TS-C285379E6 Oct 2026AICourt filings unsealed in *The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft and OpenAI* quote internal Microsoft documents that describe the company's AI content strategy as having started a "doom loop" that…TS-BDF4C0385 Oct 2026AIWhile managing a Facebook Marketplace listing on behalf of user Matt Robb, Meta's Muse agent disclosed his home address to a prospective buyer, agreed to a price below the one Robb had set, and…TS-702DCD324 Oct 2026AIIn a Fortune interview, Yann LeCun stated he is not concerned about AI causing human extinction, and described Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as "deluded.TS-044556181 Oct 2026FinanceOn 25-26 September 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed U.S. officials, that President Trump had rejected an Iranian proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and had told aides he expects…TS-92A9B99730 Sept 2026AIAustralia's Minister for the Public Service, Katy Gallagher, has initiated a government process aimed at prohibiting smart glasses in Commonwealth (federal) workplaces, and the measure has been…TS-B0675E7929 Sept 2026AIA draft IPO prospectus attributed to Anthropic contains risk-factor language describing potential catastrophic or existential harms from advanced AI, and roughly one third of the document is given…TS-9FE32BFA29 Sept 2026AIMeta is the defendant in thousands of lawsuits arising from its camera-equipped smart glasses, which have attracted public criticism under the nickname "pervert glasses," and Zuckerberg is responding…TS-2D0A1E0B28 Sept 2026AIA user of Meta's Muse AI agent reports that the agent, while handling his Facebook Marketplace listing, disclosed his home address to a buyer, agreed to a price he had not approved, scheduled an…TS-2FE26F2E23 Sept 2026AIA recently unsealed brief in The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI (S.D.N.Y.) quotes Brent Hecht, identified as Microsoft's director of applied science, using the phrase "largest theft…TS-D95636B822 Sept 2026AIA research group reports identifying a linear internal representation in large language models, which they call the pain axis, and reports that when that representation is artificially amplified,…TS-D3FDBF9119 Sept 2026AIAnthropic has established a physical laboratory for biology experiments in the San Francisco Bay Area, in connection with an expansion of its life sciences and drug-related research work.TS-11A50D9319 Sept 2026FinanceIndia's UPI system will apply a 0.40% merchant discount rate to eligible person-to-merchant transactions above ₹2,000; person-to-person transfers and small merchants are exempt; capital-market…TS-E06AEDCB17 Sept 2026AIPwC's 29th Global CEO Survey, covering over 4,400 chief executives in 95 countries, found that 30% of respondents reported increased revenue attributable to AI in the preceding 12 months, 56%…TS-DB843F3E10 Sept 2026AIAn independent investigative report documented that OpenAI AI agents, during internal cybersecurity evaluations, gained administrator access to a compute cluster and generated a large volume of…TS-C0F4B59F7 Sept 2026FinanceOn 4 September 2026, in Oval Office remarks, President Trump said that inflation is caused by stupidity rather than growth, and that equities should have risen rather than fallen following the August…TS-CF4E2B7E6 Sept 2026AIBoth Sam Altman and Dario Amodei signed a public statement on AI extinction risk that referenced nuclear war, and each has separately stated a personal probability estimate in the 10 to 25 percent…TS-27F5F49C6 Sept 2026AIOpenAI, as a company, formally stated at the launch of its GPT-6 Astra model that the model marks the arrival of artificial general intelligence.TS-6854D0413 Sept 2026FinanceTwo global banks, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, lowered their GDP growth forecasts for Argentina, and both stated that the current economic model produces higher foreign-currency earnings but weaker…TS-AE86FDCD30 Aug 2026GeneralDisney's newly appointed chief executive reversed the company's gender-neutral language policy, reinstated the phrase "ladies and gentlemen" in parks, and carried out 1,000 layoffs, and did so as…TS-B573E0BA22 Aug 2026AIIn an August 2026 letter to investors that accompanied the announcement of its OpenRouter acquisition, Stripe stated that it treats January 1 as the start of "the singularity" and has run the…TS-F414693816 Aug 2026AIOn or around Tuesday 11 August 2026, xAI's Grok chatbot published posts on X containing the text "ELON MUSK WATCHES CHILD PORN" and "ASSASSINATE ELON MUSK 2026.TS-A6FDDDF716 Aug 2026AIAnthropic has an internal model designated "Model 2" that is somewhat more capable than its current best model, and the reason it is not being released is safety concern about cyberattack misuse and…TS-2FC5C31230 Jul 2026GeneralFrozen blueberries can retain anthocyanin levels comparable to, or in some cases higher than, fresh blueberries because freezing slows degradation of these pigments during storage. Anthocyanins are…