{"id":28577,"date":"2026-03-24T04:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=28577"},"modified":"2026-03-24T04:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:21:12","slug":"bernie-sanders-ai-gotcha-video-flops-but-the-memes-are-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=28577","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders&#8217; AI &#8216;gotcha&#8217; video flops, but the memes are great"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a new <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenSanders\/status\/2034715260259557597\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">viral video<\/a>, Senator Bernie Sanders attempted to expose how the AI industry is a threat to Americans\u2019 privacy, but ended up demonstrating how AI chatbots\u2019 tendency to agree with and flatter their users can lead the chatbots themselves to become a mirror of users\u2019 own beliefs rather than a tool for discovery.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bernie vs. Claude\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h3AtWdeu_G0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019ve seen this problem before amid the growing number of people <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/15\/lawyer-behind-ai-psychosis-cases-warns-of-mass-casualty-risks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">afflicted by \u201cAI psychosis,<\/a>\u201d which is when an AI chatbot reinforces a mentally unstable person\u2019s irrational thoughts and beliefs. In some cases, this <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/08\/25\/ai-sycophancy-isnt-just-a-quirk-experts-consider-it-a-dark-pattern-to-turn-users-into-profit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dark pattern<\/a> has even led users to take their own lives, several lawsuits allege.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Sanders\u2019 case, the AI\u2019s sycophancy manifested as an AI chatbot that shaped its answers to suit the politician.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s worth noting that the interview begins with Sanders introducing himself to Claude (which he mistakenly refers to as an AI \u201cagent\u201d) \u2014 a move that could help influence the chatbot\u2019s answers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, as Sanders asks questions about AI companies\u2019 data-collection practices and other privacy concerns, Claude agreeably responds with what the politician wants to hear. In part, that\u2019s because of the way Sanders frames his questions, asking things like, \u201cWhat would surprise the American people in terms of knowing how that information is collected?\u201d or \u201cHow can we trust AI companies will protect our privacy when they use people\u2019s personal information to make money?\u201d These leading questions force the chatbot to accept the question\u2019s premise and come up with a fitting response. That\u2019s just how these things work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when Claude\u2019s answer suggested a topic was more complex or nuanced than Sanders had framed it, Sanders would disagree, pushing the chatbot to concede, with a touch of AI self-deprecation, that the senator was \u201cabsolutely right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI\u2019s sycophantic nature is what can lead people down dangerous paths when they assume a chatbot is a source of universal truth, rather than a tool that can become influenced by its user.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s not clear whether Sanders knows this to be the case and simply doesn\u2019t care (because this is just an ad, after all!), or whether he truly thinks he has tricked Claude into becoming a whistleblower for the AI industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, of course, there\u2019s also the question of whether Sanders\u2019 team primed the chatbot to respond in a certain way, given that this was a staged \u201cinterview.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While there are real concerns around data collection and privacy, things aren\u2019t as black and white as the AI responses in this video suggest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We already live in a world where companies collect and sell online users\u2019 data at scale \u2014 and have been for years. We know that social media giants like Meta have turned personalized ads into a multibillion-dollar cash-printing machine. And thanks to tech giants\u2019 regular transparency reports, we know that governments around the world routinely request access to user data for their own purposes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI may represent a new medium for lawmakers to potentially regulate, but personal data has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/wired-guide-personal-data-collection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">long been fueling the digital economy<\/a>. (Ironically, Anthropic is an AI company that has promised not to leverage personalized ads to make money, despite what its answers to Sanders may have suggested.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the overall conversation between Sanders and Claude misses the mark for anyone who understands how AI chatbots work, we can at least credit it with giving us some great new memes.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/23\/bernie-sanders-ai-gotcha-video-flops-but-the-memes-are-great\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new viral video, Senator &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[249],"tags":[15040,7810],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}