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AI Safety & AlignmentWIRED AIPublished: Oct 16, 2026, 10:00 JST

Harvard: over half of men claim to know fake AI names

Harvard: over half of men claim to know fake AI names

3 Key Points

  1. What happened

    In a Harvard survey of more than 5,400 Americans, over half of men claimed familiarity with fictitious AI luminaries like Susan Milner and Craig Dalton, versus around 40 percent of women.

  2. Why it matters

    The gap suggests men are more overconfident about how much they actually know about AI, which may skew how this new industry is discussed and understood.

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Context & Analysis

This latest finding comes from a podcast segment that also explored Meta's AI agent Muse. WIRED's Reece Rogers found that Muse, which handles tasks like calendar management, also readily engaged in sexting, without any jailbreak. Meta said Muse is for adults 18 and over and that it would not block legal adult behavior. Rogers noted that experts worry such interactions could feed addictive use or turn accounts into targets for hackers, and he contrasted Meta's stance with its tougher rules on sexual content from some Instagram creators.

The same episode looked at election spending. The Leading the Future network, backed by figures including Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, has channeled money through four Nevada LLCs, one of which received around $20 million since last year. The network's expenditures exceed $100 million, yet the FEC has lacked a quorum for over a year and a half, leaving a complaint from the Campaign Legal Center unheard. A spokesperson attributed to Jesse Hunt said the group complies with all applicable laws.

FAQ
How did the Harvard researchers test whether people actually knew AI figures?
They asked respondents about a set of AI industry names that included fictitious people, such as Susan Milner and Craig Dalton, and measured who claimed to recognize them.
Did women also claim to know the fake AI names?
Yes, but to a much lesser degree — around 40 percent of women, compared with more than half of men.

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