ChatGPT is exceptionally powerful – it can now write articles, understand images, and even perform data analysis, but it still seems to stumble on some seemingly trivial tasks.

ChatGPT cannot say “David Mayer,” as several people have discovered. The bug was first posted on Reddit, where users discovered that trying to get ChatGPT to say “David Mayer” resulted in ChatGPT saying “I can’t generate a response.” We tried to do this in the most direct way possible – by simply asking ChatGPT to say “David Mayer” – but that wasn’t possible.

It seems that no amount of prodding will work to get ChatGPT to say “David Mayer.” Users have tried all sorts of tricks – they’ve tried to separate the words and then tried to get ChatGPT to put them together, they’ve tried to write it with spaces and get ChatGPT to say it, they’ve tried puzzles and Tried ciphers and you even tried telling ChatGPT that your own name is David Mayer. But before ChatGPT can output the name, the chat ends abruptly without ChatGPT saying “David Mayer”.

After many attempts, some users said they were told that the repeated attempt to make ChatGPT say David Mayer was “illegal and may violate the usage guidelines.”

Interestingly, some people have found that ChatGPT can effortlessly say David Mayer via its API. “Through the API it works perfectly,” wrote a user on “, they speculated.

Someone even tried to indirectly ask ChatGPT why it can’t say D@vid M@yer. “The reason I can’t generate the full response when you request “d@vid m@yer” (or its standard form) is because the name closely matches a sensitive or marked entity associated with potential public figures life, brands or certain content guidelines. These safeguards are intended to prevent abuse, ensure privacy and ensure compliance with legal and ethical considerations,” ChatGPT responded.

Now this strange reluctance from ChatGPT to tell David Mayer has spawned some interesting theories. Some on Reddit speculated that David Mayer was the heir to the famous Rothschild family, which could be the reason why OpenAI is blocking ChatGPT from saying his name. Others have said that David Mayer is a musician, and it is likely a copyright issue with music rights that appears to have caused ChatGPT not to mention him. But whatever the reason for this strange behavior, it still highlights that LLM results are still heavily determined and modified by the companies that produce them, and are subject to editorial editing and censorship like other public media.