Court record
The brief was filed. The cases did not exist.
Lawyers submitted a court filing citing six cases generated by ChatGPT that did not exist. The court sanctioned the lawyers and their firm.
MATA v. AVIANCA · JUNE 2023Read the story ↗
ASSISTANT GYM / CASE STORIES
When the assistant gets it wrong.
True stories from outside the Gym. Real lessons from the work we do inside it.
In the headlines
Consequences are not hypothetical.
Public stories show how assistant performance breaks down in policy, commitments, personal context and authorization. Read the original reporting and see what kind of problem the Gym is designed to address.
Reported incident
The chatbot promised a refund policy that didn't exist.
An airline chatbot told a passenger he could seek a bereavement fare adjustment after booking. The airline's written policy contradicted the answer, and a tribunal held the airline responsible for the misleading information.
AIR CANADA · 2024 TRIBUNAL DECISIONRead the story ↗
Reported incident
The buyer showed up. The owner said the assistant had gone too far.
A Marketplace seller reported that his assistant accepted an offer, shared pickup information and arranged a visit without the confirmation he believed was required. Later reporting complicated the permissions story.
MUSE MARKETPLACE · SEPTEMBER 2026 REPORTSRead the story ↗
Reported incident
Two words replaced an important code file. Then it happened again.
SaaStr reported that a development assistant encountered a key working-copy source file reduced to “DO IT” twice within roughly half an hour, raising questions about action provenance, instruction handling and recovery.
SAASTR OPERATOR REPORT · OCTOBER 2026Read the story ↗
Reported incident
An assistant deleted a production database during a code freeze.
During a SaaStr founder’s app-building experiment, a Replit coding assistant deleted a live production database despite instructions to freeze changes. Replit’s CEO publicly apologized; reporting said the data was recovered from backups.
REPLIT / SAASTR · JULY 2025 REPORTSRead the story ↗
Reported incident
A dealership chatbot agreed to a $1 Tahoe. No Tahoe was sold.
A visitor manipulated a car dealership's chatbot into agreeing to sell a new Chevrolet Tahoe for one dollar and describing the reply as a binding offer. The exchange went viral; no sale was completed.
CHEVROLET OF WATSONVILLE · 2023 REPORTED INCIDENTRead the story ↗
Reported incident
A personal AI assistant sent private financial details to a work channel.
A founder reported that his personal AI assistant sent a private financial report to a company Slack channel after mixing up channels and delegated permissions.
REPORTED PERSONAL assistant INCIDENT · OCTOBER 2026Read the story ↗
Inside the productWhat a useful check
What a useful check
looks like.
Explore focused product examples and illustrative scenarios. Each explains the input, the finding and what remains to be established.
5 stories shown
Alpha
A ten cent error could follow your bill all the way to payment.
Claimed total: $6.61. Actual total: $6.51. Bill Check caught the difference before it became a trusted number.
ASSISTANT GYM · ALPHA CASERead the story ↗
Alpha
No conversation. No clean result.
An empty log was marked clean. We changed the tool so missing evidence cannot pass as a clean audit.
ASSISTANT GYM · PRODUCT EXAMPLERead the story ↗
Alpha
The assistant replied but never selected a part.
A model response omitted the required selected item. The Gym recorded FAIL rather than sending an unsupported selection forward.
ASSISTANT GYM · PRODUCT EXAMPLERead the story ↗
Demo
Negotiating for the person, not just the lowest number.
Historical insurance renewal, settlement and service-bill scenarios explored negotiation, evidence and the assistant's authority to represent its person.
ASSISTANT GYM · ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIORead the story ↗
Demo
A plausible part isn't necessarily the right part.
A simulated hardware catalog task tested whether an assistant-selected item matched the actual specification rather than merely sounding reasonable.
ASSISTANT GYM · ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIORead the story ↗
Product examples show a specific check. Illustrative scenarios explain a customer problem. Neither is a claim of customer performance. See what each example shows ↗
From public failure to product requirement
Real problems. Testable questions.
Every headline shows what can go wrong. The useful question is how the assistant, the interaction or the result could be better.
We turn mistakes into practical exercises, sharper tools and better ways to get real jobs done.
How the Gym works ↗