--- title: "New AI Chatbot Turns Out to Be One Overworked Guy Answering All the Messages by Hand" description: "There's a new AI on the block — but not the kind you're thinking." date: "2026-08-04" modified: "2026-08-04" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-chatbot-one-overworked-guy" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" --- # New AI Chatbot Turns Out to Be One Overworked Guy Answering All the Messages by Hand ![Hands on keyboard with blur effect implying that they're typing really fast.]() *Shutterstock / ESB Professional* There's a new AI on the block — but not the kind you're thinking. A billboard in San Francisco is marketing a service called ChatTJB, which the giant ad boasts is the "leading chatbot interface powered by AI." But as noted in a tiny — and partially obscured by a tree — disclaimer on the bottom of the billboard, "AI" in this case doesn't stand for artificial intelligence. Instead, it stands for "average individual." Indeed, when you chat with ChatTJB, you're chatting with a single human man named Tucker Bryant. "I just built the worst \[large language model\] of all time, and it's about to revolutionize everything," Bryant, an artist and former Google staffer, [explained]() in a social media video. "Picture this: ChatGPT, but on the other end it's just me giving bad advice. Manually." On an "[About]()" page, ChatTJB, which was [first reported]() by the local San Francisco outlet *Gazetteer SF*, is described as "artisanal intelligence, handcrafted by a single human being." Instead of an LLM, the page adds, this bespoke experience can be understood as a "single-operator large language experience," or LLE. "Rather than sampling from a probabilistic model, each query is resolved through a proprietary biological reasoning substrate, delivering responses that are fully interpretable, non-synthetic, and accountable at the source," the website continues. "In practice: you ask a question, and a person named Tucker reads it, thinks about it, and writes back when awake and motivated." https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbg3rTVyE1d/ In a [video](), Bryant pointed to the phenomenon of "cognitive surrender" to AI as his motivation for the project. Coined in a [study]() by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School, the term [describes]() the tendency of chatbot users to [outsource]() their critical thinking as they follow the confidently-stated advice of chatbots, even when that advice is false or misleading. "We're now so used to confident, fast, and smart-sounding answers from AI that we've largely stopped questioning them," Bryant said in the video. "To be clear, I'm not anti-AI, but some of us are so far gone that the second we drop into that soothing dark interface, see the little thinking animation, and the text coming up letter by letter, critical thinking skills go out the window." ChatTJB, Bryant adds, adds friction back into the chatbot experience, simply by being "infinitely worse." It's not anti-AI, but it is pro-thinking your own thoughts. "My answers will be slow. They probably won't be correct, or maybe they could be, but they'll be very cryptic," said Bryant. "You will have a bad experience with ChatTJB." In addition to typed responses, ChatTJB also responds to requests to generate imagery with [hand-drawn pictures](). A disclaimer on the website notes that the service is a "work of satire and a public art project," and not a real investment opportunity. Though if you want to help Bryant pay off the billboard, you can [sign up]() for a "Pro" subscription. "I want you to have such an inconvenient experience with something that aesthetically looks like artificial intelligence that the next time an LLM gives you what sounds like a reasonable answer, you remember the time ChatTJB responded to your tax question with a haiku about crows," said Bryant, and "you become the tiniest bit more likely to pause and remember that just because a smooth-talking chatbot can answer your questions with polish, that doesn't give you an excuse to not think." "The next evolution in artificial intelligence," he added, "is human absurdity." **More on "cognitive surrender":** *[Alarming Study Finds That Most People Just Do What ChatGPT Tells Them, Even If It’s Totally Wrong]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()