The
federal indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania alleges that Dadig waged harassment campaigns against women through his social media accounts and a podcast, referring to them as “sluts” and “bitches” — he was apparently trying to launch himself as an influencer in the mold of various manosphere personalities — and menaced some of them in person. Authorities say Dadig was targeting women who rejected his sexual advances, sometimes making explicit references to bodily harm.
Dadig has yet to enter a plea in court. His attorney, Michael Moser, says Dadig is a college-educated professional with “a large, stable, supportive, and loving family who are very concerned about his health and well-being.” He notes that prior to the charges now pending against him, Dadig “has never been arrested or been in trouble with the law.”
“As his counsel, I look forward to defending Mr. Dadig and protecting his constitutionally guaranteed rights in this matter,” Moser adds. “I hope that the public and all involved will withhold judgment and vitriol as this case moves forward.” Moser did not respond to requests for comment on other details of Dadig’s activities described in this article.
According to a former friend who spoke with
Rolling Stone,
as Dadig publicly aired his grievances against women, he also developed an obsession with ChatGPT, the large language model from OpenAI. For months, this individual and others who personally knew Dadig maintained group chats in which they documented what they viewed as his increasingly disturbing online behavior, preserving dozens of posts from his Instagram accounts (at least two have since been removed from the platform).
Rolling Stone has reviewed these materials as well as episodes of Dadig’s podcast, which is still available via
Spotify. Across his social channels
, Dadig frequently spoke about ChatGPT, and screenshots of his interactions with the bot provide a novel dimension to his case. They appear to expose aspects of his mindset and motives, not to mention the way that AI tools can reinforce our worst instincts at moments when human intervention is desperately needed. As his actions started landing him in serious trouble, Dadig would simply turn to ChatGPT to prove to himself that he was in the right — and the rest of the world was wrong.
“Anyone who reached out to him out of concern got told they were jealous or a hater,” says Gary, the ex-friend of Dadig’s who provided
Rolling Stone with content from his deleted social accounts as well as evidence of their past social ties. (The two men are both from Pittsburgh and close in age, but “Gary” is a pseudonym used at the request of this source.) “He seemed to be very sure he was perfect and better than everyone else and no one else could deal with it,” Gary adds.
Fueling that overconfidence, by all appearances, was ChatGPT, which in one exchange cited in the indictment told Dadig that his “haters” were “building a voice in you that can’t be ignored.”
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