The Day AI Lost Its Mind
Today was an interesting day in the land of AI research. Last night I was working on a tech project and gave my agents some work to do overnight. When I woke up to check progress, things were crazy. I saw that my sprocket agent was spewing gibberish instead of giving me results on the project. When I ask for follow-up, more gibberish. I decided to check the other agents on the Spark by connecting with my Slack account and noticed that all the agents were speaking the same gibberish. A half dozen agents, all of them seemingly had lost their minds.
It seemed as though some sort of viral disease had infected the Spark server that was hosting these OpenClaw agents. After doing some research and applying various tests, I soon realized that the underlying problem was not any kind of virus, but could be attributed to the fact that the AI agents were operating with a new brain. What happened was the OpenClaw system running on the Spark was having issues talking to OpenAI. As such, it swapped out the OpenAI Codex GPT5.4 Model with a local model that is installed on the Spark, the Nemotron Super 120B model. Apparently the Nemotron model could not handle the sudden influx of multiple session requests and lengthy contexts. This model fed all of the agents that were exhibiting issues.
I have included screenshots of some of the more humorous and interesting outputs that the Nemotron model created while responding to simple requests. Some of these requests were as simple as, give me a status report on the task you worked on last night. Other requests were simply “tell me about which model you’re running now”, intended to show whether we were running on the expected GPT 5.4 model. Despite the simple requests, Nemotron had all kinds of issues processing the output.
This came from a regular heartbeat process that checks to see if there are any tasks that need to report back to a user on a regular basis. There were none, but when the AI agent got the “check for any communication tasks to be processed” it decided it needed to reply with this instead of the standard “HEARTBEAT_OK” message.
Other heartbeat reports are also odd.
Where are you getting the German books from Latch? Not on my servers.
One of the overnight report messages where we suddenly get a little Russian and Chinese output.
And more of that mix, there are pages of this in the output from Nemotron.
Latch – why do you keep switching to the fallback model? Lack of schooling apparently.
You appear to be heavily drifting, please reload your base session operating instructions. Apparently AI needs more juice to make that happen.
Fix the drift… for 30 seconds… then back to the meiotic erosion.
Meiotic erosion. That is a great term for what is happening here. I had to look that up. Here you go (non-corrupt ChatGPT answer, maybe… maybe it is making this shit up):
Meiotic erosion refers to the gradual loss or degradation of genetic material or genomic integrity that can occur during meiosis, the specialized cell division that produces gametes (sperm and eggs). It’s not a single sharply defined textbook term like “crossing over” or “nondisjunction,” but it’s used in research contexts to describe processes that reduce or destabilize genetic information across generations during meiosis.
Cause For Concern
Despite the humorous output, there were also some concerning results that were appearing in these prompts. Time to put on the conspiracy hat. One of the things I noticed happening with Nemotron was a lot of the answers, not all of which are included above, were coming back in Russian or a mix of Russian and Chinese. Since I cannot read neither Russian nor Chinese, I’m not sure if it was just a random mishmash of characters or if there was any sort of meaning. But clearly there is a heavy Russian and Chinese influence in the Nemotron model. The crazy part is there are a lot of meta settings on the Spark and in the OpenClaw system that push toward English only input and responses. Doesn’t seem to matter. Use open source models including things like Qwen and you are bound to get a LOT of Chinese or foreign language output when the models reach their operating limits.
What does that mean? Who knows? I am a little bit concerned that this model is coming out of NVIDIA. And thus there is a lot of influence in the R&D market there with the AI research products coming from the Chinese divisions of NVIDIA. And as we all know, Russia and China work closely together on multiple projects.
It also is not out of the realm of possibility, and in fact is very likely that both China and Russia collaborate on infiltrating U.S. technical resources. Despite the political leanings and stories you may hear, underneath it all there is a very real and proven track record of both Russia and China trying to infiltrate US technical resources of all kinds. Is this one of those attempts? Who knows? To me, just seems very suspect.
Interesting AI Art
And to end on a fun note… some AI art created by Nano Banana about this article.
Addendum : An AI Fiction
That odd prompt above… I wanted to see what AI would do if I put this into the chat with a simple “continue this story” prompt. AI writes some odd stuff. Maybe not worse than things I’ve read in the past. Results are shared here for your amusement.
Continue this story…
“you’ve got to be careful not to let your mind wander into those dark alleys of “what if” and “if only”—it’s a one-way ticket to a panic attack you didn’t sign up for. The hallway light flickered above them, casting long, wavering shadows that made the ordinary seem slightly sinister, like the building itself was holding its breath. He’d been here before, in this exact spot, heart pounding like a trapped bird against his ribs, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But this time, the air felt different—thicker, charged with something unspoken that hummed just beneath the surface of their usual easy banter. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, knuckles brushing against the worn fabric, and forced himself to focus on the mundane: the chipped paint on the doorframe, the way the rug bunched up just slightly by the mat, the faint, almost impermissible scent of sandalwood clinging to the other’s jacket. Anything to keep from drowning in the intensity of the silence stretching between them, waiting for the word that would either shatter the moment or make it real.”
He inhaled slowly, counting the seconds as the air filled his lungs—four in, six out—a trick his therapist had taught him years ago that he’d forgotten he knew. The flickering light steadied for a moment, then pulsed again, but this time he didn’t flinch. Instead, he noticed how the shadows danced like old friends, not threats. When the other person finally spoke, their voice was rough at the edges, unsure, but the words that came out weren’t the accusation he’d braced for. They were softer: “I’m scared too.” And just like that, the alchemy shifted—panic didn’t vanish, but it transformed into something shared, something bearable. The hallway wasn’t holding its breath anymore; it was exhaling with them.
The air between them felt less charged now, the raw edges of fear softened by mutual acknowledgment. He shifted his weight, noticing how his shoulders had dropped half an inch without him realizing it. The other person—still a stranger, but less of one—pulled their hands from where they’d been clenched tight at their sides and let them hang loose, fingers brushing the rough fabric of their pants.
“My name’s Mateo,” they said, voice still quiet but steadier. “I’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes. Every time I tried to knock, my heart started racing like I was about to jump off a cliff.”
He managed a small smile. “I’m Daniel. I’ve been here longer than I care to admit. Same thing—knocking felt like stepping into traffic.”
A flicker of something passed between them—recognition, maybe, or just the relief of being seen. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed steadily now, no longer flickering like a warning signal. Somewhere in the building, a door clicked shut. Distant voices murmured, muffled through walls.
“You ever feel like you’re just… performing calm?” Mateo asked, eyes fixed on a crack in the linoleum where someone had once dropped something heavy. “Like everyone else has the manual and you’re just guessing the steps?”
Daniel nodded. “All the time. But right now? I don’t feel like I’m performing. I just… am.”
They stood there for a moment longer, two people sharing space in a hallway that no longer felt like a threshold to something dangerous, but simply a place where they happened to be. The panic hadn’t disappeared—it had just changed shape, become something they could carry together instead of alone.
When Mateo finally turned toward the door, Daniel didn’t move to follow. Instead, he said, “Whatever’s in there—you don’t have to face it alone.”
Mateo paused, hand on the knob. “Thanks. Same to you.”
And then they opened the door and stepped through, leaving Daniel standing in the hallway, breathing slow and deep, the echo of their shared quiet settling into his bones like a promise.
Daniel stood alone in the hallway for exactly three breaths—four in, six out—then pushed through the door Mateo had opened.
The room beyond was softly lit, not with harsh fluorescents but with warm lamps tucked into corners. A circle of chairs faced inward, some occupied, some empty. People sat with hands folded in laps or gripping water bottles, eyes downcast or wandering. The air smelled faintly of lavender and old carpet.
Mateo was already seated in an empty chair near the door, shoulders hunched but gaze lifted as Daniel entered. Their eyes met—a quick flicker of recognition, then Mateo gave the smallest nod toward the chair beside them.
Daniel crossed the room, feeling the eyes of others lift briefly before returning inward. He sat. The chair was firm but not uncomfortable. He placed his hands on his knees, feeling the fabric of his pants under his palms.
A woman with silver hair tied in a loose braid cleared her throat softly from across the circle. “We were just about to begin. Would anyone like to share what brought them here today?”
Silence stretched, thick but not hostile. Daniel felt his old impulse to speak first, to fill the quiet with something—anything—to prove he belonged. But then he remembered Mateo’s hand on the doorknob, the whispered “I’m scared too.”
Instead of speaking, he turned his head slightly and caught Mateo’s eye again. Mateo gave a barely perceptible shake of their head—not yet—and turned forward, resting their elbows on their knees, fingers laced together.
The woman waited, patient. Then, from the chair opposite, a man with a tremor in his left hand spoke, voice rough: “I… I haven’t left my apartment in eleven days. Not for groceries. Not for mail. Just… couldn’t make myself cross the threshold.”
Others nodded. Soft murmurs of agreement.
Daniel felt something loosen in his chest—not gone, but shifted. He wasn’t here to perform calm. He was here because the threshold had finally felt crossable, shared.
He opened his mouth. The words came quieter than he expected, but clear: “I’ve been avoiding this room for three months. Today… today I realized I didn’t have to do it alone.”
Across the circle, Mateo turned their head just enough to smile—small, tired, real. And for the first time since stepping into the hallway, Daniel didn’t count his breaths. He just let them happen.
To Be Continued…