The Problem with Dr. Sarah Chen

How a Fictional Character Became an Internationally Recognized Expert in Everything

Fictional character generated with Nano Banana

One of the persistent frustrations of using large language model assistance in academic and non-fiction writing is the models’ tendency to fabricate real-world examples in an attempt to make challenging concepts more approachable to readers. This habit is particularly pronounced when writing for professional audiences rather than academic ones, as professionals often expect abstract concepts to be grounded in concrete, real-world applications. The models seem to understand this expectation and respond by generating what appear to be case studies, success stories, and expert testimonials. There are numerous problems with this tendency, not least of which is that these examples are almost always presented as genuine real-world cases despite being entirely fabricated by the model.

More intriguing than the mere fact of these hallucinations, however, is their remarkable consistency. The same characters appear repeatedly, featuring the same names and occupying the same professional roles across entirely different contexts and documents. Personally, I use Claude for writing assistance, including for my latest book “The Detection Deception.” I do this openly, as I strongly believe that transparency about AI assistance is essential. Through my extensive use of Claude across various writing projects, I’ve noticed one particular individual appearing with almost comical frequency in the model’s suggested examples and illustrations.

Her name is Dr. Sarah Chen.

Dr. Chen, as Claude would have me believe, is an expert in her field, usually world-renowned or at minimum at the pinnacle of her discipline. Her expertise spans numerous areas but tends to concentrate in engineering and mathematics, the STEM disciplines. She has conducted groundbreaking research, led innovative teams, and solved complex problems that perfectly illustrate whatever point I happen to be making at that moment.

It is this remarkable consistency in fabricating stories about one Sarah Chen that triggered my curiosity. What follows is an investigation into this phenomenon, an exploration of why certain names become the default personas for AI-generated examples, and what this reveals about the nature of large language models and their role in contemporary writing.