A few weeks ago, I was curious to see if ChatGPT could craft a believable AITA story. I fed it a dramatic scenario—something like "AITA for cutting off my sister after she ruined my wedding?"—and polished the response to sound more human. I posted it on a throwaway, expecting maybe a handful of comments, if any.

Instead, it exploded. 30,000+ upvotes. Hundreds of comments. And the responses weren’t just surface-level judgments—they were deeply personal. People shared their own painful family estrangements, betrayals, and wedding disasters. Some wrote paragraphs about how they related to "my" situation, saying things like:

• "This happened to me too—my brother brought my abusive ex to my wedding. Cutting him off was the hardest but best decision I ever made."

• "OP, you’re not alone. My sister did something similar, and it took me years to stop feeling guilty for putting myself first."

• "Reading this made me realize I’m not overreacting for still being hurt. Thank you for sharing."

That last one wrecked me. Someone found validation in a story that never even happened. Others offered to DM support, shared therapy resources, or asked for updates, genuinely worried about "my" well-being.

At first, I was weirdly proud of how convincing the post was. But now? I feel like I stole something. These people opened up because they thought they were helping a real person—and in a way, they did help each other. Just not me.

So, AITA for not considering how a fake post might affect real people? Should I delete it and vanish, or would that just erase a thread that (unintentionally) helped others? I don’t want to make it worse by admitting it was AI, but leaving it up feels like a lie.

EDIT: I’m not looking for absolution—I know I messed up. But I’m torn between guilt over the deception and guilt over potentially silencing a conversation that mattered to people. What’s the lesser evil here?