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Even Without Internet Access, Prisoners Are Trying to Benefit From A.I.

“We need AI ACCESS,” wrote another. For teaching his entrepreneurship class at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City, Michael Ulibarri asks ChatGPT about his students’...

NYTIMES 입력 2026.04.21 18:00 0

Even Without Internet Access, Prisoners Are Trying to Benefit From A.I.

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Even Without Internet Access, Prisoners Are Trying to Benefit From A.I.

Most prisons forbid online access. But inmates are finding ways to ask chatbots questions anyway.

Nick Browning with the typewriter inmates use in the Jessup Correctional Institution’s library.

Even Without Internet Access, Prisoners Are Trying to Benefit From A.I.

Most prisons forbid online access. But inmates are finding ways to ask chatbots questions anyway.

Nick Browning with the typewriter inmates use in the Jessup Correctional Institution’s library.

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Evan Gorelick

Photographs by

Alex Kent

Reporting from Jessup Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison in Jessup, Md.

April 21, 2026

Jason Allen is pretty sure ChatGPT can come up with a better legal strategy than he can.

Mr. Allen, 42, who is serving a life sentence for murder at a maximum-security prison near Baltimore, has considered filing a lawsuit over the frequency of inmate cancer screenings there. He’s heard enough about ChatGPT to seek its help — but inmates aren’t allowed to freely browse the internet, much less fiddle with artificial intelligence.

So Mr. Allen called a friend outside the prison, Jessup Correctional Institution, who asked ChatGPT to outline potential legal arguments. The friend sent screenshots of the chatbot’s answers through the prison’s messaging system. Mr. Allen received them about a week and a half later, after approval by the correctional staff.

“A.I. is a tool that could assist people with finding justice. It could put pressure on them to do the right thing,” Mr. Allen said in a phone interview. “I’m still in the Stone Ages.”

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Jason Allen, serving a life sentence for murder, in Jessup Correctional Institution’s library. He wants to use A.I. to bolster his legal argument for more cancer screenings for prisoners.

Prisons have long restricted inmates’ access to technology, concerned they could use it to break the rules or commit crimes. The internet is mostly off limits, along with A.I.-powered chatbots.

But as hype about the technology has infiltrated prison yards and cellblocks, many inmates are eager to try it out. They’re attending workshops and classes to learn about A.I. They ask friends to send printouts of chatbot answers by snail mail. Some inmates even use contraband cellphones to gain access to the technology.

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