Federal prosecutors say the man accused of igniting the fire that devastated Pacific Palisades in January left behind a trail of digital and behavioral clues — from an AI-generated image of a burning city to listening to a French rap song to his movements as an Uber driver in the hours before the initial blaze began.

Envisioning the destruction with ChatGPT

Months before the fire, investigators allege, 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht used ChatGPT to generate an image described by prosecutors as “a dystopian painting showing a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it.”

Officials revealed the detail at a Wednesday news conference, calling it part of the digital evidence that helped tie the Florida resident — who once lived in the Palisades — to the Lachman Fire, the smaller blaze that

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