The "Jumbo Bot" was created on Twitter as a "social experiment", giving the idea that it was monitoring the evolution of prices in supermarkets in Argentina.
In doing so, it created a narrative that left Argentinians with good news about falling inflation - only it was never based on real data.
But the President of Argentina slipped up and, during an interview with an Argentine radio station, quoted the figures released by the invented "bot".
"We've gone from 5.22% to minus 4.52%. Inflation is going to collapse," said Javier Milei in the interview, showing data from "bot", proud of the drastic measures he has taken and which have been defined as a "chainsaw" policy, with massive cuts and redundancies in the Civil Service.
A few minutes after Milei's statements, the Twitter account revealed the "prank", stressing that the account is "a social experiment" and that "it has never analyzed prices, nor has any bot followed the products".
However, the profile "served one purpose: to see the need that many have to show results that reality denies them", write the authors of the prank on Twitter.
In conclusion, they note that "the bot will self-destruct in 3, 2, 1...".
But given the success of the prank, the authors of the profile have already announced that it will continue to exist.
"We've decided not to self-destruct so that this success doesn't disappear," they write in X, asking for "apologies to those who hoped for the data, including the President."
Argentina's Economy Minister Luis Caputo also cited the fake profile data in another interview. "Jumbo Bot said that price inflation in April was negative," he pointed out.
The profile also apologized to the minister, asking him not to take the matter "personally". "We repeat: it was just a social experiment," they point out.
Gas, electricity and water rise by over 200%
Figures released by the Argentine Institute of Statistics and Census for last February indicate monthly inflation of 13.2%, still the highest in the world.
In accumulated terms up to February, inflation stood at 276.2%, the highest in the country for 32 years. This is 22 percentage points up on the 254.2% recorded in January.
In recent days, the government has announced new tariffs for public services, with rises of 450% in gas, 300% in electricity and 209% in water.
Non-governmental organizations put 60% of the population at poverty levels.