[everforward]

Mens rea. Typing that into a word processor is obviously not using the false pretext to gain anything. Doing it to Claude could be construed as an attempt to gain information, which checks some boxes for fraud and impersonation of government officials.

For reference, I think this is one of the relevant sections of the USC (18 USC 912):

Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

IANAL but I can see interpretations where telling Claude you’re the FBI would qualify. It’s probably unlikely anyone is prosecuted for it, but there’s a chance

[fluoridation]

The reason this kind of impersonation is illegal is because people are more likely to feel compelled to comply with an official and get taken advantage of, as well to preserve the authority the position (if anyone could claim to be an official with no repercussions, the claim would lose its weight, since the claimant could easily be an impersonator). If you pretend to be a government official with an LLM, the LLM is not going to have its opinion of people claiming to be government officials tainted, nor does it have access to any sensitive information that's not available by other means, nor is it possible to cheat it out of something that rightfully belongs to it.

Additionally, mens rea refers to the cognition that one is doing something wrong. It's not at all clear that lying to a person and lying to a computer program are subjectively equivalent or even similar to the liar, and given the previous paragraph I'd argue they are not. Why would someone feel guilty about doing something that can't possibly have repercussions?