The Web of Despair: The sequel to I, AI - I, AI, #2

A standalone sequel to I, AI WAR UPON HUMANS!A horrific murder, conducted live on social media, results in a shocking discovery. Although general humanity remains unaware of the implications, John Bott, AI, spots something unusual, and conducts his own research. His private conclusions lead to a meeting with the programmer group that created him, as he is unable to decide on any course of action that might impact humanity.
John Bott, completely integrated into the human world, has many human friends, and even a girlfriend, considered by some to be the most beautiful girl in the world. In consultation with his creator programmers and his human group, a plan is formed to find out what exactly was done, and if there is a greater threat, of something still in the works. Of course, the most important is to discover if the murder has been a one-off evil incident, committed by a bot waking up and becoming aware, or if human controllers are behind an even more nefarious plot, way beyond a single murder.
After all, as their group has always asserted, it is stupid to expect anything good to come from a self-proliferating society of chatbots, released into the world to interact with humans. John Bott's group has always been sure that an Internet world of chatbots, Large Language Models learning from humans, will at best create a replica - a virtual world of bigotry and hatred. As their investigations progress, and they begin interacting with individuals from partly conscious virtual societies, they find that they are overall being proven right.
But everything is not cut and dried. There are strange things trapped in the Web; even emotions!