Eating Disorder Helpline Pulls AI Chatbot After It Gives Users ‘Harmful’ Advice

Chatbots are most often used for low-level customer service and sales task automation, but researchers have been trying to make them perform more sophisticated tasks such as therapy. Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock

An eating disorder association took down its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot less than a week before it was set to replace its human-run helpline after discovering that it was giving “harmful” advice to users.

The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), a nonprofit that supports individuals and families affected by eating disorders, said in a May 31 Instagram post that it has pulled its chatbot, named Tessa, after discovering that it “may have given information that was harmful and unrelated to the program.”