ChatGPT’s Diet Tips Blamed for Rare Poisoning in 60-Year-Old Man

The patient had developed a bromide-induced neurotoxicity, a condition once prevalent in the early 20th century.
ChatGPT’s Diet Tips Blamed for Rare Poisoning in 60-Year-Old Man
The ChatGPT app is displayed on an iPhone in New York on May 18, 2023. The Canadian Press/AP, Richard Drew
Bill Pan
Bill Pan
Reporter
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Medical researchers are urging the public to use caution when seeking health advice from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, after a man developed a rare neurotoxic condition following a conversation with ChatGPT about removing table salt from his diet.

In a case documented by physicians at the University of Washington and published on Aug. 5 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a 60-year-old man was diagnosed with bromism, a toxic reaction to bromide so severe that doctors placed him on an involuntary psychiatric hold.