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The dangerous ChatGPT advice that landed a 60-year-old man in the hospital with hallucinations
New York Post ^ | Aug. 11, 2025 | Reda Wigle

Posted on 08/11/2025 12:25:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway

A 60-year-old man was hospitalized with severe psychiatric symptoms — plus some physical ones too, including intense thirst and coordination issues — after asking ChatGPT for tips on how to improve his diet. What he thought was a healthy swap ended in a toxic reaction so severe that doctors put him on an involuntary psychiatric hold.

After reading about the adverse health effects of table salt — which has the chemical name sodium chloride — the unidentified man consulted ChatGPT and was told that it could be swapped with sodium bromide. Sodium bromide looks similar to table salt, but it’s an entirely different compound. While it’s occasionally used in medicine, it’s most commonly used for industrial and cleaning purposes — which is what experts believe ChatGPT was referring to.

Having studied nutrition in college, the man was inspired to conduct an experiment in which he eliminated sodium chloride from his diet and replaced it with sodium bromide he purchased online. Though he had no previous psychiatric history, after 24 hours of hospitalization, he became increasingly paranoid and reported both auditory and visual hallucinations.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Food; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: ai; bromide; bromidepoisoning; bromism; chatgpt; danger; darwinianselection; electrolytes; experiment; hallucination; hallucinations; health; monkeyseemonkeydo; nutrition; poison; poisoning; sodiumbromide; sodiumchloride; tablesalt
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To: I want the USA back
No, they were already stupid.

20,000 years ago they would have already died because they wanted to play with the pretty tiger cubs.

Now days it is a bit harder for stupidity to kill you but it will get you in the end.

21 posted on 08/11/2025 1:06:41 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)
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To: PGR88

My friend asked Grok about a scene from a movie and Grok said it didn’t exist, even though it did. And it refused to back down about it, so he never used Grok again.


22 posted on 08/11/2025 1:07:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

The same thing will happen if you take a lot of iodine.


23 posted on 08/11/2025 1:09:50 PM PDT by TTFX
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To: nickcarraway

Idiots get that name for a reason.


24 posted on 08/11/2025 1:49:55 PM PDT by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: nickcarraway

AI is programmed by humans. Nuff said. Draw your own conclusions.


25 posted on 08/11/2025 2:04:15 PM PDT by Bobbyvotes (TERM LIMITS is the ONLY WAY to get rid of corrupt career politicians. )
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To: nickcarraway

Did the hospital keep letting him eat the bromide?


26 posted on 08/11/2025 3:06:59 PM PDT by desertsolitaire
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To: nickcarraway

AI “learns” from all the crap idiots post online. I remember the old programming saying - “Garbage in, garbage out” - well that’s what AI is eating. I’d rather talk to human idiots - at least I can point and laugh at them.


27 posted on 08/11/2025 6:40:21 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite its unfashionability)
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To: Jamestown1630

Most spa chemicals have endless warnings that take up more than half the label.

Bottom line—none should be ingested.


28 posted on 08/11/2025 6:46:34 PM PDT by cgbg (It was not us. It was them--all along.)
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To: nickcarraway
Bromides used to be given as medicaments, but the government took them off the market in 1975. Bromo-Seltzer had to take the bromides out.


29 posted on 08/11/2025 6:58:35 PM PDT by x
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To: nickcarraway

Good thing AI didn’t recommend sodium cyanide…


30 posted on 08/11/2025 7:15:39 PM PDT by Pilsner
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To: nickcarraway

Reddit is a big source of training data for large language models.

AI is good for natural language processing and machine vision.

Otherwise it is a toy


31 posted on 08/11/2025 7:20:51 PM PDT by 13foxtrot
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To: Jamestown1630
Doesn’t sodium bromide carry some kind of warning?

Likely enough, but people have become so used to bromides that they ignore them...

32 posted on 08/11/2025 9:06:17 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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