WTF?! In another example of people putting too much blind faith into what ChatGPT tells them, a man gave himself a psychiatric disorder not commonly seen since the 19th century after taking dietary advice from the AI. All the man wanted to do was remove salt from his diet, but thanks to ChatGPT, he gave himself bromism.
The case involved a 60-year-old man who, after reading reports on the negative impact excessive amounts of sodium chloride (common table salt) can have on the body, decided to remove it from his diet.
There were plenty of articles on reducing salt intake, but he wanted it removed completely. So, he asked ChatGPT for advice, which he followed.
After being on his new diet for three months, the man admitted himself to hospital over claims that his neighbor was poisoning him.
His symptoms included new-onset facial acne and cherry angiomas, fatigue, insomnia, excessive thirst, poor coordination, and a rash. He also expressed increasing paranoia and auditory and visual hallucinations, which, after he attempted to escape, "resulted in an involuntary psychiatric hold for grave disability."
It was then discovered that when the man asked GhatGPT about substances that could replace salt, it mentioned sodium bromide. While this is an accurate statement, it relates to purposes such as cleaning – certainly not when it comes to human diets.
It's believed that the man used an older 3.5 or 4.0 ChatGPT model in his conversations. The paper's authors could not access his chat history, so they tried to recreate the responses with ChatGPT 3.5. They wrote that "Though the reply stated that context matters, it did not provide a specific health warning, nor did it inquire about why we wanted to know, as we presume a medical professional would do."
Bromism, aka chronic bromide poisoning, was most common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, roughly from the 1880s to the 1930s. It happened because bromide was widely used in sedatives, sleep aids, and even over-the-counter headache powders. At the time, they were considered safer than many alternatives, but bromide is excreted very slowly, so repeated use could lead to toxic buildup. It tends to only be seen today from industrial exposure or misuse of certain bromide-containing compounds.
Bromism was sometimes misinterpreted as alcoholism or a nervous breakdown until doctors noticed patients weren't drinking but were taking bromide-based "nerve tonics" every day. Severe cases resulted in psychosis, tremors, or even comas. Thankfully, the US government restricted the use of bromides in over-the-counter medicines in 1975.