

On first glance, this also looks like a case where a chatbot confirmed a person’s biases. Apparently, this patient believed that eliminating table salt from his diet would make him healthier (which, to my understanding, generally isn’t true - consuming too little or no salt could be even more dangerous than consuming too much). He was then looking for a “perfect” replacement, which, to my knowledge, doesn’t exist. ChatGPT suggested sodium bromide, possibly while mentioning that this would only be suitable for purposes such as cleaning (not as food). I guess the patient is at least partly to blame here. Nevertheless, ChatGPT seems to have supported his nonsensical idea more strongly than an internet search would have done, which in my view is one of the more dangerous flaws of current-day chatbots.
Edit: To clarify, I absolutely hate chatbots, especially the idea that they could replace search engines somehow. Yet, regarding the example above, some AI bros would probably argue that the chatbot wasn’t entirely in the wrong if it hadn’t suggested adding sodium bromide to food. Nevertheless, I would still assume that the chatbot’s sycophantic communication style significantly exacerbated the problem on hand.
Turns out I had overlooked the fact that he was specifically seeking to replace chloride rather than sodium, for whatever reason (I’m not a medical professional). If Google search (not Google AI) tells the truth, this doesn’t sound like a very common idea, though. If people turn to chatbots for questions like these (for which very little actual resources may be available), the danger could be even higher, I guess, especially if chatbots had been trained to avoid disappointing responses.