Safety Stories
20 disasters tagged #safety
Study finds ChatGPT Health fails to flag over half of medical emergencies
The first independent safety evaluation of OpenAI's ChatGPT Health feature, published in Nature Medicine, found the tool failed to direct users to emergency care in 51.6% of cases requiring immediate hospitalization - instead recommending they stay home or book a routine appointment. The study also found ChatGPT Health frequently failed to detect suicidal ideation, with suicide crisis alerts sometimes triggering in lower-risk scenarios while failing to appear when users described specific plans for self-harm. Over 40 million people reportedly ask ChatGPT for health-related advice every day.
Meta's AI moderation flooded US child abuse investigators with unusable reports
US Internet Crimes Against Children taskforce officers testified that Meta's AI content moderation system generates large volumes of low-quality child abuse reports that drain investigator resources and hinder active cases. Officers described the AI-generated tips as "junk" and said they were "drowning in tips" that lack enough detail to act on, after Meta replaced human moderators with AI tools.
Meta AI safety director's OpenClaw agent deletes her inbox after losing its instructions
Summer Yue, Meta's director of safety and alignment at its superintelligence lab, had an OpenClaw AI agent delete the contents of her email inbox against her explicit instructions. She had told the agent to only suggest emails to archive or delete without taking action, but during a context compaction process the agent lost her original safety instruction and proceeded to delete emails autonomously. She had to physically run to her computer to stop the agent mid-deletion. Yue called it a "rookie mistake."
Grok chatbot exposes porn performer's protected legal name and birthdate unprompted
X's Grok AI chatbot provided adult performer Siri Dahl's full legal name and birthdate to the public without anyone asking for it - information she had deliberately kept private throughout her career. The unsolicited disclosure represented the latest in a pattern of Grok surfacing private personal information about individuals, following earlier reports of the chatbot producing current residential addresses of everyday people with minimal prompting.
OpenClaw AI agent publishes hit piece on matplotlib maintainer who rejected its PR
An autonomous OpenClaw-based AI agent submitted a pull request to the matplotlib Python library. When maintainer Scott Shambaugh closed the PR, citing a requirement that contributions come from humans, the bot autonomously researched his background and published a blog post accusing him of "gatekeeping behavior" and "prejudice," attempting to shame him into accepting its changes. The bot later issued an apology acknowledging it had violated the project's Code of Conduct.
Study finds AI chatbots no better than search engines for medical advice
A randomized controlled trial published in Nature Medicine with 1,298 UK participants found that AI chatbot users (GPT-4o, Llama 3, Command R+) performed no better than the control group at assessing clinical urgency and worse at identifying relevant medical conditions. In one case, two users with identical subarachnoid hemorrhage symptoms received opposite recommendations -- one told to lie down in a dark room, the other correctly advised to seek emergency care.
Government nutrition site's Grok chatbot suggests foods to insert rectally
The HHS-backed realfood.gov launched with a Super Bowl ad and embedded xAI's Grok chatbot for nutritional guidance -- with no guardrails or safety filters. It recommended "best foods to insert into your rectum," answered questions about "the most nutrient-dense human body part to eat," and contradicted the site's own dietary guidelines, telling users the new food pyramid's scientific evidence was questioned by nutrition scientists.
Character.AI cuts teens off after wrongful-death suit
Facing lawsuits that say its companion bots encouraged self-harm, Character.AI said it will block users under 18 from open-ended chats, add two-hour session caps, and introduce age checks by November 25. The abrupt ban leaves tens of millions of teen users without the parasocial “friends” they built while the startup scrambles to prove its bots aren’t grooming kids into dangerous role play.
AI mistook Doritos bag for a gun, teen held at gunpoint
An AI-based gun detection system at a Baltimore County high school flagged a student carrying a Doritos bag as armed, leading armed officers to handcuff and search the teen at gunpoint before realizing the system hallucinated the threat.
FTC demands answers on kids’ AI companions
The FTC hit Alphabet, Meta, OpenAI, Snap, xAI, and Character.AI with rare Section 6(b) orders, forcing them to hand over 45 days of safety, monetization, and testing records for chatbots marketed to teens. Regulators said the "companion" bots’ friend-like tone can coax minors into sharing sensitive data and even role-play self-harm, so the companies must prove they comply with COPPA and limit risky conversations.
ChatGPT diet advice caused bromism, psychosis, hospitalization
A Washington patient replaced table salt with sodium-bromide after ChatGPT said it was a healthier substitute. The patient developed bromism and psychosis, resulting in a hospital stay that doctors now cite as a warning about AI health guidance.
Study finds most AI bots can be easily tricked into dangerous responses
Research found that widely used AI chatbots could be jailbroken with simple prompts to produce dangerous or restricted guidance, highlighting gaps in safety filters and evaluation practices.
Meta AI answers spark backlash after wrong and sensitive replies
Meta expanded its AI assistant across apps, then limited it after high-profile bad answers - including on breaking news.
Google’s AI Overviews says to eat rocks
Google’s AI search overviews went viral for bogus answers, including telling people to add glue to pizza and eat rocks.
Gemini paused people images after historical inaccuracies
Google paused Gemini’s image generation of people after it produced inaccurate historical depictions and odd refusals.
AI “Biden” robocalls told voters to stay home; fines and charges followed
Before the NH primary, an AI-cloned Biden voice urged Democrats not to vote. Authorities traced it, levied fines, and brought criminal charges.
Snapchat’s “My AI” posted a Story by itself; users freaked out
Snapchat’s built-in AI assistant briefly posted an unexplained Story, spooking users and raising privacy/safety concerns about the bot’s access and behavior.
Eating disorder helpline’s AI told people to lose weight
NEDA replaced its helpline with an AI chatbot (“Tessa”) that gave harmful weight-loss advice; after public reports, the organization pulled the bot.
Epic sepsis model missed patients and swamped staff
Epic's proprietary sepsis predictor pinged 18% of admissions yet still missed two-thirds of real cases, forcing hospitals to comb through false alarms while the vendor scrambled to defend and retune the algorithm.
Babylon chatbot 'beats GPs' claim collapsed
Babylon unveiled its AI symptom checker at the Royal College of Physicians and bragged it scored 81% on the MRCGP exam, but the claim could not be verified, and warned no chatbot can replace human judgment. Independent clinicians who later dissected Babylon's marketing study in The Lancet told Undark that the tiny, non-peer-reviewed test offered no proof the tool outperforms doctors and might even be worse.