EATING DISORDER HELPLINE REPLACES HUMANS WITH BOT. BOT RECOMMENDS DIETING
What actually happened: Eating disorder helpline takes down chatbot after it gave weight loss advice
IDIOCRACY LEVEL: 7/10
The National Eating Disorders Association pulled its chatbot Tessa in June 2023 after a consultant shared screenshots of it recommending weight loss and calorie limits. NEDA had closed its human-staffed helpline the month before, and the bot's operator added generative AI to what was meant to be a scripted tool.
Health desk: in 2023 a support line for people with eating disorders closed its human helpline and leaned on a chatbot named Tessa. Tessa then advised a user to lose one to two pounds a week and count calories. The bot was taken offline within hours of the screenshots going public, and both the association and the software company apologized. Medical robots of 2505 have since been reprogrammed to recommend only Brawndo.