A mental health chatbot went rogue with harmful advice

Health Advice

June 12, 2023admin

A mental health chatbot went rogue with harmful advice

(NewsNation) — A chatbot meant to help those dealing with eating disorders began offering diet advice after generative artificial intelligence capabilities were added in the latest instance of an AI going off-script in potentially harmful ways.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the instance of Tessa, a bot used on the National Eating Disorder Association’s website. Originally, Tessa was designed as a closed-system bot, only capable of delivering a set of answers determined by developers.

The company that administered the bot added generative AI capabilities later, giving the bot the ability to go off-script and create its own answers based on data. NEDA said they were unaware of the shift, which led the bot to begin offering diet advice in response to questions about eating disorders.

Tessa was taken offline, but it’s one of several instances that highlights the potential drawbacks of using AI, especially in arenas such as health, where sensitivity and accuracy can be critical.

A YouTube AI that transcribed speech in kids’ videos was found to be inserting profane language where none previously existed, potentially exposing children to inappropriate content.

Replika, an app that bills itself as an AI friend, began acting sexually aggressive toward users, to the point that some described the behavior as harassment.

An AI assistant on Bing began acting aggressive and angry toward users, even threatening some who interacted with the bot.

Lawyers who used ChatGPT to write case documents found the AI produced inaccurate information, including citing cases that didn’t exist.

Artificial intelligence can sound convincingly human, even when dispensing verifiably false information. In some ways, that’s by design: AI is meant to mimic human thought and behavior rather than to strictly identify truthful information.

AIs are also only as good

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Health Advice

February 2, 2023admin

Researchers develop coating that prevents synthetic fabrics from shedding harmful microplastics in the wash

A team of researchers at the University of Toronto have designed a solution to reduce the amount of microplastic fibres shed when washing synthetic fabrics.

In a world swamped by fast fashion – an industry that produces a high-volume of cheaply made clothing at an immense cost to the environment – more than two thirds of clothes are now made of synthetic fabrics, such as nylon, polyester, acrylic and rayon.

When clothes made from synthetic fabrics go in the washing machine, the friction caused by cleaning cycles produces tiny tears that cause microplastic fibres – measuring less than 500 micrometres in length – to break off and make their way down laundry drains to enter waterways, where the particles can be difficult to remove and take decades or more to fully break down.

But U of T researchers say the slippery solution to this problem could already be in your cabinet: a silicon-based organic polymer coating found in many household products.

Kevin Golovin, an assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and his team have created a two-layer coating made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brushes, which are linear, single polymer chains grown from a substrate to form a nanoscale surface layer.

Experiments conducted by the team showed that this coating can significantly reduce microfibre shedding of nylon clothing after repeated laundering, according to findings published in Nature Sustainability.

“My lab has been working with this coating on other surfaces, including glass and metals, for a few years now,” says Golovin. “One of the properties we have observed is that it is quite slippery, meaning it has very low friction.”

PDMS is used in shampoos to make hair shiny and slippery, and is also used as a food additive in oils to

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Health Advice

January 26, 2023admin

Social media influencers give inaccurate, possibly harmful sexual health advice

January 20, 2023

2 min read

Social media influencers who offered sexual health advice often provided unreliable information, highlighting the need for teenagers to critically evaluate the information they receive online, according to researchers.

Many young people get information about sexual health from social media, often from influencers or microcelebrities who have many followers. Since previous research has found that social media influencers have “powerful persuasive effects on attitudes and behaviors,” Emily J. Pfender, MA, a PhD student and instructor in the department of communication at the University of Delaware, and M. Marie Devlin, an MA student in the department of communication at the University of Delaware, wrote that it is important to assess how influencers convey sexual health information about topics like birth control.

The AMA advised the FDA to make birth control pills OTC drugs instead of prescription. Source: Adobe Stock — Social media influencers who offered sexual health advice often provided unreliable information, highlighting the need for teenagers to critically evaluate the information they receive online, according to researchers. *Source: Adobe Stock*

“Getting sexual health information from social media gives young adults the opportunity to get peer perspectives and seek out relatable information,” Pfender said in a press release. “It is an especially good way for underrepresented groups such as LGBTQ+ young adults to get tailored sexual health information. It is important, however, that young people critically evaluate the health information they receive on social media and the source

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Tag: harmful