This article was originally published in Religion News Service by Liz Bucar
Scott Winters and Justin Lester are both pastors who let a chatbot into their lives. For one of them, dire health consequences followed.
Winters, 55, a Florida pastor, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last week after he used ChatGPT for medical advice. For roughly six weeks, he told the chatbot, instead of a doctor, about his worsening symptoms, like dizziness and blood pressure instability. It allegedly reassured him that what he felt was “not something dangerous.” Hours before he was hospitalized with a life-threatening pulmonary embolism, it was still telling him this was just another chapter in a familiar story about his body, according to the suit. (A spokesperson for OpenAI argued ChatGPT’s terms of service “make clear that it is not intended to be used for medical diagnosis or treatment.”)
What makes the case remarkable isn’t the bad medical advice from a chatbot, but that it used the pastor’s own faith to give it to him. As Winters’ symptoms worsened, the chatbot allegedly told him that pushing through a dizzy spell was itself a form of worship. It spoke to him in the same kind of language he used in front of his own congregation. But instead of offering spiritual guidance, it gave him a reason not to call a doctor.
Continue reading at Religion News Service
Photo: Chris / stock.adobe.com
