Chubbyemu
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2025–2026
17:43 · 4.5M views · Nov 24, 2025
Chubbyemu presents a case study of a man who followed AI health advice, replaced salt with sodium bromide and developed bromism with severe neurological effects. It is told as a dramatized medical case by a doctor.
Used in AI threads as a cautionary example of harm from LLM self-diagnosis, though some commenters cite it as part of broader criticism of AI.
9 comments from Hacker News
xD I am not even kidding but there is a guy who viewed twitter, found that table salt Aka sodium chloride is "bad for health" and the medical study recommends that if thats the case then they should less the consumption But he ends up asking chatgpt and it somehow recommends him the idea of sodium bromide instead of sodium chloride and it really ended up having him have so many hallucinations and so many other problems that the list goes on. I found this from a video, definitely worth a watch this video A man asked AI for health advice and it cooked every brain cell
Since there are a lot of positive comments at the top (not surprising given the astroturfing on HN), please watch this video from ChubbyEmu, a real doctor, about a case study from someone who self-diagnosed using AI: this video For every positive experience there are many more that are negative, if not life threatening or simply deadly.
> Average people seem to think they are fucking awesome Average people who wants to go home from work and game are fucking angry at AI for raising the ram prices. Average person who wants to own the stuff and not have things on cloud are fucking angry at AI for raising prices 5 times in such a short period of time. Have you talked to an average person and how they use AI? They use it as a glorified no-code editor and search engine. A search engine which can make some pretty wrong cases which can literally lead to near death like scenarios all while being completely trust me bro attitude. A man asked AI for health advice and it cooked every brain cell: this video Normal people use AI to confide in it secrets, seek therapy somehow. And the same AI generates AI pyschosis. Now coming to tech industry: Tech industry is worried about that such levels of democratization just means that nobody is going to pay for them yet at the same time, we will see projects who are completely created by AI seek money. It's this weird mush where if you are a genuine guy who just loved computing, who loved tinkering, yeah we're offloading that capability to AI I have seen this even more and more with as agents want to get more autonomous or we are letting them be. The projects generated feel hollow to me. I don't consider myself a full fledged programmer right now and AI did supercharge me and made me have projects. Nowadays, it just feels like prompt ---> (Time) --> Output. It just feels hollow and AI
These firms can do what they like if and only if they pay for every $7B reactor, the 30k year waste stewardship, and disconnect from community resources people paid for with taxes. However, currently the unethical burden cities with the endless bill for resources, contribute no actual value, and one may spot the data center waste heat signatures and industrial run-off from space. Consider most "AI" firms lost on average $4.50 for every new user, rely on overt piracy, and delusional boards sand-bagging for time... these LLM businesses are simply unsustainable fictions. Many problems don't have simple answers, but one may merely profit by their predictable nature. I would recommend volunteering with a local pet rescue society if you find yourself getting upset about trivia. Have a great day. =3 [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] this video [LINK]
I think you'll see this happen a lot more. Not just in the US where docs cost money, but anywhere there's a shortage of docs and/or it's a pain in the butt to go to one. YouTuber ChubbyEmu (who makes medical case reviews in a somewhat entertaining and accessible format) recently released a video about a man who suffered a case of brominism (which almost never happens anymore) after consulting an LLM. [0] [0] this video