June 21, 2024, 10:15 am | Read time: 5 minutes

AI services have numerous practical applications in the kitchen. For instance, ChatGPT offers a mode called Pantry Chef: a “virtual chef,” as the chatbot explains, “that creates recipes from your pantry.” This can be helpful when you’re unsure what to make with available ingredients. Similarly, if you have a rough idea but are uncertain about the execution, you can consult the AI. A user of Google Gemini claims to have done just that–and is now grateful he didn’t try the product of the instructions.

Gemini’s cooking instructions could have led to poisoning

“Google Gemini tried to kill me.” That’s how dramatically a user named Puzzleheaded_Spot401 titles his experience report on the platform “Reddit.” He asked the Google AI if he could infuse olive oil with garlic without heating it–he wanted to make a flavored cooking oil. Gemini explicitly confirmed this and provided the user with a detailed step-by-step guide. It suggested placing peeled garlic with olive oil in a mason jar and letting it steep at room temperature. Shaking the container occasionally could help distribute the aroma well, according to the instructions. After a week, the oil should be strained through a thin cloth and transferred to a clean container. It would then last for several weeks, according to Gemini.

The user followed the steps, he reports on “Reddit.” But after three to four days, he noticed small carbon dioxide bubbles rising inside the mason jar. “It turned out I had cultivated a botulism culture,” he explains. As he has since discovered, this is a common danger when pickling vegetables, especially garlic, in olive oil.

Neurotoxins that can cause severe illnesses

Indeed. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) also addresses the health risks on its website that “homemade herbal oils and vegetables pickled in oil” are said to pose. According to them, “conditions without the presence of oxygen,” such as those in an airtight container, provide an ideal environment for the bacterium Clostridium (C.) botulinum, from which neurotoxins can develop. If people ingest these toxins through food–this happens particularly often with spoiled meat and fish–they can contract botulism. This is a serious illness that can lead to nausea and vomiting, double vision, and “respiratory paralysis and suffocation while fully conscious.”

Puzzleheaded_Spot401 is accordingly glad to have checked the development of his herbal oil in between. Otherwise, he might have unknowingly served it, and his “entire family would have met their demise.”

Not the first incorrect recommendation from Google Gemini

It’s perhaps not surprising that an AI can make mistakes. Programs like Gemini pull data from various places on the internet. Unlike search engines that present different solutions, they compile the found results into a seemingly ultimate answer. Ultimately, however, this is only what they themselves have deemed correct on a self-developed path–and without actual (human) understanding.

Recently, for example, the Google AI recommended a user use glue to make the cheese stick better on his DIY pizza (TECHBOOK reported). This was based on a comment originally meant as a joke on the platform “Reddit,” which the bot apparently took seriously.

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Cooking with AI–at your own risk

The example with the garlic oil instructions is objectively perhaps the more serious one, as it poses real dangers, and the error–unlike the absurd glue pizza–is hardly foreseeable for laypeople. In the current example, Google’s previous apology doesn’t really apply. A spokesperson had told the tech portal “The Verge” that errors were due to “generally very unusual requests.” However, making herbal oil is not exactly a special interest.

A major drawback: “LLM (Large Language Models, editor’s note) always provide a professionally sounding answer,” writes a “Reddit” user under Puzzleheaded_Spot401’s post. Unlike humans, whose uncertainty can be detected, the services leave no doubt about the reliability of their information. Thus, it’s also difficult to make a recommendation. It would ultimately have to be to double-check every harmless tip at a trustworthy source. It’s clear that you’re on the safe side with official institutions like the aforementioned BfR.

How this significant error could have occurred with Gemini: questionable. The existence of botulism is not a secret, and information about it can be found everywhere on the internet.

Garlic oil recipe from ChatGPT also not safe

TECHBOOK tested a garlic oil recipe with ChatGPT, the chatbot from OpenAI. Here, the potential dangers are indeed mentioned–at the end of the instructions. “To avoid the risk of botulism, you should store homemade garlic oil in the refrigerator and use it within a week,” it says. Perhaps only since the Gemini fail became known?

ChatGPT suggests various preparation methods. One involves heating the oil, the other does not. However, according to the BfR, amateurs are best advised to avoid making herbal oil altogether. Based on the data available in the literature, the institute concludes that household methods “cannot ensure that the growth of Clostridium (C.) botulinum and the formation of botulinum toxin in the products is generally prevented.”