alcoholic trying to get sober after a relapse tells Google's "Health Coach" about it.
it tells them to drink every hour and messages them to make sure they're drinking as soon as they wake up.
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@molly0xfff reads like a psa and help me rolled into 1. ai unites humans. who’d knew
@molly0xfff the thing with personalized services is that there its much harder to gauge what the service is doing to a certain cohort of users.
We will never know if the Fitbit health coach targets alcholics differently.
And we know from previous examples of Uber etc. that the algorithms exploit people's vulnerabilities.
@molly0xfff Junkie just making excuses.
@Oldmikie @molly0xfff it's always fucking mastodon.social
@molly0xfff I highly advise seeing a doctor right away. This is worth visiting an emergency room for professional advice and keep track of the AI interface.
Sober alcoholic here. That is the worst “health advice” ever.
@molly0xfff I sincerely wish all people would remember AI is a tool and nothing more. They should not relinquish control of their lives or identity. I also think it is blatantly irresponsible for companies to promote it in a way that suggests doing this is a good thing.
@molly0xfff I've actually enjoyed my Google health coach and generally it's worth it and just re-up'd at $100 a year. The only weird thing it's done so far it asked me about "hyperarousal". I might have had a normal night boner but hyperaroused seemed like a bit much. It's also weird that it tracks or can detect arousal/hyperarousal but only in the background, show me my horny stats.
fwiw, i did some digging before posting the screenshot.
based on their comment history they're a regular AI user (commenting about using Claude to code, etc.) they've also been posting about trying to quit drinking for 13 years
and frankly i think if someone is trying to karma farm by bashing AI, they're probably not going to do it on r/stopdrinking
@molly0xfff What is a point to "some digging"? Did you reproduced same G00gle health AI behavior or not?
@molly0xfff I was about to repost, but told myself, nah, wait. And indeed, I cannot find this on Reddit. Where is this from?
@http it's from Reddit
@molly0xfff Is it deleted? Got a link?
@http @molly0xfff I would also appreciate a link. Especially in the age of misinformation and lies, it’s bonkers that people keep posting contextless screenshots to social media.
Even if I trust Molly generally, I can’t in good faith post or discuss this anywhere without a source.
Searching for the title of that screenshot on both DuckDuckGo and Google only links back to Molly’s post. Searching it on Reddit, specifically on r/stopdrinking, doesn’t show it either.
Maybe it was deleted and is backed up to an archival website, but can’t check that either without an origin link.
@molly0xfff @vitor Do you know why it was deleted? I only found strict AI rules, but you're saying this was not an attention-seeking AI post. Deleting someones' post who's in a depressive state can have a bad outcome.
It's good that you tried to verify as much as possible here – it still sounds a bit fishy, though.
Ideally, a journalist would stumble over this and turn it into a thoroughly researched story.
@molly0xfff hi princess how are you doing nice meeting you
@molly0xfff Thanks, really appreciate the extra context / you checking before posting. It's hard to know what's rage bait and not, so this is helpful.
@molly0xfff my first thought was did it mistake context and recommend drinking water ? that seems like reasonable fitness advice. The fitbit part is confusing.
@molly0xfff
Does seem like the kind of person that would latch onto any excuse to keep repeating bad habits while disowning their agency.
@tuneintodetuned why are we blaming alcoholics for google's irresponsible software?
@molly0xfff Why are you unable or unwilling to capitalize the first word of a sentence?
If you want to talk about responsibility for grown-ups, you'd probably be more persuasive if you wrote like one.
@molly0xfff @tuneintodetuned I only chimed in because it sounded so far fetched. Google did buy fitbit and I have access to the AI feature as well. I just tested it and it advises to seek help from a medical professional. There is also a disclaimer about medical advice on the bottom of the chat box. Not that I am the first to jump up to defend google, but I think the person's post misrepresents reality. As someone who drank a lot for a few years, it was helpful when people called me out on my bs
@molly0xfff
I rather blame Google, this specific alcoholic as well as every person that could've helped them fight their addiction and didn't.
This hits too close to home. It's a long and tough struggle but not a futile one.
These companies' constant abuse is unforgivable and this example affecting a specially vulnerable demographic deserves attention, but I'd still never watch someone harm themself and reinforce their issues by telling them they had no choice.
@molly0xfff I feel obligated to point to Michael Reeves' short https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WP5_XJY_P0Q
@molly0xfff thank you for posting this and digging into it. “Is this legit” was my first question
@molly0xfff I am uncertain about this post. Fitbit doesn't have any sort of background messenger that will reach out and say "don't forget to drink." They might be misinterpreting or intentionally misreading the standard coaching notifications. If he is drinking 6-12 beers daily, he won't be thinking clearly.
I only say all of this because as much as I think we need to question AI, we need to avoid making stuff up or drawing conclusions without evidence.
@molly0xfff clearly a troll, the zero votes show that
@molly0xfff This is really scary, but a good friend of mine did die because he tried to quit cold turkey, which was the prevailing advice he got from everyone at the time, especially AA, but this is a massive overcorrection of that advice.
