An elderly farmer in Chuzhou, China, has been following AI advice since he started using it a year ago, but after months of interactions, it recently gave some terrible advice that led to the death of his entire crop. According to Taiwanese outfit CTWANT [machine translated], 67-year-old Wu initially didn’t trust the AI app but eventually changed his mind after it proved to be useful. Unfortunately, this mistake turned out to be disastrous, as it directly caused the death of 150 mu, or 24.7 acres, of sesame seedlings.
Wu asked the AI for advice on weed and pest control, after which it came up with “Hundred Acres of Sesame Grass Control + Pest Control,” and recommended that they use “high-efficiency flupyrimethalin” and “flusulfasulfaether” to kill weeds and mixed it with “thiamethoxazine” and “methyl salt.” The farmer followed the AI’s advice to the letter without confirming the information via agricultural technicians (or even just counter-checking its answers online).
