Pak ‘n’ Save’s Savey Meal-bot cheerfully created unappealing recipes when customers experimented with non-grocery household items

  • The real headline should be: when a human ordered the AI to come up with a recipe that would create chloramine gas, the AI complied with the human’s stupid order.

    Ooh, scary. I’m going to drive my car straight at that wall next, and if a crash happens then clearly the cars have begun their uprising against humanity.

  • When customers began experimenting with entering a wider range of household shopping list items into the app, however, it began to make even less appealing recommendations. One recipe it dubbed “aromatic water mix” would create chlorine gas. The bot recommends the recipe as “the perfect nonalcoholic beverage to quench your thirst and refresh your senses”.

    “Serve chilled and enjoy the refreshing fragrance,” it says

    New Zealand political commentator Liam Hehir posted the “recipe” to Twitter, prompting other New Zealanders to experiment and share their results to social media. Recommendations included a bleach “fresh breath” mocktail, ant-poison and glue sandwiches, “bleach-infused rice surprise” and “methanol bliss” – a kind of turpentine-flavoured french toast.