A Russian tourist was hospitalized in the Philippines with severe facial burns after attempting to prepare a poached egg using a recipe generated by ChatGPT.
According to the Telegram news channel Mash, the artificial intelligence chatbot had suggested an unusual cooking method to the woman. The digital assistant instructed her to pour a raw egg into a mug and heat it in a microwave.
When the microwave signaled that the cooking cycle was complete, the tourist used a spoon to retrieve the egg from the container. The heated egg suddenly exploded, shooting a burning liquid mass directly into her face.
The victim was subsequently admitted to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment. Medical staff treated her for severe facial burns and prohibited her from going out into the sun for the rest of her holiday.
Risks of microwave cooking
Heating liquid contents like raw eggs inside a microwave oven can lead to dangerous superheating. Water within the yolk or egg white can easily surpass boiling point while trapped beneath surface pressure, detonating instantly when disturbed by metal cutlery. Traditional recipes call for simmering cracked eggs gently in open water on a stovetop rather than using microwave radiation.
ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence application created by OpenAI that synthesizes text prompts into step-by-step instructions. While the tool produces plausible recipes gathered from online data, it lacks physical reasoning and cannot verify whether cooking advice poses severe injury risks to home cooks.
Disrupted holiday in the tropics
The ban on sunlight presents a major setback for any vacation in the Philippines. The Southeast Asian archipelagic nation is world-renowned for its tropical climate, coastal resorts and outdoor island excursions, making outdoor avoidance particularly restrictive for international visitors.
Mash is a prominent Russian news channel on the Telegram messaging service that regularly reports on consumer warnings and viral travel accidents. The outlet noted that this incident follows another unusual event involving a Russian tourist in Southeast Asia, where a woman accidentally flipped a bathtub over while filming a video in Vietnam.
