Man loses nearly RM30k following AI-generated advice


A MAN in China lost around 50,000 yuan (RM29,231) after following business advice from an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, reported China Press. 

The man, an office worker, had asked the chatbot Doubao how to invest the 50,000 yuan he had painstakingly saved over many years. 

The AI assistant recommended that the man start an AI aggregator which provides users access to multiple large language models (LLM) on a single platform.  

It described the aggregator as a “blue ocean strategy” business which anyone can launch. 

Believing in the chatbot’s recommendation, the man spent 10,000 yuan (RM 5,846) on server equipment and 40,000 yuan (RM 23,385) on purchasing 500 pro accounts from LLM services. 

Problems arose almost immediately. His social media account on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok, got banned on the first day online.

It caused his entire business model to collapse as he had planned on using the social media platform to acquire new users as per the chatbot’s recommendations.

After sharing his story online, many Internet users pointed out that AI-generated advice may be incomplete or contain logical flaws. 

They questioned the necessity of purchasing high-end equipment and pointed out the chatbot’s shortsightedness when it came to navigating social media rules. 

Many netizens commented that the man had just wasted a large sum of money listening to AI-generated advice when a more practical solution was to carry out a pilot test as market research. 

Some netizens pointed out that the man’s failed business may present him with new opportunities as his popularity skyroc- keted online. 

The videos documenting his failure went viral online and attracted tens of millions of views on Chinese cyberspace. 

> A woman was filmed slapping an elderly man on a subway coach in Xi’an, China, after accusing him of secretly filming her, reported Sin Chew Daily. 

Video footage of the incident showed a woman in a tight-fitting grey dress grabbing hold of an elderly man while demanding that he show his photo gallery on his phone. 

“Delete or not? Delete or not?” she said, and accused the man of secretly filming her. 

She was caught on video slapping the elderly man when he refused her request. 

The Xi’an police confirmed that they received a report regarding the incident and are still investigating the case.

The incident sparked a heated discussion online, with some netizens questioning whether the man had indeed been filming the woman. 

Others pointed out that the woman may have broken the law by slapping the man. 

Some netizens criticised the other passengers on board for not stepping in to help the woman during the confrontation. 

  The above article is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with this ' >'sign, it denotes a separate news item.

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