This researcher made up a disease to test AI. It failed miserably (22 May 2026)

Summary

Have your eyes ever felt sore and itchy after spending too much time staring at a screen? You might have a condition known as bixonimania—or at least that’s what several popular AI-powered chatbots might have told you if you’d asked last year.

Millions of people around the world turn to AI chatbots for medical advice every day, often as a supplement to a doctor’s visit but also sometimes in place of it. That can lead to dangerous consequences and in rare cases, even death.

Almira Osmanovic Thunström is a researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Center for Digital Health and Chalmers Industriteknik.

She’s also the creator of bixonimania. In this interview with Scientific American, Almira says this totally made-up disease reveals some very real problems with the way we train and use large language models.