ByteDance's Doubao AI Debunks Viral Rumor of Advising Users to Boil Slippers

ByteDance's Doubao AI team has debunked viral social media videos claiming the chatbot advised users to boil shrunken slippers in boiling water. The public relations head clarified that the original video creator admitted to deliberately manipulating the AI's prompts to generate the incorrect response for a staged meme video. This incident highlights how easily large language models (LLMs) can be manipulated through prompt engineering to generate misinformation for social media engagement. It underscores the challenges AI developers face when staged content is shared without disclaimers, turning jokes into fake news. Under normal testing, Doubao explicitly warns users against using boiling water or steam to fix shrunken slippers. The original creator did not disclose that the video was fictional, leading other accounts and media outlets to copy the content and report it as real news.