ChatGPT ‘reads’ too much into husband's coffee cup; woman files for divorce

Taking the belief in viral trends a notch higher, a woman, mother of 2, divorced her husband of 12 years because ChatGPT allegedly said he was cheating on her.

In a bizarre case reported by the Greek Times, a woman decided to test an old-time tradition using the latest technology—she asked generative artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, to "read" her husband's coffee cup.

The art of reading a Greek coffee cup, i.e. interpreting the coffee grounds, is an age-old art known as tasseography. But to fit the modern era, the woman used a picture of her husband's cup and asked ChatGPT to give it a go.

However, she was not ready for the answer the AI bot had for her, and had immediately initiated the divorce proceedings.

Here's what ChatGPT said:

ChatGPT allegedly told the Greek woman that her husband was having an affair with a younger woman who was determined to tear their family apart.

The bewildered husband, who appeared on the Greek morning show To Proino, shared that his wife often gets into trendy things.

“A few years ago, she visited an astrologer and it took a whole year for her to accept that none of it was real,” he said.

Talking about the AI's mystical reading, the man said, “One day, she made us Greek coffee and thought it would be fun to take pictures of the cups and have ChatGPT ‘read’ them.”

He shared that according to the AI chatbot, the husband's cup revealed a mysterious woman with the initial “E” that he was supposedly fantasising about — and with whom he was destined to begin a relationship.

However, he said, his wife’s cup painted a much darker picture.

Reading the woman's cup, ChatGPT said that her husband was already cheating and the “other woman” wanted to destroy their home.

“I laughed it off as nonsense,” the husband said. “But she took it seriously."

The woman asked her husband to leave and told their kids that they were getting divorced. “Then I got a call from a lawyer. That’s when I realised this wasn’t just a phase,” he said.

Can ChatGPT's reading be a valid reason to divorce in court?

The man said that the claims made by an AI chatbot have no legal standing, according to his lawyer.

The lawyer stressed that the husband is “innocent until proven otherwise.”

Could ChatGPT's reading be right?

Greek Times asked seasoned coffee readers to weigh in on the matter and learned that real tasseography involves much more than just the coffee grounds – Skilled practitioners also analyse the foam and the coffee saucer.