If you read the article, it appears she asked ChatGPT to tell her fortune based on the pattern of coffee grounds in her coffee cup.

Which.. sounds like she was either just looking for any excuse to divorce, or she was already divorced, from reality.

There is no story here about ChatGPT, this could have been anything. It could have been the way a dog barked, or hidden messages in the radio, which we wouldn't associate with dogs or radio.

If we are going to attempt any deeper analysis from this, it should be an analysis of what services are in place for people with mental health issues and how people can be empowered to notice signs to help their loved ones.

The coffee grounds thing is an old folk divination practice in Greece. Not saying it makes sense, but I don’t think it’s any more a sign of mental illness than believing in Jesus or something.

If ChatGPT tells you that you should divorce your husband because Jesus said so, you should be equally skeptical

A bunch of subcommunities with odd supernatural-adjacent belief systems have been completely bowled over by chatgpt. A huge amount of "chatgpt told me that i was the savior of the universe" or "chatgpt told me that such and such thing will come true." While it is true that this could have in principle been anything, the predilection of these chatbots to reflect back or generally approve of the opinions of the user is catnip to a bunch of people.

This sort of self-radicalization will only grow. I've already seen too many cases of "chatgpt told me that I am God" in weird corners of reddit.

English has the idiom "reading the tea leaves". Elsewhere in Europe it's "reading the coffee grounds", eg. "kahvinporoista katsominen" in Finnish.