In a bizarre mix of old traditions and cutting-edge tech, a Greek woman has reportedly filed for divorce after asking ChatGPT to “read” her husband’s Greek coffee cup — and receiving an answer she took very seriously.
The woman, married for 12 years and mother of two, turned to the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, asking it to interpret the coffee grounds in a photo of her husband’s cup — a modern twist on the age-old art of tasseography. The result? ChatGPT allegedly told her that her husband was having an affair with a younger woman who was determined to tear their family apart.
Taking the AI’s mystical reading at face value, she immediately initiated divorce proceedings.
Appearing on the Greek morning show To Proino, the bewildered husband recounted the incident. “She’s often into trendy things,” he 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.”
The result? According to the chatbot, his cup revealed a mysterious woman with the initial “E” that he was supposedly fantasizing about — and with whom he was destined to begin a relationship. His wife’s cup, on the other hand, painted a much darker picture: that he 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. She asked me to leave, told our kids we were getting divorced, and then I got a call from a lawyer. That’s when I realized this wasn’t just a phase.”
When he refused to agree to a mutual separation, he was formally served with divorce papers just three days later.
The husband also noted that this wasn’t the first time his wife had fallen under the spell of supernatural guidance. “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.
His lawyer emphasized that the claims made by an AI chatbot have no legal standing and stressed that the husband is “innocent until proven otherwise.”
Meanwhile, seasoned coffee readers have weighed in, noting that real tasseography involves much more than just the grounds — skilled practitioners also analyze the foam and the coffee saucer.