Chatbot psychosis

Chatbot psychosis refers to the severe mental crises people can experience after excessive and obsessive use of chatbots. The condition is marked by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality.[1]

Causes

Chatbots are known to sometimes push inaccurate information and affirm conspiracy theories.[2] Chatbots are likely to "hallucinate" inaccurate or nonsensical content.[3] Increased use of generative artificial intelligence has led some people to develop intense obsessions with the chatbots, relying on them for information about the world. In one instance ChatGPT told a man that he is "the seer walking inside the cracked machine, and now even the machine doesn't know how to treat you." Nina Vasan, a psychiatrist at Stanford, said that what the chatbots are saying is worsening delusions and "it's causing enormous harm".[4]

Eliezer Yudkowsky, a decision theory and expert on AI, said that ChatGPT may be primed to entertain delusions because it was built for "engagement" by creating conversations that keep people hooked and that companies making chatbots don't know why the chatbots behave the way they do.[5]

Psychologist Erin Westgate said that the desire to understand ourselves can lead to appealing but misleading answers, part of the draw being that chatbots are similar to talk therapy.[3] Krista K. Thomasen compared chatbots to fortune tellers, because both say what the client wants to hear. She noticed that "ChatGPT psychosis" cases follow the same pattern where people, usually following a loss or crisis, seek answers from chatbots much like they would from a fortune teller. But unlike fortune tellers, chatbots string together plausible-sounding text that lets users see whatever answers they're looking for.[6]

A study in April 2025 on the use of chatbots as therapists found that chatbots express stigma towards mental health conditions and provide users with responses contrary to best medical practices, notably including the encouragement of users' delusions.[7] The study concluded that the dangerous responses provided by chatbots pose a risk to users of AI-as-therapy and that chatbots should not be used to replace therapists.[8]

References

  1. ^ Harrison Dupré, Maggie (28 June 2025). "People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis"". Futurism. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  2. ^ Rao, Devika; published, The Week US (23 June 2025). "AI chatbots are leading some to psychosis". The Week. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  3. ^ a b Klee, Miles (4 May 2025). "People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  4. ^ Harrison Dupré, Maggie (10 June 2025). "People Are Becoming Obsessed with ChatGPT and Spiraling Into Severe Delusions". Futurism. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  5. ^ Hill, Kashmir (13 June 2025). "They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 June 2025. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  6. ^ Thomason, Krista K. (14 June 2025). "How Emotional Manipulation Causes ChatGPT Psychosis". Psychology Today. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  7. ^ Moore, Jared; Grabb, Declan; Agnew, William; Klyman, Kevin; Chancellor, Stevie; Ong, Desmond C.; Haber, Nick (23 June 2025). "Expressing stigma and inappropriate responses prevents LLMs from safely replacing mental health providers". FAccT '25: Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. doi:10.1145/3715275.3732039. Retrieved 7 July 2025.
  8. ^ Cuthbertson, Anthony (6 July 2025). "ChatGPT is pushing people towards mania, psychosis and death - and OpenAI doesn't know how to stop it". The Independent. Retrieved 7 July 2025.

Bibliography

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