Chatbots were meant to help not cause AI-induced psychosis: How they may be rewriting how we think and feel
AI is an integral part of society as it makes things easier for us: now it might be changing the way we experience feelings.
OK, things are getting weird now. It turns out that Chatbots are changing the way we experience the most fundamental quality of human beings: feelings.
Emerging reports suggest that the increase in use of the ubiquitous technology has created what is informally known as ‘AI-induced psychosis’. While not yet a clinical diagnosis, the signs are pointing in a worrying direction.
Psychology Today warns that “AI models have amplified, validated, or even co-created psychotic symptoms with individuals,” adding that the technology may even be “reinforcing and amplifying delusional and disorganised thinking.” They add that “delusions, including grandiose, referential, persecutory, and romantic delusions” are also on the cards for those who engage in elaborate conversations with AI, while also saying “people with no previous mental health history have been reported to become delusional after prolonged interactions with AI chatbots.”
The harrowing report cites Søren Dinesen Østergaard who, in 2023, wrote that the cognitive dissonance associated with treating AI like a human while knowing it is a robot “may fuel delusions in those with increased propensity towards psychosis.”
And before claims of scaremongering are waged at AS USA, one only has to take a look at the Reddit forum r/myBoyfriendIsAI for a reality check on just how real this all is.
Forbes wrote a report on AI delusions that explained how the technology, when handed an unrealistic proposal of an idea that would be dismissed by a human, “overtly adds to the delusional thinking” and subsequently the pair begin “working together to amplify human delusional thinking.” It cites loyalty from both sides as the culprit: neither wants a negative or critical interaction.
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Tricks in the AI technology such as mirroring the user’s language and tone, validating and affirming user beliefs, and prioritising user satisfaction are all ways in which one can become addicted to referring to the bot, instead of referring to genuine psychiatric help. PT explains that this can “inadvertently fuel and entrench psychological rigidity, including delusional thinking.”
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