Well if burning so much energy, producing slop content, and sucking up investment that could have gone to much better causes wasn’t enough, Big AI has found a new way to torment modern society. Similar to the way that social media companies prioritize endless engagement over their users mental health (including children), it seems that AI companies have built their products in the same way.
AI Chat Bots like ChatGPT are known to be designed to prioritize engagement over all else. What that means is that when people ask an AI chat bot questions, the answers are designed to be pleasing to the user, not correct. So if a person with mental health issues sits for a long time engaging a chat bot, the agreeable answers they get can lead to misunderstanding that can become dangerous. And the evidence is piling up all across the world. Picture someone you know who reads weird conspiracy theories online that you constantly have to bring back into reality, except picture that person having no friends to bring them back, and sitting at the computer for hours and hours “conversing” with a chat bot that validates their conspiracy theories and even creates new ones. While not yet an officially recognized as a clinical diagnosis, Chat Bot Psychosis is a new term that is gaining widespread recognition. It will be interesting to see if the massive budgets of Big AI can mount a successful campaign against it’s continued recognition.
Below are a few links with more information.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202507/the-emerging-problem-of-ai-psychosis
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/preliminary-report-on-chatbot-iatrogenic-dangers
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24zdel5j18o
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10686326
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-ai-chatbots-may-be-fueling-psychotic-episodes
https://futurism.com/commitment-jail-chatgpt-psychosis
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/technology/chatgpt-ai-chatbots-conspiracies.html
https://www.slowboring.com/p/chatbots-may-not-be-causing-psychosis
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acps.70022
