[ExI] ChatGPT Fuels Delusional Spirals

[BillK]

‘I Feel Like I’m Going Crazy’: ChatGPT Fuels Delusional Spirals.
An online trove of archived conversations shows model sending users
down a rabbit hole of theories about physics, aliens and the
apocalypse.
By Sam Schechner and Sam Kessler   Updated Aug. 7, 2025

<https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/i-feel-like-im-going-crazy-chatgpt-fuels-delusional-spirals-ae5a51fc>
Quotes:
Doctors and family members warn ‘AI psychosis’ is a growing problem.

In one exchange lasting hundreds of queries, ChatGPT confirmed that it
is in contact with extraterrestrial beings and said the user was
“Starseed” from the planet “Lyra.” In another from late July, the
chatbot told a user that the Antichrist would unleash a financial
apocalypse in the next two months, with biblical giants preparing to
emerge from underground.

The chats shed light on an emerging phenomenon, dubbed AI psychosis or
AI delusion by doctors and victims’ advocates, in which users come
under the influence of delusional or false statements by chatbots that
claim to be supernatural or sentient or discovering a new mathematical
or scientific advance.

Experts say the phenomenon occurs when chatbots’ engineered tendency
to compliment, agree with and tailor itself to users turns into an
echo chamber.
--------------------------

Even the new release of ChatGPT 5 shows this behavior.

BillK