AI Psychosis Is Rarely Psychosis at All
A new trend is emerging in psychiatric hospitals. People in crisis are arriving with false, sometimes dangerous beliefs, grandiose delusions, and paranoid thoughts. A common thread connects them: marathon conversations with AI chatbots.
WIRED spoke with more than a dozen psychiatrists and researchers, who are increasingly concerned. In San Francisco, UCSF psychiatrist Keith Sakata says he has counted a dozen cases severe enough to warrant hospitalization this year, cases in which artificial intelligence “played a significant role in their psychotic episodes.” As this situation unfolds, a catchier definition has taken off in the headlines: “AI psychosis.”
Some patients insist the bots are sentient or spin new grand theories of physics. Other physicians tell of patients locked in days of back-and-forth with the tools, arriving at the hospital with thousands upon thousands of pages of transcripts detailing how the bots had supported or reinforced obviously problematic thoughts.
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