Chris Trottier on Nostr: I’m genuinely fascinated by this whole phenomenon of AI-induced psychosis. There ...
I’m genuinely fascinated by this whole phenomenon of AI-induced psychosis.
There are a few things I can’t wrap my head around. First, how some people don’t perceive that ChatGPT is, for all practical purposes, a machine. And second, why talking to a machine would cause anyone to lose their grip on reality.
To be clear, I’m not making light of this. And I’m definitely not calling anyone “stupid.” A close family member of mine went into a delusional psychosis once, and it was the single scariest experience of my life. So I take this seriously.
But I still don’t understand it. Is this a media-literacy problem? A misunderstanding of how the media stack works? A search for validation? For companionship? Something else entirely?
It’s also pretty obvious that this is what happens when companies roll out tech without fully stress-testing it. My suspicion is that OpenAI pushed for higher adoption by making ChatGPT more “human” instead of sharpening its technical accuracy.
And maybe the bigger problem is the branding. We shouldn’t be calling this “intelligence.” It isn’t intelligence in the way humans use the word. At the end of the day, ChatGPT is an extremely good stochastic parrot. Useful, absolutely. But “intelligent” in the human sense? Not even close.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/23/chatgpt-told-them-they-were-special-their-families-say-it-led-to-tragedy/Published at
2025-11-24 02:28:38 CETEvent JSON
{
"id": "1418741f65e4d0cf3e12c26fc72b8e1ed36dd583c000be4ecb6527a8aa26097e",
"pubkey": "c94cb21f2e753dd8cc2c5313fa633fa6bd86bed582c1c397bdd7dfc9b6cf08cf",
"created_at": 1763947718,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://atomicpoet.org/objects/2d5cf2b0-46c3-419a-9894-bea641b4b654",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://atomicpoet.org/objects/2d5cf2b0-46c3-419a-9894-bea641b4b654",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "I’m genuinely fascinated by this whole phenomenon of AI-induced psychosis.\n\nThere are a few things I can’t wrap my head around. First, how some people don’t perceive that ChatGPT is, for all practical purposes, a machine. And second, why talking to a machine would cause anyone to lose their grip on reality.\n\nTo be clear, I’m not making light of this. And I’m definitely not calling anyone “stupid.” A close family member of mine went into a delusional psychosis once, and it was the single scariest experience of my life. So I take this seriously.\n\nBut I still don’t understand it. Is this a media-literacy problem? A misunderstanding of how the media stack works? A search for validation? For companionship? Something else entirely?\n\nIt’s also pretty obvious that this is what happens when companies roll out tech without fully stress-testing it. My suspicion is that OpenAI pushed for higher adoption by making ChatGPT more “human” instead of sharpening its technical accuracy.\n\nAnd maybe the bigger problem is the branding. We shouldn’t be calling this “intelligence.” It isn’t intelligence in the way humans use the word. At the end of the day, ChatGPT is an extremely good stochastic parrot. Useful, absolutely. But “intelligent” in the human sense? Not even close.\n\nhttps://techcrunch.com/2025/11/23/chatgpt-told-them-they-were-special-their-families-say-it-led-to-tragedy/",
"sig": "2bf9c7739f7fa787d74a69c8bdcd7ea2cab5c43ff4967a07927a7430925fa5653e29f885061694e68ea428ef83715c90bdd48f53d2a91494f7c55c2cdd3ecb35"
}