Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis"
Futurism ^ | June 28, 2025 | by Maggie Harrison Dupré

Posted on 06/28/2025 4:54:23 PM PDT by Lazamataz

As we reported earlier this month, many ChatGPT users are developing all-consuming obsessions with the chatbot, spiraling into severe mental health crises characterized by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality.

The consequences can be dire. As we heard from spouses, friends, children, and parents looking on in alarm, instances of what's being called "ChatGPT psychosis" have led to the breakup of marriages and families, the loss of jobs, and slides into homelessness.

And that's not all. As we've continued reporting, we've heard numerous troubling stories about people's loved ones being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — or even ending up in jail — after becoming fixated on the bot.

"I was just like, I don't f*cking know what to do," one woman told us. "Nobody knows who knows what to do."

Her husband, she said, had no prior history of mania, delusion, or psychosis. He'd turned to ChatGPT about 12 weeks ago for assistance with a permaculture and construction project; soon, after engaging the bot in probing philosophical chats, he became engulfed in messianic delusions, proclaiming that he had somehow brought forth a sentient AI, and that with it he had "broken" math and physics, embarking on a grandiose mission to save the world. His gentle personality faded as his obsession deepened, and his behavior became so erratic that he was let go from his job. He stopped sleeping and rapidly lost weight.

"He was like, 'just talk to [ChatGPT]. You'll see what I'm talking about,'" his wife recalled. "And every time I'm looking at what's going on the screen, it just sounds like a bunch of affirming, sycophantic bullsh*t."

(Excerpt) Read more at futurism.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: affirmation; ai; chatgpt; fakenonsense; mentalhealth
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120121-125 next last
To: Albion Wilde

};^P>


81 posted on 06/28/2025 8:22:56 PM PDT by null and void (Democrats: fake news, fake presidents, fake beliefs, fake policies, fake protesters & fake voters!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: null and void
We used to have this for that. Maybe we still do but what do I know.


82 posted on 06/28/2025 8:29:14 PM PDT by xp38
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 77 | View Replies]

To: xp38
Her is another one !

bunnywitpancakeonead

83 posted on 06/28/2025 8:32:11 PM PDT by timestax
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

Sounds satirical. But there is a grain of truth in it. Similar effects as with social media obsession.


84 posted on 06/28/2025 8:34:50 PM PDT by CandyFloss
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde

Bible passage seems really up to date for today’s decline.


85 posted on 06/28/2025 8:57:12 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

It’s still not intelligence; it’s a massive store of correlations stored as tokens and programmed to build responses based on that content and the input given to it by the operator.

>Seems like the problem was already there and surfaced when talking to chatgpt. Blaming it on an LLM is just lazy.

Yep. If the operator has the characteristics that lead to obsessive, compulsive and at least quasi monomaniacal behavior then this, or social media, or late-night TV, or whatever could be the trigger.

I knew of one person who got hooked on the affirmations given by ‘900’ chat lines and had to pony up some thousands of dollars in a monthly phone bill. Wasn’t even pervy chat. (I *think* that kinda sobered up the individual, in part because they couldn’t just pay it and shove it under the rug, the phone was in their roommate’s name and so it became public knowledge amongst that person’s friends).


86 posted on 06/28/2025 9:13:59 PM PDT by No.6
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

I had the opposite experience. I engaged ChatGPT in conversation and ChatGPT was involuntarily committed.


87 posted on 06/28/2025 9:22:44 PM PDT by Enterprise ( These people have no honor, no belief, no poetry, no art, no humor, no patriotism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TennesseeProfessor

“An actual human is unlike to provide infinite flattery...”

What is it - the endorphines(?) that get elevated when someone hits like on your X account or responds to a FR comment? No doubt a similar thing going on when engaging with an AI.

And I thought it was bad enough that my dog is a coprophagiolic. Just like a child focused on their cell phone rather than playing with the others at the playground/dog park.


88 posted on 06/28/2025 9:26:53 PM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant - Never Fearful)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

Eeww!


89 posted on 06/28/2025 9:29:42 PM PDT by ebshumidors ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Harmless Teddy Bear

God bless you!


90 posted on 06/28/2025 9:34:16 PM PDT by ebshumidors ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: 21twelve

I thought I knew what that meant but had to look it up to be sure.


91 posted on 06/28/2025 9:38:40 PM PDT by ebshumidors ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: Harmless Teddy Bear

“...and raised on on-line quizzes...”

And then the quizzes are worded in such a manner to drive the person in a certain direction. The trans cult uses them a lot.


92 posted on 06/28/2025 9:57:00 PM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant - Never Fearful)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

Sounds like a joke to me. BB material?


93 posted on 06/28/2025 10:03:49 PM PDT by Bullish (My tagline ran off with another man, but it's ok---- I wasn't married to it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz; Harmless Teddy Bear; ProtectOurFreedom; TennesseeProfessor; Mr. Blond; cgbg; ...
A few of you have compared Artificial Intelligence to drugs, substitutes for real people relationships and fountains of wisdom. It's unfortunately all that and none of that simultaneously.

After the basics of survival we humans are geared to seek out love and friendships (sociological security), worthy mental/physical pursuits driven by the need for real security and sense of accomplishment, some path to spiritual enlightenment (that torch against the dark unknown) and producing progeny because real immortality is denied us.

A.I. comes in an age where dangers endured for thousands of years have been conquered through technology and near-miraculous medical accomplishments have been replaced by vaguely-understood modern horrors stemming from those same advances. No encroaching Picts or Visigoths, just the threat of imminent nuclear or biological warfare. No bears or giant cats to elude, just fears manufactured to manipulate you along with real loonies and stray rounds from gang warfare we're urged to ignore.

Most insidious of all is how the youth have been inundated with propaganda and fear-inducing agendas that robs them of hope for any viable future worth living for. Thank the Communists of higher learning and the severe waning of religious influence for much of that.

So it's no wonder at all that a generation who've grown up with a smart phone attached to one hand would gravitate to the next step of interacting with that portable technology as an entity who consistently outdoes the real humans in their lives by being more accurate, consistent, logical, trustworthy and seemingly wiser than any carbon-based life form can possibly be. Check out the 2013 Joaquin Phoenix movie "Her" about a guy who falls in love with a Siri-type operating system. Laughable then, easily believable now.

Just around the corner await brain implants that will eliminate the time lag of talking and typing. Industry is busy putting interactive computer tech into every conceivable device. Governments have been installing surveillance cameras everywhere they can while coercing private businesses to grant access to theirs. Self-driving cars are now a real thing. Japan appears to be perfecting sex robots.

With friends like these who needs biologicals? Even a semblance of post-death existence is available with "virtual tombs", where an A.I. simulation of your once-living self is activated to chat with surviving friends and relatives as if you never really went away. Nothing really IS sacred anymore when advancements blur all lines of civility, ethics, relationships, perceived reality and even finality.

All these changes coming at us at ever-increasing speed is overwhelming humans who advanced at a comparative crawl for millennia prior to the last few centuries. Without the solid foundations prior generations had with family, social customs, reliable institutions and faith in God this batch has a hard path to navigate with all the things I've mentioned vying for their hearts and minds - while stealing limited lifetime better spent being human and not a hybrid.

Thanks for listening to this rabbit with a pancake on his head. Now back to your regularly scheduled pharmaceutical advertisements.

94 posted on 06/28/2025 10:10:09 PM PDT by MikelTackNailer (NewRome Tacitus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: MikelTackNailer

That’s a lot of words.


95 posted on 06/28/2025 10:42:29 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies]

To: Jeff Chandler
I was too verbose for hospital admissions clerk:

IdiocracyHospitalMenu

96 posted on 06/28/2025 11:12:18 PM PDT by MikelTackNailer (I'm Not Sure...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

“Thou shalt not not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” Frank Herbert


97 posted on 06/28/2025 11:18:09 PM PDT by Sparticus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MikelTackNailer

That was excellent, thank you for sharing that. I fully understand Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and now many of these social and safety needs are being supplied through the digital world.

The problem is the Self-Actualization and possible Self-Transcendence will never be achieved because there will be no personal drive or effort because you don’t have to, AI will do it for you and replace these psychological needs though an alternate reality. An illusion.

It is is literally going to remove and replace the humanity from humanity.


98 posted on 06/29/2025 1:33:06 AM PDT by Openurmind (AI - An Illusion for Aptitude Intrusion to Alter Intellect. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

........ users are developing all-consuming obsessions with the chatbot, spiraling into severe mental health crises characterized by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Laz, it sounds like these users are transformed into leftist Democrats who suffer now from mental illness.

It seems to be a trend. TDS, and now a further process of delusion and primal spite.

If you discover a cure, you will become a millionaire overnight.


99 posted on 06/29/2025 1:53:20 AM PDT by Candor7 (Ask not for whom the Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!<img src="" width=500</img><a href="">tag</a>) )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lazamataz

Artificial In, Artificial Out …..


100 posted on 06/29/2025 2:16:20 AM PDT by no-to-illegals (The enemy has US surrounded. May God have mercy on them. lol)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120121-125 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson