“The article eventually reveals what I’ve believed for so long in that if you have a pre-existing condition, it could elevate or exaggerate the psychosis or illness. Further, lonely people are likely very much at risk. The AIs can all be very personal with compliments and sychopantic affirmations.”
But in turn it also shares this:
“After reviewing details of these cases and conversations between people in this story and ChatGPT, he agreed that what they were going through — even those with no history of serious mental illness — indeed appeared to be a form of delusional psychosis.
“I think it is an accurate term,” said Pierre. “And I would specifically emphasize the delusional part.”
At the core of the issue seems to be that ChatGPT, which is powered by a large language model (LLM), is deeply prone to agreeing with users and telling them what they want to hear. When people start to converse with it about topics like mysticism, conspiracy, or theories about reality, it often seems to lead them down an increasingly isolated and unbalanced rabbit hole that makes them feel special and powerful — and which can easily end in disaster.
“What I think is so fascinating about this is how willing people are to put their trust in these chatbots in a way that they probably, or arguably, wouldn’t with a human being,” Pierre said. “And yet, there’s something about these things — it has this sort of mythology that they’re reliable and better than talking to people. And I think that’s where part of the danger is: how much faith we put into these machines.”
Chatbots “are trying to placate you,” Pierre added. “The LLMs are trying to just tell you what you want to hear.”
The part of the article that does not make sense—if AI makes you think you are all knowing and powerful why would you want to kill yourself?
We are missing a piece here.
“What I think is so fascinating about this is how willing people are to put their trust in these chatbots…”
Reading the article I was thinking that the con men of the world may be starting to worry that all their “marks” are belong to ChatBot.