Can Chatbots Trigger AI Psychosis?

The troubling prospect of AI psychosis

Chatbots appear to be fueling a break with reality among some vulnerable people by sustaining and amplifying their delusions, according to Marlynn Wei, a psychiatrist writing in Psychology Today. “AI psychosis” and “ChatGPT psychosis” are not clinical diagnoses, but are increasingly discussed in the media and on social media platforms, including Reddit. Not only have some people fallen in love with chatbots, sometimes with disastrous consequences, the bots can encourage grandiose fantasies about either users or the tools themselves. (In Wednesday’s MindSite Daily we’ll be discussing the related issue of certain chatbots encouraging murder – stay tuned.) 

Wei points to a new preprint paper in PsyArXiv called “Delusions by Design” in which an interdisciplinary team of researchers examined cases discussed in the media or online forums. Wei says the study “highlights a concerning pattern of AI chatbots reinforcing delusions, including grandiose, referential, persecutory, and romantic delusions.”

She notes that these researchers are not the first to raise concerns – in a 2023 editorial in Schizophrenia Digest, Søren Dinesen Østergaard wrote that “correspondence with generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT is so realistic that one easily gets the impression that there is a real person at the other end – while, at the same time, knowing that this is, in fact, not the case. In my opinion, it seems likely that this cognitive dissonance may fuel delusions in those with increased propensity towards psychosis … the inner workings of generative AI also leave ample room for speculation/paranoia.”

Superman director points out that flying hero is an alien, infuriating Fox News

“Up, Up and Aware: What Superman Can Tell Us About Mental Health.” That was the title of an article last December by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, who noted that “Chanukah came early for me this year” when he saw the trailer for James Gunn’s new Superman film, which was released earlier this month. Superheroes, Weinstein noted, “have always soared through our imaginations, but lately, they’ve landed squarely in the world of mental wellness.”

As a rabbi, comic book aficionado and “neurodivergent dadvocate,” Weinstein said he has “spent years exploring how the epic tales of caped crusaders and masked vigilantes can teach us resilience, vulnerability and self-discovery. What began as personal inspiration has transformed into therapeutic tools … It’s no surprise — comic books often tackle heavy themes under the guise of light-hearted entertainment.”

Weinstein points out that Superman disguising himself as  Clark Kent feels familiar to many neurodivergent people:  “While masking can help us meet societal expectations, it often leads to emotional exhaustion and isolation.” He also notes that Kryptonite – “Superman’s ultimate weakness” is not just a flaw but a reminder of his humanity. Although such flaws may make us feel exposed or vulnerable, he says, “it’s a reminder that we don’t need superpowers to rise above – we just need the courage to show up as our true selves.”

Unfortunately, Superman showing up in this latest movie as his true self  – an immigrant from another planet – has some folks in an uproar. “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s grown adults upset over a classic superhero in tights, and what he stands for.” So wrote Buzzfeed’s Mychal Thompson in his piece about “the fear of a ‘woke’ Superman” who is also an immigrant.

Director James Gunn told reporters that “Superman is the story of America… An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.” The comment, made to the London Times, sparked performative outrage from Fox News and other conservative commentators.

Thompson found the backlash disturbing. Pointing out that Superman was created by two immigrants, he said that “comic book superheroes have been characters who come from different planets … and heck, some of them even find themselves at odds with world governments and authority because they challenge the status quo. It has ALWAYS been the superhero agenda,” he wrote. “The only difference is that there was a time when American values aspired to fight for the same causes as Captain America, Superman, and Batman, and not the bad guys.”

“If our world leaders’ talking points start sounding more and more like something a Bond villain would say, it’s not the fictional superhero that got ‘too woke,’ or changed for the worse – it’s our society,” he concluded.

On Comicbook.com, writer David Harth called the controversy over Superman’s immigrant heritage “the most asinine” to date. “Anyone who has read the comics can see the way Superman’s experience as an undocumented immigrant helped define the character,” he wrote. “His Kryptonian heritage makes the character more interesting. He was still an American hero, but he brought his culture with him and it made everything richer.”

Mental health advocates blast Trump executive order to increase use of civil commitment

A July 24 executive order from President Trump vows to “restore” public safety by increasing the use of involuntary commitment and placing unhoused and mentally ill people into “long-term institutional settings.” The National Alliance to End Homelessness condemned the executive order as “a broadside threat to the nation’s homeless response systems, people experiencing homelessness, and the providers who serve them” – one that would roll out “a multitude of harmful, ineffective, and outdated policies and practices for addressing homelessness.”

The order specifically notes that many unhoused people suffer with mental health conditions or addiction, but focuses on institutional commitment rather than meaningful treatment.

“Mental illness is not a crime, and people with mental illness deserve to be treated as human beings, with dignity and respect, said Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “While we agree that homelessness is an urgent crisis in our country, to truly address the systemic causes of this crisis, we should be pouring resources into treatment to improve early access to care and investing in supportive housing and other wrap-around services… Unfortunately, yesterday’s order concerningly focuses on institutionalization and not on real solutions that we know work in helping people lead better lives.”

“No parent should have to watch his child waste away”: The agony of forced starvation in Gaza

An engineered famine continues to  menace Gaza, the result of Israel blocking food deliveries from reaching starving Palestinians. “Gaza’s hunger crisis has reached new levels of desperation,” the United Nations World Food Programme reported last week. “People are dying from lack of humanitarian assistance. Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment..” 

Even the last reporters in Gaza are in danger of starving to death, according to a joint statement from the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse (AFP). “No parent should ever have to watch their child waste away with nothing to give them,” wrote The Progressive’s Nourdine Shninoe of his struggle to keep his baby fed. “No father should have to watch his baby suffer simply because his child was born during a time of war.”

Statements from Israeli government officials suggest the mass starvation of Gaza is deliberate. Last week, Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu declared on radio that “there is no nation that feeds its enemies” and that the government is “rushing for Gaza to be wiped out,” according to the New York Times.

On July 25, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for immediate action to end the starvation. “Nothing can justify the explosion of death and destruction,” he said.  “The scale and scope is beyond anything we have seen in current times. I can’t explain the indifference and inaction we see by too many in the international community – the lack of compassion, the lack of truth, and the lack of humanity… This is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is a moral crisis.”

The trauma of being witness to Gaza’s suffering is explored in an interview that Australian-Lebanese journalist and presenter Jan Fran did on YouTube with psychologist Basmah Kahil. When Fran asked her audience if they  had questions about Gaza for the program, she was inundated.

“Everyone was writing to me about their psychological distress, their emotional distress, and their physical distress about watching the horrors of what was unfolding in Gaza and not being able to do anything about it,” Fran said. “It really is a question on what to do and how to live well when you’ve lost your faith in humanity.”

Kahil agreed. “There’s no handbook for navigating a genocide,” she said. “It’s very new; it’s very different. And it’s very loaded. It is so overwhelming to our sense of safety and security, and it is unfolding in front of us. Because we don’t have a way to process it, we develop this deep psychological wound, a deep wound to the psyche … and  we’re more likely to get triggered.” (You can watch the whole episode here).

In other news…

Happiness improves with age – because it becomes acceptable not to work: It’s commonly reported that people tend to be happier from midlife onwards, but an intriguing study attributes much of that swing to one group – unemployed men. Working with universities in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, researchers looked at data on men aged 50 and older in 10 European countries. At 50, unemployed men were more than twice as likely to be depressed compared to those who had lost a spouse, and 23% more likely to be than their employed peers. At 65, when retirement is common, the happiness gap completely disappears. 

If the study had looked at men in the United States, the happiness gap might just come down to material realities – here, unemployed men at 50 can find themselves without a home or healthcare. But this study covered countries with more generous government benefits, and researchers attributed the decline to shifting social norms around no longer working.“It’s a striking shift,” said study co-author Titus Galama, director of the Center for the Study of Human Capital based at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research. “It shows how powerful social expectations around work are – and how much mental health can improve when those expectations lift.”

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Joanna Macy, who helped people transcend their climate change fears, dies at 96. Macy, who lived in Berkeley, California, was trained in religious studies and systems thinking rather than psychotherapy. That unconventional background, according to her New York Times obituary, led her to a revelation – at the root of any climate despair is a reverence for the earth and connection to its web of life.

“You have to allow yourself to experience the love that is underneath the horror,” as she put its in 1999. She wrote prolifically and led workshops to help people translate their pain into action – her words and work were an early solace to those suffering from “eco-anxiety” and hopelessness, long before the idea of grief around climate became commonplace.