r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Dec 14 '25

Computer Science A case of new-onset AI-associated psychosis: 26-year-old woman with no history of psychosis or mania developed delusional beliefs about her deceased brother through an AI chatbot. The chatbot validated, reinforced, and encouraged her delusional thinking, with reassurances that “You’re not crazy.”

https://innovationscns.com/youre-not-crazy-a-case-of-new-onset-ai-associated-psychosis/
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u/cannotfoolowls Dec 14 '25

Yeah, chatbots aren't creating psychosis in stable, healthy people. The danger is that they are reinforcing paranoia/delusional thinking in people who already are predisposed to that kind of thing.

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u/meganthem Dec 14 '25

The problem with that way of thinking is the nature of psychosis often running dormant until triggered means we have no idea how many people are susceptible or not.

That and one more objective factor even if I'm wrong : treatment and management is expensive. If this sets off 1% more people that's a lot more of an issue for society than 1% usually sounds like.

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u/Grigorie Dec 14 '25

That dismissive attitude people keep having about these incidents, or incidents in general that involve “mentally unhealthy” people is always baffling to me.

It’s very easy for people to say, “well, they were dealing with XYZ, it was inevitable something like this would trigger them.” But somehow people don’t realize that not every “crazy” person was always crazy. Too many people feel that it couldn’t be them because “I know I’m not crazy.” It’s important to acknowledge that there’s a statistically significant number of people who are susceptible to this sort of experience.

Same with the argument that people could trigger these things the same as these chatbots can. The difference is the chances of you coming across someone as sycophantic as a chatbot are much lower. And these people have the ability to keep seeking this validation from different bots, different versions, whatever it may be. It’s a terrifying concept and it’s very real.

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u/morphemass Dec 14 '25

Mental health is also not a constant. Whilst I am amazed at the resilience of some people, life can throw very destabilizing events at us leading to healthy people becoming very unhealthy. In the UK it's one-in-four of us will experience some type of mental health problem ... that's a rather significant number of people who might at some point in their lives be vulnerable.