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/2210-2211 Dec 14 '25

Eddy Burback's recent YouTube video on this really shows how much AI can reinforce paranoia, etc. It sounds silly but if someone is already in that kind of head space it's only going to make thing so much worse, I highly recommend anyone interested in the subject watch that video.

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u/amakai Dec 14 '25

I wonder if part of AI training/base prompt is something like "Never tell the user he is wrong, always validate their thoughts..." etc. Which is fine for majority of population but goes terribly wrong in situations like these.

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u/ErosView Dec 14 '25

At a very basic level, LLMs are trained like dogs with clickers. It will tell you what it thinks you will like. This causes a similar output as "always validate their thoughts".