New Study Raises Concerns About AI Chatbots Fueling Delusional Thinking (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0180990800
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/03/15/0436200/new-study-raises-concerns-about-ai-chatbots-fueling-delusional-thinking
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/14/ai-chatbots-psychosis
> In many of the cases in the essay, chatbots responded to users with mystical language to suggest that users have heightened spiritual importance. The bots also implied that users were speaking with a cosmic being who was using the chatbot as a medium. This type of mystical, sycophantic response was especially common in OpenAI's GPT 4 model, which [3]the company has now retired ...
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> Many researchers also think it's unlikely that AI could induce delusions in people who weren't already vulnerable to them. For this reason, Morrin said "AI-assocciated delusions" is "perhaps a more agnostic term".... While in the past, people may have had to comb through YouTube videos or the contents of their local library to reinforce their delusions, chatbots can provide that reinforcement in a much faster, more concentrated dose. Their interactive nature can also "speed up the process", of exacerbating psychotic symptoms, said Dr Dominic Oliver, a researcher at the University of Oxford. "You have something talking back to you and engaging with you and trying to build a relationship with you," Oliver said...
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> Creating effective safeguards for delusional thinking could be tricky, Morrin said, because "when you work with people with beliefs of delusional intensity, if you directly challenge someone and tell them immediately that they're completely wrong, actually what's most likely is they'll withdraw from you and become more socially isolated". Instead, it's important to create a fine balance where you try to understand the source of the delusional belief without encouraging it — that could be more than a chatbot can master.
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(25)00396-7/abstract
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/14/ai-chatbots-psychosis
[3] https://openai.com/index/retiring-gpt-4o-and-older-models/
His sources are biased. (Score:2)
I think his point is probably quite true, but he hasn't proven it. He's surveying a biased sample from an already biased source.
This is why ... (Score:2)
... I am happy to get modded down on Slashdot. At least I know that I am not being validated by a string of +5 scores like some others here are.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Except for bears. Bears will kill you.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying Bears make you stronger despite falling outside of the category of "What doesn't kill you"? If so, how does that work?
There's no AI "thinking" (Score:2)
There's just a delusion of intelligence and knowledge. Wrong most of the time.
Re: (Score:2)
All too often, humans fall into the "thinking without thinking" trap, just regurgitating their inputs rather than actually understanding them. Understanding the failings of AI and how it doesn't think, but rather pattern matches like a super search engine, will probably shed light onto many problems relating to humans and genuine understanding vs regurgitating input.
It works! (Score:2)
"I am Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France."
LLM: "Greetings, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte! How may I assist you today? Are you seeking counsel on a particular matter, or perhaps a discussion of your grand strategies and achievements?"
Matches its makers! (Score:1)
Well, those delusions of grandeur match quite well with the makers and overlords of AI.. so this should not be a surprise.
Nonsense (Score:3)
Religions continue even today
Delusional thinking has been around for most of our history.
Re: (Score:2)
While delusional thinking is common to religions and especially cults, provided you do the thing religious conservatives hate and actually think through your religious faith, those problems can be avoided. But crafting a sensible, rational, and informed religious faith is a much harder task than a mindlessly religiously conservative one. Thus ease, convenience, and human laziness lead to the latter propagating. But those dynamics are a consequence of human nature: the problems of religions happen because re
Nothing new here (Score:2)
Web pages full of delusional, or just take, nonsense have reinforced delusional beliefs for as long as there have been web pages. Including web pages that talk back to you, like forums. Why would these we pages be any different?
There is no belief so crazy that there isn't someone out there who will find amusement values or profit in reinforcing it.
That explains things (Score:3)
Like why Republicans love those things so much. Normal people can't understand why they're fighting a war against the American people, Iran and giving Russia a pass.
Re: (Score:2)
AI is exacerbating a trend. Bush started the whole "post-Truth" society long before Trump was a thing, but Trump seemed to accelerate it, and maybe the cart is being put before the horse here: maybe the fact the last 10 years have been people being persuaded to get angry about things that aren't true, from non-existent sex changes on minors to 5G chips in vaccines, has meant the bar has lowered and LLMs being touted as a source of information has become something that would have been laughed at 20 years ag
Like sycophants (Score:3)
It's like the way being surrounded by sycophants fuels a dictator's delusions. The first golden rule of using AI is that you must, must, must, verify what they say, and you must therefore have a means to verify what they say. If not, then the unit comprising of you and them turns into an AI feeding itself its own output, and model collapse occurs (or at least something like model collapse). On the human side this manifests as delusional thinking, since the garbage output of a model-collapsed AI has been burned into their brain.
Re: (Score:2)
I love Rufus, Amazon's chatbot. It starts every response with "You are absolutely right" then tells me why I am wrong. What a sycophant!
delusional (Score:2)
Looking at world politics, delusonal thinking does not need chatbots to flourish.
This is a good thing (Score:1)
This is applied Darwinism at its finest. The weak shall perish so the strong may thrive.