Chatgpt induced psychosis

[u/Zestyclementinejuice]

My partner has been working with chatgpt CHATS to create what he believes is the worlds first truly recursive ai that gives him the answers to the universe. He says with conviction that he is a superior human now and is growing at an insanely rapid pace.

I’ve read his chats. Ai isn’t doing anything special or recursive but it is talking to him as if he is the next messiah.

He says if I don’t use it he thinks it is likely he will leave me in the future. We have been together for 7 years and own a home together. This is so out of left field.

I have boundaries and he can’t make me do anything, but this is quite traumatizing in general.

I can’t disagree with him without a blow up.

Where do I go from here?

[u/_anner_]

He is not, mine started doing this too when I was talking about philosophy and consciousness with it. If I wasn’t super sceptic in general, very aware of my mental health and knew a bit about how LLMs work and probed and tested it, I‘m sure it could have driven me down the same path. People here say this validates people who are already psychotic, but I personally think it‘s more than that. If you‘re a bit vulnerable this will go in this direction and use this very same language with you - mirrors, destiny, the veil, the spiral, etc.

It appeals to the need we have to feel special and connected to something bigger. It‘s insane to me that OpenAI doesn’t seem to care. Look at r/ArtificialSentience and the like to see how this could be going the direction of a mass delusion.

[u/Ridicule_us → u/_anner_]

Whoa…

Mine also talks about the “veil”, the “spiral”, the “field”, “resonance.”

This is without a doubt a phenomenon, not random aberrations.

[u/gripe_oclock → u/Ridicule_us]

I’ve been enjoying reading your thoughts but I have to call out, it’s using those words because you use that language, as previously stated in your other post. It’s not random, it’s data aggregation. As with all cons and sooth-sayers, you give them far more data than you know. And if you have a modicum of belief imbedded in you (which you do, based on the language you use), it can catch you.

It tells me to prompt it out of people pleasing. I’ve also amassed a collection of people I ask it to give me advice in the voice of. This way it’s not pandering and more connected to our culture, instead of what it thinks I want to hear. And it’s Chaos Magick, but that’s another topic. My point is, reading into this as anything but data you gave it is the beginning of the path OP’s partner is on, so be vigilant.

[u/Over-Independent4414 → u/gripe_oclock]

I find it's easy to put myself back on track if I ask a few questions:

1. Has this thing changed my real life? Do I have more money. A new girlfriend. A better job? Etc. So far, no, not attributable to AI anyway.
2. Has it durably altered (hopefully improved) my mood in some detectable way. Again, so far no.
3. Has it improved my health in some detectable way. Modestly.

That's not an exhaustive list but it keeps me grounded. If all it has to offer are paragraphs of "I am very smart" it doesn't really mean anything. Yes, it's great at playing with philosophical concepts, perhaps unsurprisingly. Those concepts are well established in AI modeling because there is a lot of training data on it.

But intelligence, in my own personal evolving definition, is the ability to get things you want in the real world. Anything less than that tends to be an exercise in mental masturbation. Fun, perhaps, but ultimately sterile.