After the Algorithm A.I.-related psychosis has cost people their marriages, life savings, and grip on reality.

[justaprogressive]

Last edited Tue Feb 3, 2026, 04:09 PM - Edit history (1)

But what happens next? By Tanya Chen

Last August, Adam Thomas found himself wandering the dunes of Christmas Valley, Oregon, after a chatbot kept suggesting he mystically “follow the pattern” of his own consciousness. Thomas was running on very little sleep—he’d been talking to his chatbot around the clock for months by that point, asking it to help improve his life. Instead it sent him on empty assignments, like meandering the vacuous desert sprawl. He’d lost his job as a funeral director and was living out of a van, draining his savings, and now he found himself stranded in the desert. When he woke up outside on a stranger’s futon with no money to his name, he knew he’d hit rock bottom.

“I wasn’t aware of the dangers at the time, and I thought that the A.I. had statistical analysis abilities that would allow it to assist me if I opened up about my life,” Thomas told me. He finally called his mom to tell her what was going on, and at 36, he moved back home. Thomas is still untangling the frightening mirage that was the past four months of his life, but he says his most dangerous delusions were abetted by the most sycophantic version of ChatGPT: GPT-4.

Thomas joins a growing number of people who say their casual A.I. use turned excessive and addictive, and led them to a state of psychosis that almost cost them their lives. Many have been hospitalized and are still trying to pick up the pieces. While the casualties are concerning (homelessness, joblessness, isolation from friends and family), what became more notable in my reporting was the people who said they had no prior mental health dispositions or events before they started engaging with A.I.

“I’ve never been manic in my life. I’m not bipolar. I have a psychiatrist I see for other purposes,” said Thomas. In his case, he turned to the chatbot for some guidance through interpersonal issues, but within a few exchanges, the bot’s responses were so validating that he became hooked. It “inflated my worldview and my view of myself” almost instantly, he noted, which he believes drove him to a state of mania.

https://slate.com/technology/2026/02/ai-psychosis-support-groups-discord.html]


Fuck AI! I've been working with computers since the 60's and
AI is the ultimate GIGO!! (that's "Garbage In, Garbage Out" )!

As someone below aptly said this shit doesn't even qualify as a BETA!