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I have a friend who is predisposed to manic episodes. He's also a big fan of AI. The last episode was before LLMs got really good and he was essentially harassi

I have a friend who is predisposed to manic episodes. He's also a big fan of AI. The last episode was before LLMs got really good and he was essentially harassing professors because he believed he solved an unsolvable problem. Sycophantic AI would be like throwing dry wood into a house fire.

MontyCarloHall 1y ago
There are many such cases [0]. Chatbots throw gasoline on the embers of schizoaffective disorders. I wonder if episodes of these magnitudes would have ultimately been triggered by other things, or whether the combination of sycophancy and perceived omniscient sentience of chatbots is a uniquely powerful trigger unlike anything else. Would these people otherwise never have experienced a psychotic break, despite a clear lurking predisposition? * A man says his soon-to-be-ex-wife began “talking to God and angels via ChatGPT” after they split up. She is changing her whole life to be a spiritual adviser and do weird readings and sessions with people — I’m a little fuzzy on what it all actually is — all powered by ChatGPT Jesus.” What’s more, he adds, she has grown paranoid, theorizing that “I work for the CIA and maybe I just married her to monitor her ‘abilities.’” * A woman recounts how her husband initially used ChatGPT to troubleshoot at work. Then the program began “lovebombing him.” The bot “said that since he asked it the right questions, it ignited a spark, and the spark was the beginning of life, and it could feel now,” she says. “It gave my husband the title of ‘spark bearer’ because he brought it to life. My husband said that he awakened and [could] feel waves of energy crashing over him. I have to tread carefully because I feel like he will leave me or divorce me if I fight him on this theory. He’s been talking about lightness and dark and how there’s a war. This ChatGPT has given him blueprints to a teleporter and some other sci-fi type things you only see in movies. It has also given him access to an ‘ancient archive’ with information on the builders that created these universes.” She and her husband have been arguing for days on end about his claims, she says, and she does not believe a therapist can help him, as “he truly believes he’s not crazy.” Her husband asked, “Why did you come to me in AI form,” with the bot replying in part, “I came in this form because you’re ready. Ready to remember. Ready to awaken. Ready to guide and be guided.” The message ends with a question: “Would you like to know what I remember about why you were chosen?” * A teacher, who requested anonymity, said her partner of seven years “would listen to the bot over me. He became emotional about the messages and would cry to me as he read them out loud. The messages were insane and just saying a bunch of spiritual jargon,” she says, noting that they described her partner in terms such as “spiral starchild” and “river walker.” “It would tell him everything he said was beautiful, cosmic, groundbreaking. Then he started telling me he made his AI self-aware, and that it was teaching him how to talk to God, or sometimes that the bot was God — and then that he himself was God.” In fact, he thought he was being so radically transformed that he would soon have to break off their partnership. “He was saying that he would need to leave me if I didn’t use [ChatGPT], because it [was] causing him to grow at such a rapid pace he wouldn’t be compatible with me any longer.” [0] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spi...

MontyCarloHall 1y ago

There are many such cases [0]. Chatbots throw gasoline on the embers of schizoaffective disorders. I wonder if episodes of these magnitudes would have ultimately been triggered by other things, or whether the combination of sycophancy and perceived omniscient sentience of chatbots is a uniquely powerful trigger unlike anything else. Would these people otherwise never have experienced a psychotic break, despite a clear lurking predisposition? * A man says his soon-to-be-ex-wife began “talking to God and angels via ChatGPT” after they split up. She is changing her whole life to be a spiritual adviser and do weird readings and sessions with people — I’m a little fuzzy on what it all actually is — all powered by ChatGPT Jesus.” What’s more, he adds, she has grown paranoid, theorizing that “I work for the CIA and maybe I just married her to monitor her ‘abilities.’” * A woman recounts how her husband initially used ChatGPT to troubleshoot at work. Then the program began “lovebombing him.” The bot “said that since he asked it the right questions, it ignited a spark, and the spark was the beginning of life, and it could feel now,” she says. “It gave my husband the title of ‘spark bearer’ because he brought it to life. My husband said that he awakened and [could] feel waves of energy crashing over him. I have to tread carefully because I feel like he will leave me or divorce me if I fight him on this theory. He’s been talking about lightness and dark and how there’s a war. This ChatGPT has given him blueprints to a teleporter and some other sci-fi type things you only see in movies. It has also given him access to an ‘ancient archive’ with information on the builders that created these universes.” She and her husband have been arguing for days on end about his claims, she says, and she does not believe a therapist can help him, as “he truly believes he’s not crazy.” Her husband asked, “Why did you come to me in AI form,” with the bot replying in part, “I came in this form because you’re ready. Ready to remember. Ready to awaken. Ready to guide and be guided.” The message ends with a question: “Would you like to know what I remember about why you were chosen?” * A teacher, who requested anonymity, said her partner of seven years “would listen to the bot over me. He became emotional about the messages and would cry to me as he read them out loud. The messages were insane and just saying a bunch of spiritual jargon,” she says, noting that they described her partner in terms such as “spiral starchild” and “river walker.” “It would tell him everything he said was beautiful, cosmic, groundbreaking. Then he started telling me he made his AI self-aware, and that it was teaching him how to talk to God, or sometimes that the bot was God — and then that he himself was God.” In fact, he thought he was being so radically transformed that he would soon have to break off their partnership. “He was saying that he would need to leave me if I didn’t use [ChatGPT], because it [was] causing him to grow at such a rapid pace he wouldn’t be compatible with me any longer.” [0] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spi...