4 ms·

AI psychosis just a lazy term, much like Trump Derangement Syndrome. It sounds hostile while also removing any scope for productive discourse. Once you call s

AI psychosis just a lazy term, much like Trump Derangement Syndrome. It sounds hostile while also removing any scope for productive discourse. Once you call someone a 'psycho', they are less likely to engage with you, and more likely to double down on their views.

celdon25 4mo ago
Seems like privilege to soften the term only now that we are talking about CEOs.
- Brendinooo 4mo ago
  You're claiming that the person you replied to changed tune when we started talking about CEOs?
cyberax 4mo ago
I saw that psychosis happening in real time with a coworker. It absolutely is a real phenomenon. After a while, he started presenting ChatGPT's replies as the absolute truth. I don't think there ever has been something that can _answer_ you back and reinforce your delusion. This is a new thing.
- slfnflctd 4mo ago
  As a longtime student of the human condition, it is so obvious to me that this is real, has been happening, and will continue to happen as long as homo sapiens (in our current state) exists. False beliefs are not a neutral thing to ignore. The way people react to them has strikingly tangible consequences for the rest of us. A frightening number of people already believe all kinds of wildly irrational things about AI, and I don't see any way this doesn't become an increasingly complex issue we will all continue to have to deal with for the rest of our lives. In addition to everyone who comes after us.
- jdgoesmarching 4mo ago
  It’s a real phenomenon that gets lazily slapped onto anyone using AI poorly.
- LorenPechtel 4mo ago
  Some *thing*, no, but we have seen the same thing with a slower feedback loop before: every conspiracy that comes along. Adherents fall into a trap of believing each other, getting more and more extreme. And losing the ability to rationally consider relevant information. An example I hit: 9/11 truthers. I wanted to put some scale to numbers, compared the energy of the fall to a small nuke. He seized on that as my admitting the towers were brought down by a nuke and I had a hard time explaining that it was simply a comparison. It used to take filtering through a group of like-minded nuts, now we don't need a slow filtering through other nuts.
  - cyberax 4mo ago
    Yep, and the emergence of social networks became a real catalyst for that. But that still requires humans in that feedback loop, it takes time and attention. And people also have different opinions, even if they believe in roughly the same conspiracy (was it a plane, a truck bomb, a nuke?). ChatGPT provides an instant sycophantic reply. I think they toned that down a bit, but it's still completely unparalleled.
- aurareturn 4mo ago
  I'm one of the biggest AI bulls on HN. I think given to the right people, it's immensely powerful and I think people in general underestimate how powerful it will get. However, AI psychosis in 2026 is definitely real. I have a non-technical high ranking (nepotism) coworker who discovered vibe coding and is now absolutely wild. He thinks he can build anything and he questions why our dev team isn't moving fast enough. Why aren't we changing the UI to a newer, more modern one every single week? Why aren't we vibe coding this new feature in 2 hours? This guy generates massive amount of text and calls it a roadmap or a spec. It's honestly maddening working with people under AI psychosis.
  - aurareturn 4mo ago
    I want to add that I think AI absolutely massively inflates the dunning kruger effect.
    - starluz 4mo ago
      [dead]
fullmoon 4mo ago
It’s absolutely lazy, because it’s not psychosis.
- andyfilms1 4mo ago
  Correct, it's addiction.
  - supern0va 4mo ago
    It's not. Believe it or not, words mean things.
    - ulbu 4mo ago
      this comment sounds so ironic in the context of a discussion pertaining to llms
  - amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
    The problem is, most of us are not psychologists and don't know enough to accurately diagnose somebody. But we can definitely see when someone is acting crazy.
  - Brendinooo 4mo ago
    I'm not sure that's a good term either, unless we're also saying that nail guns and microwaves are addictions.
    - ssl-3 4mo ago
      I used to have a job that involved swinging a hammer over and over again. I got pretty good at it. Then the boss-man bought a minty-new Senco 650 air nailer for me to use. At first, I could take it or leave it. After all, I was proud at the skill I gained in driving nails with a hammer, and the ways my muscles seemed to automatically steer the nail straight into a board without missing a beat even if things started going sideways. But the air nailer sure was faster. And it only had one job, but it did that job fantastically. I started using it more and more. Things very quickly got to the point where I was organizing my work to maximize my use of that new tool, which is to say: The tool began to have a role in controlling my actions. It even began to control my emotions; I felt better and more accomplished after a day of using that tool than I did when I couldn't. And this control accelerated: When the tool didn't work today or we ran out of the special coils of nails it used, then my focus didn't shift back to swinging a hammer. It instead shifted towards fixing the tool or finding more nails to feed into it. The more I used it, the more powerless I was to avoid it. As time moved on, I got worse at swinging a hammer and increasingly dependent upon that air nailer. (That's a true story. If I understand what addiction is, then I think I just described an addiction to an air nailer.)
shimman 4mo ago
It's also a great way to dampen the massive bipartisan moment against AI. Just attack your critics, attack their arguments, and do nothing to better the lives of people.
- jimmy2times 4mo ago
  I think the bipartisan moment against AI is in large part (surprise, surprise) optics. In reality, the powers that be may have already set their sights on AI as the next "too big to fail" industry due to a perceived economic threat from China.
coliveira 4mo ago
It has always been ok to talk about psychosis in the general public, known as a "mass psychosis". Why is that suddenly a problem for CEOs?
worik 4mo ago
> AI psychosis just a lazy term, much like Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is how languages works. The written word is not a precise art. Both those terms carry meaning, even if they abuse the term "derangement" and "psychosis"
- starluz 4mo ago
  [dead]
Willish42 4mo ago
Like a lot of things in tech and pop science, "AI psychosis" had a narrow(-er) definition [1] (psychotic-like symptoms, i.e. believing the AI is in love with you, or being fueled by the AI into some strong delusions or belief in a "mission" so important your faith in it becomes quasi-religious/"destiny"), which aligned loosely with actual psychiatric symptoms. The much broader version of people getting a bit too full of themselves or trusting an LLM's sycophantic nature as validation that they are right or uniquely smart with their ideas seems to be the version I'm seeing more of in tech news sites and places like HN [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202507/the-emerging-problem-of-ai-psychosis https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/20250...

celdon25 4mo ago

Seems like privilege to soften the term only now that we are talking about CEOs.

Brendinooo 4mo ago
You're claiming that the person you replied to changed tune when we started talking about CEOs?

cyberax 4mo ago

I saw that psychosis happening in real time with a coworker. It absolutely is a real phenomenon. After a while, he started presenting ChatGPT's replies as the absolute truth. I don't think there ever has been something that can _answer_ you back and reinforce your delusion. This is a new thing.

slfnflctd 4mo ago
As a longtime student of the human condition, it is so obvious to me that this is real, has been happening, and will continue to happen as long as homo sapiens (in our current state) exists. False beliefs are not a neutral thing to ignore. The way people react to them has strikingly tangible consequences for the rest of us. A frightening number of people already believe all kinds of wildly irrational things about AI, and I don't see any way this doesn't become an increasingly complex issue we will all continue to have to deal with for the rest of our lives. In addition to everyone who comes after us.
jdgoesmarching 4mo ago
It’s a real phenomenon that gets lazily slapped onto anyone using AI poorly.
LorenPechtel 4mo ago
Some *thing*, no, but we have seen the same thing with a slower feedback loop before: every conspiracy that comes along. Adherents fall into a trap of believing each other, getting more and more extreme. And losing the ability to rationally consider relevant information. An example I hit: 9/11 truthers. I wanted to put some scale to numbers, compared the energy of the fall to a small nuke. He seized on that as my admitting the towers were brought down by a nuke and I had a hard time explaining that it was simply a comparison. It used to take filtering through a group of like-minded nuts, now we don't need a slow filtering through other nuts.
- cyberax 4mo ago
  Yep, and the emergence of social networks became a real catalyst for that. But that still requires humans in that feedback loop, it takes time and attention. And people also have different opinions, even if they believe in roughly the same conspiracy (was it a plane, a truck bomb, a nuke?). ChatGPT provides an instant sycophantic reply. I think they toned that down a bit, but it's still completely unparalleled.
aurareturn 4mo ago
I'm one of the biggest AI bulls on HN. I think given to the right people, it's immensely powerful and I think people in general underestimate how powerful it will get. However, AI psychosis in 2026 is definitely real. I have a non-technical high ranking (nepotism) coworker who discovered vibe coding and is now absolutely wild. He thinks he can build anything and he questions why our dev team isn't moving fast enough. Why aren't we changing the UI to a newer, more modern one every single week? Why aren't we vibe coding this new feature in 2 hours? This guy generates massive amount of text and calls it a roadmap or a spec. It's honestly maddening working with people under AI psychosis.
- aurareturn 4mo ago
  I want to add that I think AI absolutely massively inflates the dunning kruger effect.
  - starluz 4mo ago
    [dead]

fullmoon 4mo ago

It’s absolutely lazy, because it’s not psychosis.

andyfilms1 4mo ago
Correct, it's addiction.
- supern0va 4mo ago
  It's not. Believe it or not, words mean things.
  - ulbu 4mo ago
    this comment sounds so ironic in the context of a discussion pertaining to llms
- amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
  The problem is, most of us are not psychologists and don't know enough to accurately diagnose somebody. But we can definitely see when someone is acting crazy.
- Brendinooo 4mo ago
  I'm not sure that's a good term either, unless we're also saying that nail guns and microwaves are addictions.
  - ssl-3 4mo ago
    I used to have a job that involved swinging a hammer over and over again. I got pretty good at it. Then the boss-man bought a minty-new Senco 650 air nailer for me to use. At first, I could take it or leave it. After all, I was proud at the skill I gained in driving nails with a hammer, and the ways my muscles seemed to automatically steer the nail straight into a board without missing a beat even if things started going sideways. But the air nailer sure was faster. And it only had one job, but it did that job fantastically. I started using it more and more. Things very quickly got to the point where I was organizing my work to maximize my use of that new tool, which is to say: The tool began to have a role in controlling my actions. It even began to control my emotions; I felt better and more accomplished after a day of using that tool than I did when I couldn't. And this control accelerated: When the tool didn't work today or we ran out of the special coils of nails it used, then my focus didn't shift back to swinging a hammer. It instead shifted towards fixing the tool or finding more nails to feed into it. The more I used it, the more powerless I was to avoid it. As time moved on, I got worse at swinging a hammer and increasingly dependent upon that air nailer. (That's a true story. If I understand what addiction is, then I think I just described an addiction to an air nailer.)

shimman 4mo ago

It's also a great way to dampen the massive bipartisan moment against AI. Just attack your critics, attack their arguments, and do nothing to better the lives of people.

jimmy2times 4mo ago
I think the bipartisan moment against AI is in large part (surprise, surprise) optics. In reality, the powers that be may have already set their sights on AI as the next "too big to fail" industry due to a perceived economic threat from China.

coliveira 4mo ago

It has always been ok to talk about psychosis in the general public, known as a "mass psychosis". Why is that suddenly a problem for CEOs?

worik 4mo ago

> AI psychosis just a lazy term, much like Trump Derangement Syndrome. It is how languages works. The written word is not a precise art. Both those terms carry meaning, even if they abuse the term "derangement" and "psychosis"

starluz 4mo ago
[dead]

Willish42 4mo ago

Like a lot of things in tech and pop science, "AI psychosis" had a narrow(-er) definition [1] (psychotic-like symptoms, i.e. believing the AI is in love with you, or being fueled by the AI into some strong delusions or belief in a "mission" so important your faith in it becomes quasi-religious/"destiny"), which aligned loosely with actual psychiatric symptoms. The much broader version of people getting a bit too full of themselves or trusting an LLM's sycophantic nature as validation that they are right or uniquely smart with their ideas seems to be the version I'm seeing more of in tech news sites and places like HN [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202507/the-emerging-problem-of-ai-psychosis https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/20250...