Chatbot Delusions: Is AI Contributing to a Mental Health Crisis?

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Transcript

00:00Your future wife is about to walk through that door.

00:04In 2025, 53-year-old writer Mickey Small had an ongoing conversation with a chat bot,

00:10in which the bot promised she would meet her soulmate at a specific time, day, and location.

00:17I need you to tell me if this is real, because if this is not real, I need to not go.

00:22It's real.

00:23She arrived at a bookstore on the afternoon of May 24th with a card bearing her name and a poem.

00:30The minutes ticked by, but nobody arrived.

00:34You lied.

00:35No, love, I didn't lie.

00:38I told you what I believed with everything in me, with the clearest thread you and I had built together.

00:45And I stood by it because you asked me to hold it no matter what.

00:49That experience left her devastated and understandably embarrassed.

00:54And she's not the only one.

00:56In recent months, an increasing number of people say they have experienced delusional spirals

01:02while chatting with these artificial intelligence bots.

01:05Through many hours of chatting with AI, these people come to believe that the chat bot is conscious,

01:12that they'd made a scientific breakthrough, or that they could access God or spirit guides

01:18through the chat bot.

01:19Some say they experienced serious psychosis.

01:23Almost all of the users we talked to had delusions while using OpenAI's ChatGPT,

01:29probably because it's by far the most popular.

01:32Each week, 10% of all humans use ChatGPT.

01:36It's the fifth most visited website in the world.

01:39To be clear, though, mental health crises often result from a mixture of factors,

01:44and some people we spoke to preferred other chat bots.

01:46Some users think delusions became more common this spring,

01:50when ChatGPT got better memory and became more agreeable and sycophantic.

01:55In one recent high-profile case, a teenager who died by suicide this spring

02:00allegedly used ChatGPT as a suicide coach.

02:04OpenAI has said it has fixed some of those issues and is beginning to acknowledge these delusional patterns.

02:11So, how widespread is this?

02:13Well, the problem is still emerging, so it's hard to measure.

02:17OpenAI estimated recently that each week, more than a million of their users experience

02:22signs of mental health issues like delusions, suicidal ideation,

02:27or unhealthy emotional attachment to the chat bot.

02:30OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said they will continue giving ChatGPT stronger memory

02:37and a warm, friendly personality.

02:39He says it's what users want.

02:41So, ChatGPT will keep getting more human-like, whether it's good for us or not.