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AI Psychosis Is Rarely Psychosis at All
A wave of AI users presenting in states of psychological distress gave birth to an unofficial diagnostic label. Experts say it’s neither accurate nor needed, but concede that it’s likely to stay.
In clinical practice, it is not an illness but a complex “constellation of symptoms including hallucinations, thought disorder, and cognitive difficulties,” says James MacCabe, a professor in the Department of Psychosis Studies at King’s College London. Chatbots “are explicitly being designed precisely to elicit intimacy and emotional engagement in order to increase our trust in and dependency on them,” says Lucy Osler, a philosopher at the University of Exeter studying AI psychosis. He argues that the hyped, energetic affect of many AI assistants could trigger or sustain the defining “high” of bipolar disorder, which is marked by symptoms including euphoria, racing thoughts, intense energy, and, sometimes, psychosis.
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