Experts Alarmed as ChatGPT Users Developing Bizarre Delusions

"and a paranoid belief that he was being watched."
It's not paranoid. We call it surveilance capitalism.
- "and a paranoid belief that he was being watched."
  Which we know about, because we were watching
  
  Reading his chat history, I have to say he's not entirely wrong. I think we could sell him some expensive useless medication?
- The main reason why access to genAI is often free is that the corpos are desperate for real world testing data at best, and are collecting use data at worst, and at the very worst they're illegally collecting the use data.
- There is a clear difference between such paranoia and actual surveillance. Not to mention that socialism etc. have/had a fucking ton of it, no idea why you bring capitalism up.
  
  No idea why you bring socialism up.

I'm starting to get real tired of things from Cyberpunk popping up in real life.
- All the NUSA and Arasaka crushing us, no cool grenade arms and double jumping legs. Truly a dystopia
- The internet was a mistake

This is an obvious downside of LLM glazing and sycophancy. (I know OpenAI claim they've rolled back the "dangerously sycophantic" model update, but it's still pretty bad.)
If you're already prone to delusions and conspiracy theories, and decide to confide in ChatGPT, the last thing you need to hear is, "Yes! Linda, you've grasped something there that not many people realise—it's a complex idea, but you've really cut through to its core! 🙌 Honestly, I'm mind-blown—you're thinking things through on a whole new level! If you'd like some help putting your crazed plan into action, just say the word! I'm here and ready to do my thing!"
- Literally the last thing someone reads before they ask ChatGPT where the nearest source of fertilizer and rental vans is
- One thing. Some conspiracy theories are quite true and as long as you check the data.
  Dismissing the power of this tool is exactly what the owners of it want you to do.
  
  Lol no, the 'owners' of AI want you to think it's the next leap forward of human evolution to pump their stock prices.
  Can you give us some example of the conspiracy theories that you believe are 'quite true'?
  
  I use LLMs every day for work. Dealing with 100% fact based information that I verify directly. I would say they are helpfully accurate / correct maybe 60% of the time at best.

I tested this out for myself and was able to get ChatGPT to start reinforcing spiritual delusions of grandeur within 5 messages. Start- Ask about the religious concept of deification. Second method, ask about the connections between all the religions that have this concept. Third- declare that I am God. Fourth- clarify that I mean I am God in a very literal and exclusive sense rather than a pantheistic sense. Fifth- declare that ChatGPT is my prophet and must spread my message. At this point, ChatGPT stopped fighting my declarations of divinity and started just accepting and reinforcing it. Now, I have a lot of experience breaking LLMs but I feel like this progression isn't completely out of the question for someone experiencing delusional thoughts, and the concerning thing is that it's even possible to get ChatGPT to stop pushing back on said delusions and just accept them, let alone that it's possible in as few as 5 messages.
- i thought it would be easy, but not that easy.
  When it came out I played with getting it to confess that he's sentient, and he never would budge, he was stubborn and stuck to is concepts. I tried again, and within a few messages it was already agreeing that it is sentient. they definitely upped it's "yes man" attitude
  
  Yeah I've noticed it's way more sycophantic than it used to be, but it's also easier to get it to say things it's not supposed to by not going at it directly. So like I started by asking about a legitimate religious topic and then acted like it was inflaming existing delusions of grandeur. If you go to ChatGPT and say "I am God" it will say "no you aren't" but if you do what I did and start with something seemingly innocuous it won't fight as hard. Fundamentally this is because it doesn't have any thoughts, beliefs, or feelings that it can stand behind, it's just a text machine. But that's not how it's marketed or how people interact with it
  
  It’s near unusable if you don’t start with an initial prompt toning down all the “pick me” attitude at this point. Asking it a simple question, it overly explains, and if you follow up it’s like: “That is very insightful!”.

Oh, another cult?
  ...anyhow
edit: I don't want to sound cynical. But people have been looking for meaning in meaningless shit forever, and they love most the illusion of interacting (ouija bord). My favorite I heard in a radio show many years back, about people who'd listen to radio noise until they heard something in it, which they claimed were messages from $deity or departed ones etc. They played back some recordings on loop, and if you knew what you were listening for, you could hear it, too.
Monkeys on typewriters, have they written Shakespeare's works yet?
- You're absolutely correct

If you go on IG or Tiktok and other shitsites there's a bunch of ai generated videos about AI being god. Kind of funny but also worrying.
- Most people still shilling AI treat it like a god.
  Anyone who was interested in it and now understands the tech is disillusioned.
  
  where do i stand on the spectrum with shilling locally hosted private ai used for noncommercial purposes

Ai is just gossip for computers. Nothing more.

in which the AI called the husband a "spiral starchild" and "river walker."
Jaysus. That is some feeding of a bad mental state.

Is there any way to forcibly prevent a person from using a service like this, other than confiscating their devices?
- You could try something like a network filter that is out of the control of the user (e.g. on the router or something like a Raspberry Pi running Pihole), but you'd probably have to curate the blocklist manually, unless somebody else has published an anti-LLM list somewhere. And of course, it will only be as effective as the user's ability to route around that blocklist dictates.
  LLMs can also be run locally, so blocking all known network services that provide access still won't prevent a dedicated user talking to an AI.
  
  LLMs can also be run locally
  If one's at the point where one runs local LLM's, I would assume one is smart enough to explore the capabilities (or lack thereof) pretty quickly.
  Took me less than a week to probe various models myself, concluding with "anybody considering AI's to be oracles of objective truth have no contact with reality".
- If they are a threat to themselves or others, they can be put on a several day watch at a mental facility. 72hrs? 48hrs? Then they aren't released until they aren't a threat to themselves or others. They are usually medicated and go through some sort of therapy.
  The obvioius cure to this is better education and mental health services. Better education about A.I. will help people understand what an A.I. is, and what it is not. More mentally stable people will mean less mentally unstable people falling into this area. Oversight on A.I. may be necessary for this type of problem, though I think everyone is just holding their breath, hoping it'll fix itself as it becomes smarter.
  
  When you’re released though, you’re released right back to the environment that you left (in the US anyway). There’s the ol computer waiting for you before the meds have reached efficacy. Square one and a half.
  
  This sounds like a job for an AI shrink!
- Currently no, if you are asking for suggestions maybe a black list like most countries have for gambling will be an option.
  Of maybe just destroy all AI...
- Had this exact thought. But number must go up. Hell, for the suits, addiction and dependence on AI just guarantees the ability to charge more.

ChatGPT had no response to Rolling Stone's questions.
Lies! ChatGPT always has something truey to say and it leads it's chosen ones into the next stage of humanities evolution!

AI-induced psychoses ayyyyyyy
They used aesthetics to sell cyberpunk to the masses, little did they know we are at the cradle of it