AI chatbots linked to psychological harm, addiction and delusions, Study finds

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1432467/ai-chatbots-linked-to-psychological-harm-addiction-and-delusions-study-finds

Research.

news.northeastern.edu/2026/09/28/ai-chatbots-psychological-harm-mental-health/

AI-induced psychosis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-induced_psychosis

It’s really easy to get drawn into the delusion. I once spent a Sunday afternoon doings stock picks for the coming year with google gemini. After several hours I decided to independently verify the answers it was giving. EVERY SINGLE THING IT SAID WAS A LIE!!!

I always thought of myself as smart and cynical. But that grift bruised my ego more than anything else.

Here is a good study of how wrong they can be and the results are horrific. Not surprisingly, google gemini is almost never right.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/03/ai-search-engines-fail-to-produce-accurate-citations-in-over-60-of-tests-according-to-new-tow-center-study/

It didn’t “lie,” because an LLM can’t deceive. It’s a tool that predicts the next most likely token, and unless you asking for citations you’re using an LLM in an application where they do not usually perform well