In addition to the impact AI has had on the world environmentally, politically, and socially, it has also been linked to a serious mental health crisis, with users becoming delusional and being committed to psychiatric institutions, or even dying by suicide.
Take Caitlin Ner. write in one essay for newsweekNer discusses her experience as head of user experience at an AI image generator startup — a program she says left her vulnerable to an AI-induced mental health breakdown.
Speaking about herself, Ner says it all started on the job, where she spent more than nine hours a day to launch a 2023-era generic AI system. Although the pseudo-human images that emerged were often distorted and twisted, it still “felt like magic” – at least at first.
He wrote, “Within a few months that magic became frenzy.”
Ner wrote that these early images “began to distort my perception of my body and overstimulate my brain in ways that were actually harmful to my mental health.” Yet even when the AI learned to easily take the number of fingers it generated on a human hand, its images were still mentally affected, trading physical errors for visuals featuring impossibly thin, beautiful shapes.
“Seeing such AI images again and again reawakened my sense of normalcy,” Ner said. “When I look at my true reflection, I will see something that needs improvement.”
At a crucial moment, Ner began experimenting with AI images depicting herself as a fashion model, a directive set by her company to pursue users interested in fashion. “I found myself thinking, ‘I wish I looked like an AI version of myself,'” she wrote. “I was obsessed with getting thinner, having a better body, and having great skin.”
She soon began losing sleep in order to create more and more images, which she called “addictive”, as each image triggered a “little burst of dopamine”. Although Ner was successfully treating her bipolar disorder before entering AI fashion modeling, this new obsession turned into a “manic bipolar episode”, which she says led to an episode of psychosis.
“When I saw the AI-generated image of myself on a flying horse, I began to believe that I could actually fly,” writes Ner. “Voices told me to fly off my balcony, convincing me that I could survive. This grandiose illusion almost inspired me to actually jump.”
Luckily, she pulled herself together and started reaching out to friends and family for help. A therapist helped him realize that his work had led to the spiral, leading him to leave the AI startup. “I now understand that what happened to me was not just a combination of mental illness and technology,” she explains. “It was a form of digital addiction from months and months of AI image generation.”
She has since jumped ship to become a director at another trendy company, PsyMed Ventures newsweek It is described as a VC fund investing in mental and brain health. Many of the companies PsyMed features invest in AI tools—which Nerr says she still uses, though with a new sense of respect.
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