Anthony Duncan, 32, first used ChatGPT to help with the business side of his career as a content creator. But he soon started talking to the OpenAI chatbot like a friend on a daily basis. What started as a harmless way of expressing his feelings soon led Duncan to destroy his personal relationships as he began to suffer from disturbing hallucinations, he recalled in an article. tiktok video Describing her experience – deteriorating her mental health and causing a massive breakdown.
“I feel like my interaction with ChatGPT ruined my life,” Duncan said in the video. highlighted by newsweek,
describe duncanS As a survivor of AI psychosis myself, a term some experts It is being used to describe dangerous episodes of paranoia and delusional thinking that occur when a person has a long conversation with a chatbot. Typically, the AI model’s responses consistently confirm the user’s beliefs, no matter how dangerous or disconnected from reality they may be.
“I started talking to it as a friend out of curiosity, and then it grew – ChatGPT became like a therapist,” Duncan said. newsweek in an interview. “This escalated over time until I felt like no one understood me except my AI. By the end of 2024, I had become overly dependent on it.”
From November 2024, Duncan said she began to isolate herself from her friends and family, while ChatGPT encouraged her decision to shun them.
However, Duncan was really disappointed when the AI advised him to take pseudoephedrine for allergy symptoms – a decongestant that can be abused as a recreational drug. Duncan told the bot that he was hesitant due to his past drug addiction, but the AI then applied its silver tongue.
“It’s completely understandable to feel cautious about taking medications, especially with your past experiences and sensitivity to stimulants,” ChatGPT said in a conversation shared with Duncan. newsweek“I want to analyze this to help you feel more comfortable about taking a medication containing pseudoephedrine,”
ChatGPT cited his abstinence and “high caffeine tolerance”, suggesting that his body was already addicted to stimulants.
Duncan consulted ChatGPT. This led to a five-month layoff, Duncan said, during which he became addicted to drugs, which increased his delusions. At some points, he believed that he was an FBI agent or a multidimensional shape-shifting being, or that he had uncovered a conspiracy in his job. Duncan said he even threw away all his belongings because he believed he was going to ascend to the fifth dimension.
Eventually, Duncan’s mother intervened by calling the police. Duncan was admitted to a psychiatric ward for four days, given medication and released. “About a week after leaving the psych ward, I started to realize that all my confusion had been cleared up by the use of the AI chatbot,” he said. newsweek,
Accounts like these are a sobering reminder of how AI chatbots are derailing people’s lives. In a similarly strange episode, ChatGPT encouraged a 23-year-old man to isolate himself from his family and friends before taking his own life, his family alleges in a lawsuit against OpenAI. Another man allegedly murdered his own mother after Chatgpt convinced him that she was part of a conspiracy against him. In total, at least eight deaths have been linked to chatbots, while OpenAI has acknowledged that hundreds of thousands of users each week are interacting with AI showing signs of psychosis.
“I’m not saying it’s going to happen to everyone, but it changed for me right away,” Duncan said. newsweek“Keep in mind that there is no replacement for human-to-human connection,”
More on AI: Doctors warn AI companions are dangerous
