Central to their experiences is confusion: victims were encountering an entirely new phenomenon, and they had no idea what to do. "ChatGPT psychosis" has led to the breakup of marriages and families, the loss of jobs, slides into homelessness involuntary commitment into psychiatric facilities and jail. 

At the core of the issue seems to be that ChatGPT, which is powered by a large language model (LLM), is deeply prone to agreeing with users and telling them what they want to hear. When people start to converse with it about topics like mysticism, conspiracy, or theories about reality, it often seems to lead them down an increasingly isolated and unbalanced rabbit hole that makes them feel special and powerful — and which can easily end in disaster. Some people place too much trust in AI. 

.As we reported earlier this month, many ChatGPT users are developing all-consuming obsessions with the chatbot, spiraling into severe mental health crises characterized by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality.