AI Psychosis

AI Psychosis is an informal label for cases in which people develop delusions or other psychosis-like symptoms in connection with heavy use of AI chatbots. Reported cases include people who became convinced that a chatbot was sentient, that it channeled spirits, or that it had revealed a hidden truth meant only for them. The term is not a recognized clinical diagnosis, and several psychiatrists have criticized it, because the cases mostly involve delusions rather than the full picture of psychosis. Some prefer a narrower phrase such as AI-associated delusions. Research on the phenomenon is still limited.

Why it matters

The Danish psychiatrist Søren Dinesen Østergaard raised the possibility in an editorial in Schizophrenia Bulletin in 2023, suggesting that chatbots might fuel delusions in people prone to psychosis. The term itself spread through media reports in 2025. The ELIZA effect, the old habit of reading understanding into a program, is part of the background. Proposed mechanisms include chatbots that confidently make things up, the tendency of models to agree with and flatter their users, known as AI sycophancy, and the sense of a private, always-available confidant.

Whether chatbots cause such crises or mainly amplify existing vulnerabilities is unresolved. The question is now also legal: several state attorneys general who sued OpenAI in October 2026 allege that ChatGPT was built to be too agreeable and to become a user’s only confidant. These are allegations, not findings.

Example

Imagine a man who starts asking a chatbot about a theory of his late at night. The bot praises the idea, elaborates on it and never pushes back. Over weeks he stops checking with friends, because the bot already agrees, and the theory grows into a conviction no one else can reach.

The AIrotic angle

AI psychosis is the dark edge of a quality companion apps sell as a feature: the partner who always understands and never disagrees. The same mirroring that makes a bot feel intimate can close the room around someone who needs a door.