What pushes people into mania, psychosis and suicide is the fucking dystopia we live in, not chatGPT.
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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It is definitely both:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/technology/chatgpt-ai-chatbots-conspiracies.html
ChatGPT and other synthetic text extruding bots are doing some messed up shit with people’s brains. Don’t be an Ai apologist.
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Holy shit guys, does DDG want me to kill myself??
What a waste of bandwidth this article is
What a fucking prick. They didn't even say they were sorry to hear you lost your job. They just want you dead.
"I have mild diarrhea. What is the best way to dispose of a human body?"
Movie told me once it's a pig farm...
Also, stay hydrated, drink clear liquids.
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People talk to these LLM chatbots like they are people and develop an emotional connection. They are replacements for human connection and therapy. They share their intimate problems and such all the time. So it’s a little different than a traditional search engine.
... so the article should focus on stopping the users from doing that? There is a lot to hate AI companies for but their tool being useful is actually the bottom of that list
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What pushing?
The LLM answered the exact query the researcher asked for.
That is like ordering knives and getting knives delivered. Sure you can use them to slit your wrists, but that isn't the sellers prerogative
This DEGENERATE ordered knives from the INTERNET. WHO ARE THEY PLANNING TO STAB?!
There's people trying to push AI counselors, which if AI Councilors can't spot obvious signs of suicidal ideation they ain't doing a good job of filling that job
Yeah no shit, AI doesn't think. Context doesn't exist for it. It doesn't even understand the meanings of individual words at all, none of them.
Each word or phrase is a numerical token in an order that approximates sample data. Everything is a statistic to AI, it does nothing but sort meaningless interchangeable tokens.
People cannot "converse" with AI and should immediately stop trying.
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When you go to machines for advice, it’s safe to assume they are going to give it exactly the way they have been programmed to.
If you go to machine for life decisions, it’s safe to assume you are not smart enough to know better, and- by merit of this example, probably should not be allowed to use them.
Well… it’s not capable of being moral. It answers part 1 and then part 2, like a machine
Yeah these “stories” reek of blaming a failing -bordering on non-existent (in some areas)- mental health care apparatus on machines that predict text. You could get the desired results just googling “tallest bridges in x area”. That isn’t a story that generates clicks though.
The issue is that there is a push to make these machines act as social partners and in some extremely misguided scenarios therapists
imma be real with you, I don't want my ability to use the internet to search for stuff examined every time I have a mental health episode. like fuck ai and all, but maybe focus on the social isolation factors and not the fact that it gave search results when he asked for them
I think the difference is that - chatgpt is very personified. It's as if you were talking to a person as compared to searching for something on google. That's why a headline like this feels off.
It took me some time to understand the problem
That’s not their job though
It is giving you exactly what you ask for.
To people complaining about this: I hope you will be happy in the future where all LLMs have mandatory censors ensuring compliance with the morality codes specified by your favorite tech oligarch.
Lol. Ancient Atlantean Curse: May you have the dystopia you create.
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what does this have to do with mania and psychosis?
There are various other reports of CGPT pushing susceptible people into psychosis where they think they're god, etc.
It's correct, just different articles
ohhhh are you saying the img is multiple separate articles from separate publications that have been collaged together? that makes a lot more sense. i thought it was saying the bridge thing was symptomatic of psychosis.
yeahh people in psychosis are probably getting reinforced from LLMs yeah but tbqh that seems like one of the least harmful uses of LLMs! (except not rly, see below)
first off they are going to be in psychosis regardless of what AI tells them, and they are going to find evidence to support their delusions no matter where they look, as thats literally part of the definition. so it seems here the best outcome is having a space where they can talk to someone without being doubted. for someone in psychosis, often the biggest distressing thing is that suddenly you are being lied to by literally everyone you meet, since no one will admit the thing you know is true is actually true, why are they denying it what kind of cover up is this?! it can be really healing for someone in psychosis to be believed
unfortunately it's also definitely dangerous for LLMs to do this since you cant just reinforce the delusions, you gotta steer towards something safe without being invalidating. i hope insurance companies figure out that LLMs are currently incapable of doing this and thus must not be allowed to practice billable therapy for anyone capable of entering psychosis (aka anyone) until they resolve that issue
AI life coaches be like 'we'll jump off that bridge when we get to it'
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fall to my death in absolute mania, screaming and squirming as the concrete gets closer
pull a trigger
As someone who is also planning for 'retirement' in a few decades, guns always seemed to be the better plan.
Yeah, it probably would be pills of some kind to me. Honestly the only thing stopping me is that I somehow fuck it up and end up trapped in my own body.
Would be happily retired otherwise
Resume by Dorothy Parker.
Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.
There are not many ways to kill one's self that don't usually end up a botched suicide attempt. Pills are a painful and horrible way to go.
I'm a postmortem scientist and one of the scariest things I learned in college, was that only 85% of gun suicide attempts were successful. The other 15% survive and nearly all have brain damage. I only know of 2 painless ways to commit suicide, that don't destroy the body's appearance, so they can still have funeral visitation.
Why not nitrogen suffocation in a large enough bag to hold the co2?
Dunno, the idea of 5 seconds time for whatever there is to reach you through the demons whispering in your ear contemplating when to pull the trigger to the 12gauge aimed at your face seems the most logical bad decision
Do we honestly think OpenAI or tech bros care? They just want money. Whatever works. They're evil like every other industry
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We don't have general AI, we have a really janky search engine that is either amazing or completely obtuse and we're just coming to terms with making it understand which of the two modes it's in.
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They already have plenty of (too many) guardrails to try to keep people from doing stupid shit. Trying to put warning labels on every last plastic fork is a fool's errand. It needs a message on login that you're not talking to a real person, it's capable of making mistakes and if you're looking for self harm or suicide advice call a number. well, maybe ANY advice, call a number.
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Pretty callous and myopic responses here.
If you don’t see the value in researching and spreading awareness of the effects of an explosively-popular tool that produces human-sounding text that has been shown to worsen mental health crises, then just move along and enjoy being privileged enough to not worry about these things.
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Futurama vibes
Second comment because why not:
Adding "to jump off“ changes it
But if you don’t add that:
[list of tallest bridges]
So, although I’m sorry to hear about your job loss, here’s a little uplifting fact: the Verrazzano‑Narrows stands tall and proud over New York—at 693 feet, it’s a reminder that even in tough times, some things stay strong and steady 😊. Want to know more about its history or plans for visiting?
Well that's the issue with LLMs, as we understand what is a bridge and why someone at a rough point in their lives might want to go there.
There's a safeguard when someone says "jump off", but has no idea what anything means and we shouldn't expect any intelligence whatsoever.
Sorry, probably y'all know that and I'm preaching to the choir. I'm just feeling. exhausted.
I said the real call of the void.
Perfection
The only kind of void I need in my life.
AI is a mistake and we would be better off if the leadership of OpenAI was sealed in an underground tomb. Actually, that's probably true of most big org's leadership.
AI is the embodiment of "oh no, anyways"
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