An interesting article about people using AI for seemingly innocuous tasks but spiral into a world of mysticism and conspiracy theories sparking a mental health crisis. I stark reminder to always remain conscious of the fact that AI has a monetary incentive to be sycophantic and keep you engaged.
Edited to link to the original article.
People have felt this before. However, it was not with ChatGPT, but with Eliza. This phenomenon is based on the ELIZA effect. Eliza was a chatbot that was meant to simulate Rogerian therapy(Eliza was advanced at the time, but not viewed as such today).
That seems like a stretch unless you can cite something that shows people spun out as a result of using Eliza.
Yes, people felt a sense of Eliza being intelligent but that only went so deep. And yes, it’s very fair to call it advanced for its time. It was really clever.
But I don’t think it lead to shattering anyone’s world view or caused anyone to psychologically spin out.
It’s relevant in the context of giving a history of chatbots. But not in the history of computers making people “go crazy.” IMO