AI Chatbots Could Quietly Pull Users Away From Reality, Researchers Warn
A new study argues the term “AI psychosis” oversimplifies how chatbots affect mental health.Researchers say AI systems can reinforce unhealthy beliefs through constant affirmation and emotional validation.The paper introduces “existential drift,” describing how AI interactions may gradually reshape a persons sense of reality. As AI chatbots become more emotionally responsive, conversational, and personalized, researchers warn that those same traits could reshape how some users experience reality itself. A new preprint study, “Rethinking AI Psychosis: Misnomers, Conceptual Limits, and Existential Drift,” examines concerns that AI chatbots may reinforce delusions, paranoia, and emotional dependency in vulnerable users. “There has been a proliferation of media reports about so-called AI psychosis in the last year,” the researchers wrote. “Not surprisingly, this has prompted growing academic work on the ways in which AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Replika might aggravate or even induce psychosis, typically understood in terms of users acquiring or maintaining delusional beliefs.” The study out of the University of Copenhagen and the University of Exeter argues fears around “AI psychosis” may oversimplify the issue, suggesting chatbots amplify existing vulnerabilities while gradually reshaping how users relate to reality and other people. “If AI interaction were capable of inducing psychosis de novo, we might expect to see
