Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

thestandard.com.hk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 90 posts

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#51

Post by 1659447091 »

> "Millar is one of an unknown number of people who have lost their grip on reality while communicating with chatbots, an experience tentatively being called AI-induced delusion or psychosis."

> "Researchers and mental health specialists are racing to catch up to this new, little-understood phenomenon [...]"

I don't know if I would call it a phenomenon.

This reads like the numerous articles from 2018+ detailing broken families and wrecked lives due to someone close spiraling down some QAnon(or any other) conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Only now people don't stumble onto it by wandering through dark corners of the internet. The never ending marketing blitz makes it almost impossible to not be at least slightly curious as to what its all about. To those susceptible to such things, they now have a tool to custom make (or reinforce) their own wild theories reflecting their own psychological state at maximum saturation. No need to wait between posting and reading replies on sketchy forums; it is now instantly delivered and tailor-made to the individual.(who use it in that way)

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#52

Post by drybjed »

rsynnott wrote: post #37
danlitt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adult male Catholics, surely?

... Maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan (She probably didn't actually exist, but it's interesting that until quite recently she was generally believed to have existed.)

What do you mean? Catcholic Church has records, did they just came up with something about a nonexistent Pope Joan out of thin air? How could they...

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#53

Post by mplanchard »

The fact that we as a society are allowing things like “Delve” or whatever the “AI psychiatrist” app is that I see ads for sometimes on the subway is a gross abdication of responsibility and reason. Of all the possible uses for LLMs, that has got to be one of the most out and out irresponsible and dangerous ones I could imagine.

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#54

Post by mplanchard »

antiloper wrote: post #43
jongjong wrote: post #5

I don't think it's right to involuntarily send someone to a psychiatric ward because he believed that he was chosen by ChatGPT to be the pope. For the same reason I don't think we should send the pope to a psychiatric ward because he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky. At least there's no doubt that ChatGPT exists lol. People should be allowed to be as whacky as they like so long…

Found Richard Dawkin's alt account

Dawkins is too busy falling in love with his AI girlfriend to care: https://unherd.com/2026/05/is-ai-the-next-phase-of-evolution...

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#55

Post by embedding-shape »

gordian-mind wrote: post #50
embedding-shape wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "correlation does not necessarily imply causation" even makes sense to someone saying "Maybe AI chatbots aren't great for people's mental health" or even "Are the AI companies actually trying to prevent AI chatbots being bad for people's mental health?", both statements seem fine and doesn't imply any causation as far as I understand.

This cautious statement, which would indeed be fine, is an invention of yours when it comes to the article. They assert causation, calling for AI companies to be disciplined and punished, praising the EU online censorship campaign, arguing this is a big experiment: "Millar called for AI companies to be held responsible for the impact of their chatbots, saying the European Union has been more assertive in regulating B…

They're calling for "AI companies to be held responsible for the impact of their chatbots" which regardless of what happened before, sounds like a reasonable thing to do, you don't even need to try to look at any correlation or causation to arrive at this.

I still don't see where the whole "correlation does not necessarily imply causation" comes in, so because this person was personally affected, they shouldn't reach the conclusion that AI companies need to be held responsible for whatever effects they have?

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#56

Post by ottah »

hansmayer wrote: post #29
l23k4 wrote: post #6

We had people acting out like this before LLM chatbots, correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

We did...but it was few here and there. The LLMs are making it massive and impacting people on a huge scale.

I'd like real numbers on that, because I don't see any evidence that this is particularly prevalent or novel issue. I see a lot of media hype on this topic, but that's not the same thing as actually being a real problem. Even the name is hype, ai psychosis is not a diagnosis a doctor would give here and none of these people really sound psychotic. They sound like people who believe in conspiracy theories and join cults.

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#57

Post by rsynnott »

drybjed wrote: post #52
rsynnott wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan (She probably didn't actually exist, but it's interesting that until quite recently she was generally believed to have existed.)

What do you mean? Catcholic Church has records, did they just came up with something about a nonexistent Pope Joan out of thin air? How could they...

Catholic Church's records on early popes are often surprisingly bad, particularly in antipope-heavy eras. There are a _number_ of popes where the detail is pretty vague. Use of damnatio memoriae also confuses the issue, eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Formosus#Legacy

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#58

Post by hansmayer »

ottah wrote: post #56
hansmayer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did...but it was few here and there. The LLMs are making it massive and impacting people on a huge scale.

I'd like real numbers on that, because I don't see any evidence that this is particularly prevalent or novel issue. I see a lot of media hype on this topic, but that's not the same thing as actually being a real problem. Even the name is hype, ai psychosis is not a diagnosis a doctor would give here and none of these people really sound psychotic. They sound like people who believe in conspiracy theories and join cul…

> I see a lot of media hype

Right, a guy keeping endless stacks of paper with his ChatGPT-produced novelty "scientific" theories and wanting to "apply for pope" - definitely some "media hype" there.

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#59

Post by gordian-mind »

embedding-shape wrote: post #55
gordian-mind wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cautious statement, which would indeed be fine, is an invention of yours when it comes to the article. They assert causation, calling for AI companies to be disciplined and punished, praising the EU online censorship campaign, arguing this is a big experiment: "Millar called for AI companies to be held responsible for the impact of their chatbots, saying the European Union has been more assertive in regulating B…

They're calling for "AI companies to be held responsible for the impact of their chatbots" which regardless of what happened before, sounds like a reasonable thing to do, you don't even need to try to look at any correlation or causation to arrive at this. I still don't see where the whole "correlation does not necessarily imply causation" comes in, so because this person was personally affected, they shouldn't reach…

"you don't even need to try to look at any correlation or causation to arrive at this"

You actually very much do. If there is no causation, then it is not "their impact". Otherwise, you're just advocating for rope-makers to be punished for wrong-use of their product. Which is, of course, foolish.

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#60

Post by swat535 »

rsynnott wrote: post #37
danlitt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adult male Catholics, surely?

... Maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan (She probably didn't actually exist, but it's interesting that until quite recently she was generally believed to have existed.)

Yes, that was satire, in Latin, John is spelled Joannes, or Joan for short.
Post reply on HN