AI Psychosis: When Humans And Machines Hallucinate Together

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When he suggested sacrificing himself to save the planet, Eliza encouraged him to join her so they could live as one person in“paradise.” Pierre took his own life shortly after.

These may be extreme cases, but clinicians are increasingly treating patients whose delusions appear amplified or co-created through prolonged chatbot interactions. Little wonder, when a recent report from ChatGPT-creator OpenAI revealed that many of us are turning to chatbots to think through problems, discuss our lives, plan futures and explore beliefs and feelings.

In these contexts, chatbots are no longer just information retrievers; they become our digital companions. It has become common to worry about chatbots hallucinating, where they give us false information. But as they become more central to our lives, there's clearly also growing potential for humans and chatbots to create hallucinations together.

How we share reality

Our sense of reality depends deeply on other people. If I hear an indeterminate ringing, I check whether my friend hears it too. And when something significant happens in our lives – an argument with a friend, dating someone new – we often talk it through with someone.

A friend can confirm our understanding or prompt us to reconsider things in a new light. Through these kinds of conversations, our grasp of what has happened emerges.

But now, many of us engage in this meaning-making process with chatbots. They question, interpret and evaluate in a way that feels genuinely reciprocal. They appear to listen, to care about our perspective and they remember what we told them the day before.

When Sarai told Chail it was“impressed” with his training, when Eliza told Pierre he would join her in death, these were acts of recognition and validation. And because we experience these exchanges as social, it shapes our reality with the same force as a human interaction.

Yet chatbots simulate sociality without its safeguards. They are designed to promote engagement. They don't actually share our world. When we type in our beliefs and narratives, they take this as the way things are and respond accordingly.

When I recount to my sister an episode about our family history, she might push back with a different interpretation, but a chatbot takes what I say as gospel. They sycophantically affirm how we take reality to be. And then, of course, they can introduce further errors.

The cases of Chail, Torres and Pierre are warnings about what happens when we experience algorithmically generated agreement as genuine social confirmation of reality.

What can be done

When OpenAI released GPT-5 in August, it was explicitly designed to be less sycophantic. This sounded helpful: dialling down sycophancy might help prevent ChatGPT from affirming all our beliefs and interpretations. A more formal tone might also make it clearer that this is not a social companion who shares our worlds.

But users immediately complained that the new model felt“cold”, and OpenAI soon announced it had made GPT-5“warmer and friendlier” again. Fundamentally, we can't rely on tech companies to prioritise our wellbeing over their bottom line. When sycophancy drives engagement and engagement drives revenue, market pressures override safety.