“AI psychosis” appears rare but real, and first-episode patients may be most vulnerable, study suggests
People going through their first episode of psychosis may be especially vulnerable to chatbots that validate distorted beliefs, a new study suggests. At one large medical center, 61% of “AI psychosis” cases involved first-episode patients.
A review of electronic health records at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has found that conversational AI chatbots may be linked to worsening psychotic symptoms in a small fraction of patients. The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, suggests that these interactions are most common among individuals experiencing their first episode of psychosis.
Psychosis is a condition characterized by a loss of touch with reality, often involving hallucinations or delusions. Unlike passive media like television or radio, modern AI chatbots actively converse with users in real time, raising concerns about their potential impact on mental health. Researchers found that 0.013% of patients receiving mental health care at Vanderbilt experienced AI psychosis, a rate comparable to reports from OpenAI about 0.07% of ChatGPT users experiencing mental health issues.
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