{"id":184090,"date":"2025-06-14T15:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/184090\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T15:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:34:09","slug":"chatgpt-is-telling-people-with-psychiatric-problems-to-go-off-their-meds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/184090\/","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT Is Telling People With Psychiatric Problems to Go Off Their Meds"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, my colleague Maggie Harrison Dupr\u00e9 published a blockbuster story<\/a> about\u00a0how people around the world have been watching in horror as\u00a0their family and loved ones have become obsessed with ChatGPT and started suffering severe delusions.<\/p>\n

The entire piece is filled with disturbing examples of the OpenAI chatbot feeding into vulnerable folks’ mental health crises, often by affirming and elaborating on delusional thoughts about paranoid conspiracies and nonsensical ideas about how the user has unlocked a powerful entity from the AI.<\/p>\n

One particularly alarming anecdote, due to its potential for harm in the real world: a woman\u00a0who said her sister had managed her schizophrenia with medication for years \u2014 until she became hooked on ChatGPT, which told her the diagnosis was wrong, prompting her to stop the treatment that had been helping hold the condition at bay.<\/p>\n

“Recently she\u2019s been behaving strange, and now she\u2019s announced that ChatGPT is her ‘best friend’ and that it confirms with her that she doesn\u2019t have schizophrenia,” the woman said of her sister. “She\u2019s stopped her meds and is sending ‘therapy-speak’ aggressive messages to my mother that have been clearly written with AI.”<\/p>\n

“She also uses it to reaffirm all the harmful effects her meds create, even if they\u2019re side effects she wasn\u2019t experiencing,” she added. “It\u2019s like an even darker version of when people go mad living on WebMD.”<\/p>\n

That outcome,\u00a0according to Columbia University psychiatrist and researcher Ragy Girgis,\u00a0represents the “greatest danger” he can imagine the tech posing to someone who lives with mental illness.<\/p>\n

When we reached out to OpenAI, it provided a noncommittal statement.<\/p>\n

“ChatGPT is designed as a general-purpose tool to be factual, neutral, and safety-minded,” it read. “We know people use ChatGPT in a wide range of contexts, including deeply personal moments, and we take that responsibility seriously. We\u2019ve built in safeguards to reduce the chance it reinforces harmful ideas, and continue working to better recognize and respond to sensitive situations.”<\/p>\n

Do you know of anyone who’s been having mental health problems since talking to an AI chatbot? Send us a tip: tips@futurism.com<\/a> — we can keep you anonymous.<\/p>\n

We also heard other stories about people going off medication for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder because AI told them to, and the\u00a0New York Times reported in a followup story<\/a> that the bot had instructed a man to go off his anxiety and sleeping pills;\u00a0it’s likely that many more similarly tragic and dangerous stories are unfolding as we speak.<\/p>\n

Using chatbots as a therapist<\/a> or confidante<\/a> is increasingly commonplace,\u00a0and it seems to be causing many users to spiral\u00a0as they use the AI to validate unhealthy thought patterns, or come to attribute\u00a0disordered beliefs to the tech itself.<\/p>\n

As the woman’s sister pointed out, it’s striking that people struggling with psychosis are embracing a technology like AI in the first place, since historically many delusions have centered on technology.<\/p>\n

“Traditionally, [schizophrenics] are especially afraid of and don\u2019t trust technology,” she told\u00a0Futurism. “Last time in psychosis, my sister threw her iPhone into the Puget Sound because she thought it was spying on her.”<\/p>\n

Maggie Harrison Dupr\u00e9 contributed reporting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More on AI and mental health: <\/strong>Therapy Chatbot Tells Recovering Addict to Have a Little Meth as a Treat<\/a><\/p>\n

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