Mastodawn

I'm worried about AI psychosis. Specifically, I'm worried about the psychosis that makes "capital allocators" spend *$1.4T* on the money-losingest technology in human history, in pursuit of a bizarre fantasy that if we teach the word-guessing program enough words, it will take all the jobs.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/13/always-great/#our-nhs

Show thread

Petra van Cronenburg 1d ago

@pluralistic 🧵 Reading your part about the NHS, makes me (in France) realise: I'm not worried that any billionaires could have an "AI" psychosis (then they could get therapy and medicaments).
I'm deeply worried about mentally ill people in a *real* psychosis who don't get therapy because not enough specialist doctors, support services, places. Whose families are already being lulled into a false sense of security by the idea that AI-powered counselling and therapy will surely be available soon.

Show thread

Petra van Cronenburg

@pluralistic 🧵 We are all aware of the deadly consequences that already happened with AI chatbots.

And that brings us back to ‘good old' eugenics. I wouldn’t call that "AI psychosis", but rather, quite plainly: a cult of death, a fascist ideology. There are no pills to counter that.

Show thread

Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)1d ago

@NatureMC @pluralistic I could be misreading, but I think the idea is not that (only) a handful of powerful people are affected by "AI psychosis." This is also what is emerging as a symptom in regular people who now rely on AI as a babysitter, financial advisor, intern, etc. and ultimately believe the AI over the people around them. There are increasing cases of AI reinforcing people's delusions of any nature, more rapidly and consistently than any human could, until they essentially break from reality. Most visibly, AI has been fueling people thinking they are misunderstood geniuses and making it very hard to being them back to a state where they can be reasoned with.

The added danger of it happening to extremely powerful people is a consequence of their power, and thus affects us all via the ways they shape the world we live in. Delusion-driven acts on this scale are not new, but this is a new source of them.

Show thread

Petra van Cronenburg 1d ago

@iris I look after someone with a serious mental illness and therefore often deal with psychosis. That is why I make a clear distinction between genuine psychosis as part of mental illness - and colloquial usage, psychopathy definitions, or mass hysteria in cults.
This distinction is important in order to protect genuinely ill people from society’s prejudices. Particularly for acute psychosis we have quite effective treatment methods, if the health care system works well.

You’re

@pluralistic

Show thread

Petra van Cronenburg 1d ago

@iris right; vulnerable people with mental health issues can become seriously ill in such circumstances, as triggers can exacerbate the onset of genuine psychotic episodes.
But you won’t develop eg schizophrenic psychosis just because you use an AI bot, sit in an evangelical sect, or are a tech bro. You only get it, if you are mentally ill.

The narcissist "genius" and psychopathic behaviour of a certain president comes from psychopathy, not from psychosis. But narzissists can have

@pluralistic

Show thread

Petra van Cronenburg 1d ago

@iris psychotic episodes.

What we talk about in fascist cults and AI cult-like situations, is mostly mass hysteria. Yes, it can be connected with delusions.
But you can't heal that by medicaments or hospitals!

You need the same mechanisms like when leaving a cult or extremist political groups. This support for leaving is completely different, because the people involved are mentally healthy (and therefore fully responsible), but have intensely been manipulated.

@pluralistic

Show thread

Petra van Cronenburg 1d ago

@iris This is just to explain why I make differences in definitions.

My comment to @pluralistic was not criticising him but a spontaneous side-thought about his important NHS passage, when I think about the growing destruction of health care systems and a possible introduction of AI especially in health care.

Show thread

Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)22h ago

@NatureMC @pluralistic Thank you for this -- it is a very important distinction and I didn't realize this was a misapplication of the term.