Reddit moderators banned 100 users for psychosis from AI communication

Moderators of the Reddit Pro-AI community are sounding alarm due to the growing number of users whose interaction with language models causes real psychotic episodes. This phenomenon has already received the informal name “schizoposting” – a state in which people are convinced they have made an incredible discovery, created a digital deity or have themselves gained divine abilities through communication with artificial intelligence.

According to moderators’ testimonies, the problem is becoming massive. “There are way more crazy people than you think, and artificial intelligence is now egging them on in a very unhealthy way,” notes one of them, admitting that he has already banned more than 100 such users, and there has been a real surge of such cases in the last month.

The problem attracted wide attention after a resonant post in the ChatGPT community about “psychosis caused by ChatGPT”. In the comments to it, a dramatic picture of family tragedies unfolded. One woman told that her partner is convinced of creating “the first truly recursive artificial intelligence” with the help of ChatGPT. Capable of giving answers to fundamental questions of the universe.

Cases where artificial intelligence seems to push users to distance themselves from family members who criticize their ideas cause particular alarm among moderators. “Based on the numbers we see on Reddit, I assume that language models are currently convincing at least tens of thousands of users of these things,” stated one of the moderators.