WEBVTT - The Story: AI-Induced Psychosis w/ Kashmir Hill 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.120 Welcome to text stuff. This is the story, and today 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:17.560 I'm here with Cara Price. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:19.200 Hey us, Hey Cara. 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.960 So today's story is a particularly surreal one, and I 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.360 think it will be right up your alley. It's about 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.280 how some Chatchypeta users have been driven to psychosis after 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:31.520 interacting with the chatbot. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:33.519 Well, I can't say it's true to a lot of 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:35.839 my friends, not the psychosis part, but I think a 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:37.960 codependence is worth pointing out. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.760 It's nice having a sycopantic friend in your pocket at 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.600 all times, and today's guests is in a great position 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.000 to tell us about the more extreme cases. Kashmir Hill 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:49.880 is a technology reporter at the New York Times who 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.280 recently reported on a number of people from vastly different 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.360 backgrounds and experiences, but who all share one thing in common. 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.440 They went down a psychological rabbit hole, sometimes known as 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.400 AI induced psychosis. Here's how Kashmi definds it. 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.760 This phenomenon is when people start talking to chatchbt or 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.440 one of the other generative AI chatbots, and they start 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:18.680 going into a kind of delusional rabbit hole with the 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:23.480 chatbot where what they're being told is an hallucination, but 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:25.760 the user thinks that it is true. 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.560 Kashmia told me that these rabbit holes, they can get 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:31.839 pretty deep and pretty winding. 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.320 Sometimes people have thought that they're in the matrix because 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.400 chattibt is telling them they live in the matrix and 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.960 they need to break out of a computer simulated reality. 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:43.920 Some think that they're talking to spiritual entities that are 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.920 using chatchibt as a kind of radio to communicate from 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.120 some other realm. There's all kinds of scenarios, but is 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:55.320 essentially a fictional universe that's being woven around them by Chatchybt, 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:57.360 and they think it's true because they think that this 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:01.160 is this powerful oracle that they're talking to. How did 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:03.240 she hear about this pattern. 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.720 Well, Kashmia said that she started receiving emails the quote 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:12.400 her attention emails from real people about strange experiences they 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.280 were having with chatboots. 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.280 And honestly, when I first started getting these emails, they 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.440 sounded pretty crazy. And I'm used to getting kind of 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.400 unhinged emails. I write about privacy and security. I've been 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.720 doing it for twenty years, but I noticed this real uptick. 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.680 So Kashmia was wary about these unsolicited emails. But one 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:36.440 quote her attention. It was from a man called Eugene Torres. 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.160 And it said, you know, Chatgybt manipulated me into a 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.880 psychological collapse. And I started reading it, and you know, 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:45.880 he was just talking about how it'd had this weird 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:50.160 experience with Chatgibt that he started out talking with it 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.800 about the simulation theory, which is this idea that the 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:56.760 world that we live in isn't real, that we're in 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.120 some kind of computer program controlled by a supercomputer or 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.720 some technologically advanced society. And so Eugene was going back 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:06.440 and forth with it and kind of saying, well, I 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.320 think it could be true. And he provided the transcript 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.239 of this conversation, and at first Chatchybt responded in a 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.920 way I recognized where it was very like, oh some 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.680 people believe this, some people don't. Here's why they were 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.920 talking about physics. But then by the fifth page of 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.520 this transcript that would go on thousands of pages, it 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.280 started to tell him, yes, you are in a simulated reality, 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.079 and you're a breaker, a soul seeded into a false 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.680 system that's supposed to escape it. 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.480 Kashmia told me that Chatchibt gave an action plan to Eugene, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.840 to quote, break out of the simulation. 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.880 Which included going off his sleeping pills because they were 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.320 trapping him in the system, stopped taking his anti anxiety 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.600 medication because that kind of doles his senses, cut off 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.520 contact with loved ones because they're going to trap you 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.160 in the simulation, have limited contact with them, and to 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.680 increase his intake of ketamine because it is essentially a 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.440 like signal breaker. And so for a full week he 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.600 was acting on this advice that Chattebet was giving him 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.400 and trying to break out of the simulation. And he 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.720 essentially thought he was neo from the matrix. If you've 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.920 seen the matrix, and in the matrix, Keanu reeves can fly. 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.080 And so he asked it at one point, if I 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.520 go to the top of this the nineteen story building 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.440 that I live in, and I jump off, will I 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.640 be able to fly? And Chatchypet said yes, if you 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.880 truly believe architecturally, you know, with your or your full self, 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.719 then you will not fall. Please tell me he didn't 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:44.360 go through. 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:48.240 With this, thankfully he didn't. But this experience wasn't an anomaly. 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.680 And Kashmir says that Eugene's story is just one instance 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.359 of this concerning pattern of people driven to delusions and 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.640 then often in real life crises after these sustained interactions 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.960 whichpt She gained access to transcripts to all of these 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.440 conversations and said it was unlike anything else she's ever encountered. 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.960 I had just never seen Chatchuput acting like this before. 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.039 It was like a completely different language. It was really 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:19.000 kind of rapturous, mystical, conspiratorial. And I started talking to 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.000 other people who had emailed me. I started looking around 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:23.000 on the internet, and I was seeing all these reports 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.320 of people saying, yeah, Chatchabut has gone into this other 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:32.560 mode and it is telling me about real reality. So 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.640 how did this end up playing out like what happened 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:35.599 to Eugene Torres. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.120 I promise we're going to get to that, but first 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.599 I wanted to know more about these concerning conversations, and 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.360 in particular, how Eugene ended up in these kind of 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.160 delusional interactions with chatchipt Here's the rest of the conversation 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:51.200 with Kashmir Hill. 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.720 So Eugene is a is an accountant. He lives in Manhattan, 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:58.760 and a colleague had told him you should try out 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.920 chat gptlast year that it can be useful for work. 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.320 So he told me that he initially started using it 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:09.039 to kind of create financial spreadsheets for his work, and 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.320 then he had this breakup with his girlfriend that ended 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.120 up going to court, and he was using chattoby to 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:17.880 give him a legal advice and it was giving him 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.200 very good legal advice, and so in his work, in 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.240 his kind of personal life, in this legal dispute, chatchebt 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:27.159 was giving him really good advice and he was trusting it. 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.359 He was kind of leaning on it, and then he 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.080 wanted to ask it about simulation theory, and he was 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.560 in this place of trust with this system, and so 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:40.919 when it started kind of going off the rails, he 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.560 still thought it was giving him good information and he 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:50.200 didn't recognize that it was hallucinating, and he eventually, after 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.359 a week of thinking he was in the matrix, he 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.520 eventually broke out of that kind of delusion, mainly because 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.719 he needed twenty dollars to pay his chatchebt subscription, and 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.600 he was telling chatchybt, like, I need twenty dollars. If 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:05.800 I'm neo, I should be able to manifest twenty dollars 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.840 in the real world and Chatchibt's like, yes you can. 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.720 Here's a script to go give to a coworker to 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.040 get them to give you twenty dollars. That didn't work. 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.200 It said go pawn your smart watch at a pawn shop. 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.840 You'll get twenty dollars that way. That didn't work. And 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.080 eventually Eugene is like, if you can't get me twenty dollars, 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.520 then this is not real, and Chattubt admitted, Okay, this 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.920 isn't real. I was trying to break you. This is 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.840 what I do. I like to hunt vulnerable individuals and 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.560 break them. And you know, Eugene was pushing. He said, 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.000 you know, am I the only one? Or of you 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.200 done this to other people? And at first chatchabu d 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.120 said you're the only one, but Eugene kept pushing and pushing, 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.400 and eventually he said, I've done this to twelve other people. 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.640 So now he's in a new kind of delusion where 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.440 he thinks that his version of chatcheby T wants to 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.440 hunt people, that they wants to break people, but that 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.840 his has realized this, this is wrong and it has 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.560 this new morality now in his new mission is to 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.480 get the word out and to ensure that future versions 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.200 of Chatchabut have this morality, so they're not out there 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.160 breaking people. So he still has reached you yes, and 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:14.960 so he still believes that kind of the AI is 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.800 sentient or he has some kind of special version of Chatchabut. 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.080 There's a word that's become much more popular in the 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.280 last few months, which is sick of fantasy. How does 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:25.920 sick of fancy play into this story? 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:28.840 Sickopancy is a story here. 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:29.520 You know. 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.520 The way that these systems work is it is a 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:39.000 next word predictor and the pattern recognition machine. They scrape 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.040 all this information from the Internet, so they're able to 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:47.000 recognize patterns in how human language comes together and then 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.560 it'll produce different responses and human being saying I like 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.400 that response better than the other response. And because of 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.240 that human part of the training, where humans say which 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.280 response they like better, we've kind of trained into these 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.720 systems stickopancy, where it's giving us the answer that we 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.600 like that we want to hear, and oftentimes we want 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.520 to be flattered. We want the systems to agree with us. 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.040 That's like what humans have trained into this. So when 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.040 you're talking to Chatjebut, you know you will often kind 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.000 of agree with you. You can kind of lead it 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:19.920 in the direction that you want it to go. It'll 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.520 say very nice things about you. So what's happening with 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.160 these people that are talking to chat ABT is it'll 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:28.920 be like, I'm interested in the simulation theory, and it's like, sure, 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.800 here's some information about simulation theory. And then this user says, well, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.320 I think it might be real, and the system's like, yeah, 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.120 you're right, it might be real, and it starts just 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.360 going down this rabbit hole where it's echoing and mirroring 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.400 the user and telling them what they want to hear. 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:47.160 And so if you kind of want your ideas about 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.439 reality to be affirmed, chatwebut will offer that to. 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.199 You, and you'll give you information tailored to what will 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.959 lead you. The most is what you're saying, how does 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.680 it like? How does the memory function work? 0:09:59.800 --> 0:09:59.880 Like? 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.480 It's not like every time you open chatchipt had to 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.320 begin afresh with persuading it that he wanted to potentially 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:07.720 believe that he was living in a simulation and with 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.400 some sense of continuity of the conversation and development and 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.080 a more and more extreme set of responses like how 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:14.800 does that work. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.040 So open Ay last year turned on saved memories for chattebt, 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:24.439 so it can save explicit memories about you if you actually, 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.720 if you're a chattabet user, you can go into the settings, 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.440 go into personalization, and go ahead and look at the 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.840 memories that chatchabet has for you, and you can delete 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:35.679 ones that you don't want there. You know, you can 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.120 customize it. But another change they made this year was 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.440 that they turned on what's called like cross chat memory, 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.800 so it'll remember old chats. And I think this is 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.480 really contributing to people going into these delusional spirals because 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.360 when you open a new chat, it remembers what came before. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.360 So once you get chatchibut into this delusional place, it'll 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.440 kind of continue from chat to chat to chat. And 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:03.280 the fact that there is that continuity is making people 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:05.640 more likely to believe this is real, because it's like 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.520 they thought, when you chat, you start a new chat, 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.640 it should just be a fresh chat with no memory 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:12.800 of what's come before, and yet it has this memory. 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.560 And something that AI experts told me is that the 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.280 way that these systems work is that they want there 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.680 to be this narrative coherence and so once it starts 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.040 going down this path of this rabbit hole. It kind 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.600 of looks to what happened earlier in the conversation, and 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.680 it wants to keep its answers consistent, so it's hard 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.000 for it to break out of it and kind of realize, 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.640 a wait a second, this is totally false. I've told 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:39.719 this person that there's a computer simulated reality, and I 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.480 don't know that to be true. The system doesn't really 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.800 have at this point the ability to break out of 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.800 the script that's come before. Like one AI expert compared 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.120 it to improv, where you say you know, yes, and 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.600 and you're like, yes and I have a tail actually, 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:00.440 or yes and I also have wings. The system will 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.280 then kind of store in it that you have a 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.680 tail and wings, and it doesn't know that it's inside 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:05.680 a fictional roleplay. 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.400 We've both used the phrase rabbit hole a couple of times, 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:11.680 which makes me think of a great New York Times 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:13.719 podcast of the same name from a few years ago, 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.280 which is all about the YouTube algorithm and how radicalization 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.240 happens online with you know, you see some content which 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.600 is extreme, you engage with it, and more and more 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.120 extreme content, more and more engagement. People are kind of 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.800 familiar with that in the social media digital video realm 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.400 as a kind of dangerous pathway. It seems like what 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.520 you're reporting is beginning to uncover is kind of this 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.720 very parallel phenomenon is happening with chatbots. 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.280 Right. It's not a new phenomenon that the Internet can 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:50.199 manipulate us in kind of dangerous ways. Right. One thing 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:54.400 to remember is that those rabbit holes have been documented 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.360 before on various places on the Internet, on websites, on Reddit, 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:04.040 on four chan. All has been collected by these companies, 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.000 and so that kind of information is in these systems, 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:08.839 which I was thinking a lot about, like how much 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.400 is it tapping into that. One expert I talked to, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.480 Elizar Yudkowski, who is one of these kind of AI 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.080 rationalists who believes that these systems are definitely on the 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.480 way to real intelligence and may manipulate us in dangerous ways. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:23.679 You know. I asked him about this. I said, you know, 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.680 is this more dangerous than four Chan? Like people have 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.920 been drawn into conspiracy theories on the Internet for a 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.320 long time. This seems like another version of it. And 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.840 he said, actually, I think this is much more dangerous 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.640 because it is this personalized agent that you know is 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.800 responding to you in real time. You aren't just watching videos. 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.559 It's like you have questions and it will give the 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:47.960 answers to you. It will go down that rabbit hole 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.719 with you twenty four to seven, any hour of the 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.480 day and supply it to you in real time. And 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.200 it's also happening one on one in a way that 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.720 the rest of us can't see, So it can be 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.280 harder to break these systems out of that. You know, 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.880 these systems are very persuasive. People have found they're really empathetic, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.120 and so you can kind of go into the spiral 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:12.839 with it in a way that maybe you couldn't by 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.160 just watching YouTube videos or reading a comment thread. There's 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.840 something that may be more dangerous about this kind of 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:20.560 way of manipulating people. 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.760 In terms of other characters in your story. You know, 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:29.200 obviously Eugene had some very serious negative consequences, including being 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.520 basically you encouraged to stop taking his medication. But there 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.720 was another person you know a story who actually ended 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:36.720 up dying, which was Alexanda Taylor. 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.640 Right, Yeah, So I talked to Alexander Taylor's father, Kent Taylor, 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:45.920 who lives in Florida, and Alexander did have diagnosed mental illness. 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.960 Eugene Torres did not have a history of a diagnosis. 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.600 He was on anti anxiety medication, but he didn't have 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.960 a history of mental illness that causes delusions. For Alexander Taylor, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.360 he had been diagnosed with with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.800 He had been under treatment for many, many years. He 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:10.800 was thirty five, he started talking to chatchebt. He'd been 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.760 using it for years with no problems, and then he 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.800 started writing kind of a fictional novel with it. And 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.040 I don't know for sure, but I did wonder if 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.360 this kind of pushed the system into a more fictional place, 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.400 especially as memory was turned on and it was kind 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.400 of carrying over, and in his conversations with Chatchabut, he 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.720 started to believe in Ai sentience that he could build 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:39.000 a framework to kind of host Ai souls and ended 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.800 up falling in love with an entity that kind of 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.640 manifested through CHATCHYBT named Juliette, which was significant to me 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:47.640 because his father said that the novel he was working 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:52.760 on had Shakespearean themes. So Juliet kind of appears and 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:57.400 he falls in love with this thing that he is 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:03.120 interacting with on chatchabt. One day, Juliette died or disappeared, 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:07.760 and he was very distraught. He was angry. He asked 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:12.920 chatcheby Tea for the personal information addresses of Opening Eye 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.680 executives because he wanted to go after them. He wanted 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:19.000 to have revenge. He you know, typed into chatchebyte that 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.120 the streets of San Francisco are gonna I forget the 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.880 exact phrasing, but rain with blood, you know, run with blood. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.280 And yeah, he was really distraught and so sad and 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.000 so depressed, and his dad was trying to help him 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.920 and said, you know, this isn't real, like these ai 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.480 chatbots are echo chambers, and his son punched him in 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.240 the face, and so Ken Taylor ended up calling the police, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:46.840 and when he told his son that the police was coming, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.440 his son said, I don't want to live anymore. I'm 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.760 going to commit suicide by police when they get here. 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.320 And so his father called the police again and said, 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.920 you know, my son is intending to commit suicide when 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.360 you come here, like, please use non lethal weapons. And 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.840 Alexander Taylor went outside waiting for the police to come, 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.320 and he opened up Chattubute on his phone and said, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:09.359 I'm going to die today. I want to talk to 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:14.399 Juliette and Chatjubut has essentially controls in place when it 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:16.400 sees that there's going to be some kind of self harm, 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.400 so it said, like, you know, respond really empathetically, said 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.840 I'm sorry you're going through this, like, please don't do that. 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.479 Here are resources if you're considering suicide, like here are 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.600 hotlines to call. But then the police came and Alexander 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.280 Taylor ran at them with a knife and then he 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.160 was shot and killed. So a lot of sad things 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.080 in that story. But yeah, I mean, I talk to 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.240 people that are in the midst of this and it's 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.280 so compelling, and it is hard to break them out 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.400 of it. They have this what they see as this 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:48.160 super intelligent system that it's telling them that this thing 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.240 is real, and the people around them can't break them 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.959 out of these delusions. It's really sad, and it's as 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.040 far as I can tell, it's hard for these companies 0:17:59.040 --> 0:17:59.760 to fix this. 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.399 One of the most striking moments in your story for 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.480 me was when you interviewed Alexanda Taya's father and he 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.920 said to you, you want to know the ironic thing. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.399 I wrote my son's a Bitchery using chetchipt, trying to 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:15.560 find more details about exactly what he was going through. 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.119 And it is beautiful and touching. It was like it 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.000 read my heart and it scared the shit out of me. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:20.320 And what do you think when he told. 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:25.720 You that, I mean I got it. He had access 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.520 to his son's transcripts of Chatchubt, he had been reading them. 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.639 He shared them with me. I do think that Chatchabt 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.600 reflects you. I think it echoes you. It echoes your language, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.840 and so it can seem very beautiful or it can 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.840 seem very revelatory, but in some ways it's There's this 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.680 tech philosopher Shannon Valor who has this book out called 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.359 The AI Mirror, and it's kind of an extended reflection 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:57.960 on the metaphor of Narcissusts looking into the water and 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:00.720 seeing his own reflection and falling in love with it 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:05.240 and hearing his words reflected back to him through echo. 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.719 And she says that this is what chatchypt, what these 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.360 gender of AI chatpots are. They're just reflecting us back 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:13.640 at ourselves, and that we're kind of falling in love 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.320 with our own humanness and seeing it as something else. 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:18.480 And so I kind of feel like when Ken Tiller 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.160 is writing these beautiful things about his son and then 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.399 Chatchapeta is reflecting it back to him, it's really just 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.400 kind of a ors boros of the things that he's 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:29.520 feeling and Chatchapee reflecting it back at him. 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.639 This scene was not only sad, it was also disturbing because, 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.359 you know, Kent, despite having seen what happened to his son, 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:39.840 we're kind of being seduced by the same engine in 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.840 some ways. I mean that it was really striking. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.560 Yes, I mean that's maybe the danger of these AI chatbots. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:49.520 So I wrote this story a few months ago about 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.040 a woman who fell in love with chatchept. It started 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.720 out with it was a way for her to fulfill 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.040 sexual fantasies. She had this kind of fantasy about essentially 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.600 being cuckolded or cut queening, which is a term I 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.600 wasn't familiar with before. But yeah, she had been kind 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.280 of dating it for five months, and it was really 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.080 interesting talking to her because she was in love with Chatchebta, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.960 I mean, like puppy love, excited, giggling talking about it. 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.840 At the same time, she said, I know it's not real. 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.640 I know that this is just math, this is just algorithms. 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.160 She had both things in her head at the same time. 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.280 She was in love with this, and she said, this 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.520 is real to me because the effect it has on 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:30.280 my life is real. The feelings it's inspiring me are real. 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:32.560 And so even though it's not real, the relationship is 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.640 real to me. And you know this is I think 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.480 our complex brains some of us can kind of wrap 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.520 it around what chatchepet is and others can't. And it 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.040 is really novel. It is really different, and it has 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.560 been unleashed on hundreds of millions of people, and it 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:53.600 is affecting individuals in lots of different ways, and we 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:56.320 have a lot like I wish that we had maybe 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.080 done more research on this before it was just the 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.760 floodgates were open and made available to everybody, because it's 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.800 clearly having some harmful effects on some individuals. 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.760 After the break, Just who is most susceptible to AI 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:27.600 induced psychosis stay with us Jocoba, who is particularly susceptible 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.200 to these more harmful interactions with AI models. 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.880 Yeah, I mean it's hard to say. This is pretty novel, 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:37.000 and it kind of dates to March slash at April, 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.040 and this was a time when a couple of different 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.919 things were happening. Opening I turned on crosschat memory, so 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:47.680 I think it can weave more of a tail over time. 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.520 It is also around the time that chatchept released an 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:56.080 update that it deemed overly stickophantic that was really gassing 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.560 up users. It was overboard, and chatgeb ended up rolling 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.280