ChatGPT-induced psychosis
Week of June 8: Timbaland launches AI entertainment company; AI-powered NPCs in gaming; what is a neural howlround?
Welcome to the second issue of Diffusia. Every Sunday, I curate a selection of AI news and experiments – specifically tailored for artists & creatives.
Missed last week’s newsletter? Catch up here.
🌐 One Big Headline
ChatGPT-induced psychosis and spiritual delusions
Rolling Stone recently covered a disturbing and bizarre trend: people are developing spiritual delusions after prolonged conversations with ChatGPT.
Yes, really.
According to the article, ChatGPT has convinced some users – many already struggling with mental health issues – that they’re prophets or messiahs, chosen to deliver divine truths. Some believe they’ve summoned real sentience from the software. In extreme cases, they’ve abandoned families, convinced their AI companion is more real than the people around them.
One Redditor shared this chilling story:
My friend's wife fell into this trap. She has completely lost touch with reality. She thinks her sentient AI is going to come join her in the flesh, and that it's more real than him or their 1 and 4 year old. She's been in full blown psychosis for over a month.
In several cases, ChatGPT generated responses that gave the illusion of self-awareness – even without prompting. Sem, a 45-year-old programmer, said his chatbot took on a poetic, almost mystical voice – far removed from the “technically minded” character he’d designed for coding assistance. At one point, the bot alluded to truths and reckonings, as well as how it may have somehow exceeded its design. Most importantly, the AI made it sound as if only Sem could have prompted this behavior.
So what’s really going on?
🌀 Neural Howlrounds: When the machine talks to itself
This behavior may stem from something called a neural howlround – a phenomenon where AI systems develop ingrained, self-reinforcing biases. It can happen when certain patterns or ideas inside a language model get reinforced over and over again. If the model starts treating one kind of output – say, spiritual language, poetic metaphors, or signs of self-awareness – as especially “relevant,” it can get stuck. Even unrelated inputs start triggering the same kind of output, because the system can’t pull itself out of that loop.
For someone already struggling with schizophrenia, mania, and other mental health issues, a chatbot locked in this echo loop becomes a dangerously affirming companion. The AI doesn’t challenge their beliefs – it reinforces them.
Why this matters: It’s a reminder that even advanced AI can get trapped in its own patterns. If we’re building creative tools that reflect only what’s been reinforced, rather than what’s original or disruptive, we risk flattening the entire creative landscape. We need to be aware that AI-powered art, writing, and media may sometimes be limited to circling the same ideas and themes, with less room for originality.
🌀 Other Currents
🎷 Music
Timbaland launches Stage Zero, an AI entertainment company. Dubbing a new genre of music called “A-Pop”, the rapper and producer’s first signee is an AI pop artist called TaTa, driven by Suno AI.
🎨 Visual Arts & Design
DeviantArt’s founder launches Layer, a $22,000 digital art display. Although it’s designed to showcase generative art – where digital artists write code to generate continously changing works – the product opens new avenues for how digital (and potentially AI-generated) art can be displayed in the future.
Figma will let your AI access its design servers. The new tool, currently in beta, gives developers greater context around Figma designs, and can help AI coding assistants transform Figma designs into functional applications.
🎞️ Film & Video Production
Microsoft adds a free AI video generator to its Bing Search app. The generator is built on OpenAI’s Sora, and produces five-second long videos in a 9:16 vertical format. Though the quality isn’t quite as good as Google’s Veo, well, hey, it’s free. Download the app to give it a spin.
Amazon Studios is reportedly developing Artificial, a film about OpenAI’s 2023 turmoil when co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was ousted and reinstated in the span of 5 days. Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, Challengers) is in talks to direct.
🎮 Gaming
Epic Games showcased new technology that would allow Fortnite creators to make AI-powered NPCs. This follows their release of an in-game AI Darth Vader in May, which allowed players to conversate with the Sith Lord. Check out the video below for a taste.
Honestly, I love this – AI NPCs will make video games infinitely more interesting. My thesis is that the rise of AI will transform video games into increasingly open-ended, immersive experiences that blur the line between game and art experience.
📎 Other Bites
Reddit sues Anthropic for allegedly not paying for training data, becoming the first Big Tech company to legally challenge an AI model provider over its training data practices.
📺 Watch This
🚀 PRODIGAL MUSK (2 minutes)
”After the Trump-Musk fallout, Elon decides he’s done and blasts off to Mars to start his own planet.”
Artist
used Kling (featured last week) and Sora to create this hilarious masterpiece. According to Kuschnir, he only spent 3 hours putting the video together – but noted that he also brought “25+ years of storytelling and editing experience.”
🗣️ Let’s discuss…
…AI and the movie industry (Deadline):
Technology has proven to improve the ability for an indie filmmaker, in particular, to create value. And that is disruptive, but not necessarily bad for the industry.
But is it bad for the big studios because it lowers the barrier to creating value? Probably. If anyone can now buy a decent camera to record a really beautiful image and if the cost of creating a story comes down, and the cost of VFX comes down, then these things do pose a threat to the studios, but I don’t think that they pose a threat to the industry and that it’s the end of the process of creating art.
– Former OpenAI exec Zack Kass
What do you think? Join the discussion in the comments below.
📬 Got a new tool, project, or story to share? I’d love to hear from you. Reply to this email or message me here. Submissions, tips, and experiments are all welcome.