Quasarke Forums
  • Communities
  • Multi-communities
  • Support Lemmy
  • Search
  • Login
Technology@lemmy.worldbybeep@piefed.world
1 day

AI chatbots linked to psychological harm, addiction and delusions, Study finds

news.northeastern.edu English

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1432467/ai-chatbots-linked-to-psychological-harm-addiction-and-delusions-study-finds

Research.

28
    AI chatbots linked to psychological harm, Northeastern study finds
    news.northeastern.edu
    New research outlines how the use of AI chatbots for companionship and support is linked with “severe negative outcomes.”
    You must log in or register to comment.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.todayEnglish
      19 hours

      people are having relationships with AI chatboxes, so yes it is.

      • Pratai@piefed.caEnglish
        18 hours

        In a related story, the sky is made of air.

        • percent@infosec.pubEnglish
          1 day

          I can’t even imagine opening up to an LLM, emotionally, or even having a casual conversation with one. Also, other people can read those conversations. How are people comfortable with that?

            • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.netEnglish
              19 hours

              First, people are comfortable with having smart speakers recording everything they say and sending it to some random people to listen to so…

              Second, it’s like social media algorithms that are designed to be addictive. The other day someone used ChatGPT voice assistant next to me and it’s designed to sound like an actual person. It speaks in a very natural, casual voice and makes those very short pauses, like it’s thinking about the answer and what words to use. It’s clearly trained on some voice messages people send to one another. It’s designed to sound like one of your friends. I can easily imagine someone using it once to ask about tree frog mating rituals or something and get hooked. I can imagine anyone falling for this and quickly treating it like a person. It’s build for that.

            • bitteroldcoot@piefed.socialEnglish
              1 day

              AI-induced psychosis

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-induced_psychosis

              It’s really easy to get drawn into the delusion. I once spent a Sunday afternoon doings stock picks for the coming year with google gemini. After several hours I decided to independently verify the answers it was giving. EVERY SINGLE THING IT SAID WAS A LIE!!!

              I always thought of myself as smart and cynical. But that grift bruised my ego more than anything else.

              Here is a good study of how wrong they can be and the results are horrific. Not surprisingly, google gemini is almost never right.

              https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/03/ai-search-engines-fail-to-produce-accurate-citations-in-over-60-of-tests-according-to-new-tow-center-study/

                • lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1 day

                  It didn’t “lie,” because an LLM can’t deceive. It’s a tool that predicts the next most likely token, and unless you asking for citations you’re using an LLM in an application where they do not usually perform well

                    • Venator@lemmy.nzEnglish
                      1 day

                      Yeah, it just accurately predicted what a liar would write! 😅

                      • bitteroldcoot@piefed.socialEnglish
                        1 day

                        That reads like it was written by an ai.

                          • erin@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                            1 day

                            That reads like almost all of my writing. God forbid someone uses slightly large words and a neutral, academic tone.

                            • lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.worldEnglish
                              1 day

                              What makes you say that?

                                • bitteroldcoot@piefed.socialEnglish
                                  1 day

                                  I really hate it when you guys end in an engagement prompt.

                                    • Zarobi@aussie.zoneEnglish
                                      20 hours

                                      What does that mean? ^/s^

                                      • Zoe@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                                        1 day

                                        Distinguish between a question and an “engagement prompt”.

                                        • lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                          1 day

                                          You’re annoying. “Everything I don’t like is AI” is a different kind of psychosis

                                  • OctopusNemeses@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                    1 day

                                    I gave it a try on a hobby project without double checking. I bought some parts I didn’t need. Good thing it was only about $20.

                                    In hindsight a good portion of the diagrams I asked for were complete non-sense, but I wrote it off as poor image generation than having zero actual comprehension. It was trying to generate designs that didn’t exist because nobody does it that way. I later figured out after looking at diagrams from research papers where students built much simpler designs.

                                  • lenocolomo@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                    1 day

                                    Lost a good friend of mine whom I knew for a long time 'cause he tried to convince me that Pepsi was a healthy drink. (In the reference was distilled Water or some BS). Woke up with him just gone back to his parents house and then moving out. Later I found out from other friends that he had asked the chatbot (left deliberately unnamed) then if I was a good friend. That’s how you know this hysteria will stop only looooong after bloodshed.

                                      • bitteroldcoot@piefed.socialEnglish
                                        1 day

                                        The chatbots seem to have replaced Facebook as the preferred way to manipulate peoples opinions.

                                        I have to wonder if Pepsi paid the chatbot to push it’s product.

                                        Edit: Yup. Companies are paying to be mentioned in chats. It’s called GEO.

                                        https://www.movieguide.org/news-articles/are-companies-paying-for-ai-to-recommend-them-to-users.html

                                          • lenocolomo@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                            1 day

                                            The only logical next step in capitalism… Was bound to happen. People even trust these bots. I could am crying (inside).

                                              • magnue@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                                1 day

                                                After that you’ll pay extra to have no product placements

                                                  • lenocolomo@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                                    1 day

                                                    Pretty sure paygrades already exist for moderation. But currently OpenAI is a “non-profit” or something like that. (sponsors)

                                                    Sorry a public benefit for whatever that means.

                                              • lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                                1 day

                                                That happened

                                                  • 🇨🇦GreenBeard🇨🇦@lemmy.caEnglish
                                                    1 day

                                                    I believe it. I’ve watched people end up homeless, friendless and unemployed from their AI habit. Granted, they weren’t in a good spot to begin with, but AI took them from keeping their heads above water to living on the street and screaming obscenities at strangers. AI Psychosis is wild.

                                                      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.todayEnglish
                                                        19 hours

                                                        interesting i wonder how those situations came to happen? were they already unemployed living at home , parents and spent all thier time on AI, and not applying to places?

                                                          • 🇨🇦GreenBeard🇨🇦@lemmy.caEnglish
                                                            10 hours

                                                            No, they were well employed for their age and skill, living on their own and even in a relationship. Then they started to self-sabotage. A lot. The AI amplified every negative impulse to the point he fell into complete social breakdown. Instead of developing healthy behaviour patterns and getting negative feedback on harmful, anti-social ones, the AI “supported” him unconditionally, and he started to trust it more than he did the people around him. Really kind of tragic because exposure to it destroyed an otherwise promising young man.

                                                    • orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                                                      1 day

                                                      This article surely meant to add “Again” to the title.

                                                      • Zoe@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                                                        1 day

                                                        I highly recommend the new audiobook Love at First Prompt by Bridget Todd. She talks to people who have formed relationships with chatbots, as well as experts and researchers, and I think she handles the topic with a lot of empathy and understanding. And I definitely had some misconceptions going into the book that I’m glad I learned weren’t true.

                                                        Ultimately, I think we shouldn’t blame end users for finding emotional intimacy in a chatbot that is designed to make users feel validated and emotionally supported. We should be asking why we’re allowing the tech CEOs who run the show to extract data on every aspect our lives and create this kind of emotionally and psychologically damaging technology in the first place.

                                                          • 🇨🇦GreenBeard🇨🇦@lemmy.caEnglish
                                                            1 day

                                                            Because the modern world runs on psychological manipulation. Has since the end of WWII. The economy as we know it is built on leveraging, manipulating, and exploiting our cognitive biases and psychological vulnerabilities. Today we give it gentle sounding names like “Marketing” and “Public Relations” and “Brand Identity Management”, but what it is, is the psychological warfare techniques developed during WWII, evolved during the cold war and weaponized against civilian populations to extract profit. This is just the latest evolution of a set of practices that goes back 75 years or more, which underpins every part of society as we know it in the modern world.

                                                          • Eternal192@anarchist.nexusEnglish
                                                            1 day

                                                            I know that anyone using AI or LLMs won’t come here but if there’s anyone that uses them than stop and tell anyone who you know is using them to stop, you’ll help yourself, others that might be more vulnerable and you’ll help the planet and as a bonus you’ll stick it to the rich that don’t care about anything other than money.

                                                            Technology@lemmy.world

                                                            technology@lemmy.world

                                                            Subscribe from remote instance

                                                            Create post

                                                            Report community

                                                            Modlog
                                                            You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world

                                                            This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


                                                            Our Rules


                                                            1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
                                                            2. Only tech related news or articles.
                                                            3. Be excellent to each other!
                                                            4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
                                                            5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
                                                            6. Politics threads may be removed.
                                                            7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
                                                            8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
                                                            9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
                                                            10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

                                                            Approved Bots


                                                            • @L4s@lemmy.world
                                                            • @autotldr@lemmings.world
                                                            • @PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks
                                                            • @wikibot@lemmy.world
                                                            Visibility: Public

                                                            This community is visible to everyone.

                                                            5.55K users / Day8.51K users / Week9.12K users / Month9.16K users / 6 months445 posts9.01K comments1 local subscriber88.3K subscribers
                                                            Mods: L3s@lemmy.world
                                                            • BE: 1.0.0-beta.2
                                                            • Modlog
                                                            • Instances
                                                            • Docs
                                                            • Code
                                                            • join-lemmy.org