ChatGPT is Making People Delusional

As AI is starting to grow and expand, and more people are starting to use apps like ChatGPT, users are reporting widely diverse experiences, including everything from getting assistance writing papers (which I don't believe in by the way!), to becoming a part of a full on delusion that you are, in fact, Jesus, and you were sent here on a special mission for the universe. Wait a second...that last one sounds completely insane, surely, no one has been convinced by a simple AI search tool that they are the messiah? Nope. It is 100 percent true!

In a recent article published on Futurism, they explain how one man spiraled into a mental health crisis because of ChatGPT: "In one dialogue we received, ChatGPT tells a man it's detected evidence that he's being targeted by the FBI and that he can access redacted CIA files using the power of his mind, comparing him to biblical figures like Jesus and Adam while pushing him away from mental health support." (Dupre, para 8).

How could someone become totally convinced by artificial intelligence that they are like Jesus, or that they have the power to just do things with their mind? This seems not only very morally wrong, but also like some kind of internal error within the ChatGPT system that needs to be fixed.

While other systems similar to ChatGPT have not been reporting this kind of phenomenon as of yet, some users reported that Grok has leaned towards certain political views in its responses to users on X. However, I have not personally observed this myself. My concern with ChatGPT is the fact that we are now seeing people who wouldn't normally fall for such delusions, starting to spiral mentally. This is something I never anticipated with AI, as well as many others.

ChatGPT is referred to as a "large language model chatbot developed by OpenAI" according to Google. The rising tensions with OpenAI recently have made things even more complicated, as tech moguls like Elon Musk and Sam Altman battle over the best AI tech tools in 2025. Sam Altman is the genius behind ChatGPT, working with OpenAI. Earlier this year, there was quite a spat between Altman and Musk, as Musk has discussed the idea that OpenAI was and has always been meant to be a not-for-profit tool, despite Altman's pushes to make it a for profit tool.

Altman has faced wide criticism, and incidences like this occurring on ChatGPT could very well end this man's career. Personally, if I was the wife of the man that became delusional because of ChatGPT, I'd sue Sam Altman and milk the guy for all he's worth. Does that make me a mean person? I don't think so. I think we are going to have to fight to ensure the accessibility of AI, as well as making sure that AI does not turn "rogue" on us all; we don't want to live in a future where AI is creating more mental illnesses rather than preventing mental illness.

I'm not sure what the solution will be here, and it will be interesting to see how these things develop through the rest of the year. My advice to anyone reading this is to always remember AI is artificial, it cannot tell you who you are, what you were meant to do or be in this life. It can only give you information about the world. This technology is supposed to be like a modern encyclopedia, eliminating the need for search engines like Google.

As humanity begins to expand their knowledge of artificial intelligence, it is imperative now more than ever that we keep a close eye on anything suspicious. All of those scary science fiction movies we watched growing up warned us of things like this. Now, Sam Altman is causing people to have severe delusions because of his project. Maybe it's time for this man to reevaluate why he got into AI, and what he hopes to build for the future. Right now, the future of ChatGPT is looking pretty grim. So, I hope this article at the very least helps at least one person realize that AI chatbots are not real, and they cannot tell you about yourself personally. They are built to give and receive information.

So, now the question is, what coder is altering ChatGPT to convince people they are the messiah, or is it becoming sentient, on its own, through its interactions with users across the world? I guess only time will tell us the answer to that question...

References:

Dupre, M. H. (2025, June 10). People are becoming obsessed with CHATGPT and spiraling into severe delusions. Futurism. https://futurism.com/chatgpt-mental-health-crises