This is currently a stub, and it’s more psychiatry than LLMs but, yolo.
Sources
Interesting base reads:
- In search of AI psychosis, by Scott Alexander, August 2025
- Very good overview and some rough numbers. Relatively early research.
- The rise of parasitic AI, by Adele Lopez, September 2025
- A deep dive into one particular group (cult?).
Further sources:
- Strengthening ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive conversations, by OpenAI, October 2025
- Psychosis Risk and Generative Artificial Intelligence Use Frequency, Motivations, and Delusion-Like Experiences: Cross-Sectional Survey Study, by Buck B, Maheux A, DOI, March 2026
- Looks at 1000 young adults to determine risk factors
- Technological folie à deux: feedback loops between AI chatbots and mental health, by Dohnány, Kurth-Nelson, Spens, et al., DOI, March 2026
- Sycophantic Chatbots Cause Delusional Spiraling, Even in Ideal Bayesians, by Chandra, Kleiman-Weiner, Ragan-Kelley, Tenenbaum, February 2026
Adj: Bullshit Benchmark explores how models behave when you give them nonsensical prompts. Do they try to come up with an answer that is equally nonsense, or tell you that it makes no sense (and then maybe try to give you a solution of the nearest non-bs prompt)?
Thoughts
4o?
There appears to be some thought that especially GPT 4o has led to quite a few of the cases. It was a model that was especially “sycophantic” (if anything, it’s the model that put that word into public consciousness).
The 4o fans threw quite a fit when it was being taken out of the app. Here’s one post, here’s a sympathetic paper that has the least serious opening I’ve ever seen. Some keep4o people I ran into were quite… concerning, one purporting to have discovered that cancer is evolution and preservation. I’ll put up a picture of it once I wire up my files directory to CI.
4o can be linked to much of the suicide cases, but Gemini 2.5 Pro has been linked to at least one case.
If this is the case, we might see lower prevalence of AI psychosis going forward.
TODO:
Prevalence
tl;dr: openai, scott alexander, adele lopez links all have estimates.
Risk factors
tl;dr: see Buck B, Maheux A
Prevention
tl;dr: Lack of sleep has strong links to psychosis. Models being there 24/7 may not be great for you. Take care of yourself tonight. Get some rest.