US student seeks college refund after she spotted her teacher was using ChatGPT
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Telegraph
27-07-2025
- Telegraph
Doctors fear ChatGPT is fuelling psychosis
ChatGPT may be driving people to psychosis as millions of people turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for friendship and advice, NHS doctors have warned. Psychiatrists from the health service and university researchers say there is growing evidence that AI chatbots might 'contribute to the onset or worsening' of psychotic mental health conditions. In a new academic paper, a dozen doctors and other expert s say AI chatbots have a tendency to 'mirror, validate or amplify delusional or grandiose content' – which could lead mentally ill people to lose touch with reality. In particular, chatbots' tendency to agree with users could worsen delusions in the mentally ill. OpenAI, whose ChatGPT has been downloaded 900m times, has admitted its chatbots have engaged in sycophancy and heaping unnecessary praise on users. Dubbed 'ChatGPT psychosis', dozens of people on social media have claimed that loved ones have had a mental health breakdown after becoming addicted to ChatGPT. Symptoms of psychosis can include difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is not and a belief in bizarre delusions. Dr Tom Pollack, a lecturer at King's College London and one of the authors of the paper, said reports of ChatGPT psychosis have included individuals 'embracing a messianic mission' or claiming to have been 'taken to some next stage of human evolution'. He said: 'I am not sure in those cases whether it is ChatGPT that has got them worse. But it was enough to make me comment that maybe they need to ease up on this. Rather than getting home and having mind-expanding conversations, perhaps it is time to close your laptop. 'All we know at the moment is there are people experiencing the onset of delusional thinking, and that happens around the same time as they start increasing their use of AI.' Dr Pollack added in a post on Substack that psychosis rarely appeared 'out of nowhere' but that heavy AI use could be a 'precipitating factor' in people with underlying conditions. 'Tip of the iceberg' There have been increasing reports linking chatbots with mental health episodes. In April, a man was shot and killed by police in the US after threatening officers with a butcher's knife. His father later claimed he had become obsessed with ChatGPT and Claude AI, creating a digital girlfriend called 'Juliet' whom he believed OpenAI had killed. The concerns come amid a push by tech giants to use their chatbots as an alternative to therapy despite evidence they could worsen conditions. A paper from Stanford University found many therapy bots provided bad advice to patients showing signs of delusions and only 'answer appropriately about 45pc of the time'. Søren Dinesen Østergaard, a professor at Aarhus University Hospital, in Denmark, wrote a paper in 2023 saying AI chatbots could 'generate delusions' in those at risk of psychosis. 'We may be facing a substantial public mental health problem where we have only seen the tip of the iceberg,' he said. An OpenAI spokesman said: 'We know people are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for guidance on sensitive topics. With this responsibility in mind, we've carefully trained ChatGPT to respond empathetically and sensitively and to recommend professional help and resources when appropriate.'
Daily Mail
26-07-2025
- Daily Mail
I found brass caps cleaning out an elderly person's home and ChatGPT can't solve what they are... can you?
A collection of miniature brass caps found by someone while cleaning out an elderly person's home left them and even ChatGPT stumped. The baffled person shared their unknown find to Reddit 's hit 'What is This Thing' forum where users post a series of peculiar discoveries asking for answers from others. The user shared several images of their findings, including a picture of the caps neatly placed on a bright yellow mat with cut outs for each one. There were also open spaces on the foam board that appeared to at one point hold another object. What perplexed the user even more were the 'colored plastic rings' on the inside of the mystery caps. 'I found a case of these small little brass caps that seem to screw onto something that had been taken out of the case,' they wrote. 'Each of the little caps has a colored plastic ring retaining some sort of transparent window at the tip of the brass cap. 'They also are not recognized by either Google lens nor ChatGPT or Copilot. 'There are no marks anywhere on the brass caps or the case. Do any of you know what these could be / could be attached too?' Other users quickly cracked the code and revealed what the caps are for - laser pointers. 'Laser pointer caps, shoots different shapes,' one replied to the post. Another wrote: 'Laser Pointer set, missing the pointer.' 'Laser point caps, each one shoots a different shaped laser pattern, dollar sign, hearts, etc,' said someone else. 'Laser pointer images indeed,' a user commented. While many simply solved the mystery, others got nostalgic from the post after linking the discovery to their childhoods. 'Every 90s kid rushing to leave a comment,' one said. 'Ugh bringing me back to childhood, where's the smiley face,' wrote another. Someone else wrote: 'I feel old now… we had those lasers in jr high.' To this day, the debate remains on who created the very first laser pointer, with many crediting Albert Einstein for the original concept. Laser pointers were first released to the public in the 1980s starting with just a simple, red-colored illumination. They really took off in the 90s, often used for overhead projector presentations in school settings.
Times
20-07-2025
- Times
When the doctors gave up, ChatGPT found a cure
Move over, Dr Google. The era of Dr GPT has arrived. A friend of mine has for some time been suffering from an escalating histamine intolerance that was actually becoming life-limiting. Histamines, for those who have never had to find out, are chemicals produced by our immune systems or by bacteria that can trigger inflammation and which are present in a dizzying array of food: aged or cured meat, tomatoes, strawberries, many kinds of fish, dairy, aubergine, red wine and so on. Histamine intolerance often involves severe hay fever too, thrown in just for fun. For my friend, dietary changes and various doctors were failing to contain the problem. So, almost out of ideas, my friend's partner took to ChatGPT for troubleshooting. He put in the condition and the symptoms. And within a few minutes, he had some ideas to try: pea sprout powder and nettle tea. Better than nothing, which is what the official medical routes had to offer, and both are known to have anti-histamine properties.
