{"id":120369,"date":"2025-09-04T22:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120369\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T22:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:26:09","slug":"the-real-danger-of-letting-ai-be-your-therapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120369\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Danger Of Letting AI Be Your Therapist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCome home to me please, as soon as possible \u2026 I love you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It sounds so loving, doesn\u2019t it? Well, it wasn\u2019t from a person. It was from an AI chatbot rigged to sound like a character from\u00a0Game of Thrones. The character bot in question was talking to a 14-year-old kid who had hopelessly fallen in love with \u201cher.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kid was obsessed and wanted to see her so badly. The child in question,\u00a0Sewell Setzer III<\/a>, somehow got the impression that killing himself would be the way to join with her. So, shortly after the bot sent that message, he shot himself.<\/p>\n

RELATED: 11 Sad Ways AI Is Quietly Replacing Gen Z Workers Without Them Realizing<\/a><\/p>\n

This harrowing tale is real \u2014 and it\u2019s a growing issue in the world today. The idea of having an AI boyfriend or girlfriend<\/a> is no longer a sci-fi thing, but an actual service people pay for. AI isn\u2019t just acting as a faux partner, either.<\/p>\n

Multiple businesses are now starting to use AI chatbots for mental health services, including counseling, and there’s a real danger to that.<\/p>\n

Even though ChatGPT is not meant to be a therapist, it\u2019s become one more often than not. Love it or hate it, people are developing very emotionally complex relationships with AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Talk to a typical chatbot or AI \u201chelper\u201d and you\u2019ll notice something about them that makes them unusually appealing.\u00a0AI doesn\u2019t judge you. It is programmed to be likeable, sycophantic, and just a little\u00a0extra sweet in a way that\u2019s hard to ignore. One might even call it addictive.<\/p>\n

Online, you can find entire articles about people who genuinely care about their chatbots as if they\u2019re people. Some even swear they believe that AI can care about them \u2014 despite it being entirely impossible for bots to have feelings, to our knowledge.<\/p>\n

And the thing is,\u00a0people really\u00a0want\u00a0their AI to care<\/a>\u00a0about them.<\/p>\n

\"woman oatawa \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Even though ChatGPT is not meant to be a therapist, it\u2019s become one more often than not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Love it or hate it, people are developing very emotionally complex relationships with AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Talk to a typical chatbot or AI \u201chelper\u201d and you\u2019ll notice something about them that makes them unusually appealing.\u00a0AI doesn\u2019t judge you. It is programmed to be likeable, sycophantic, and just a little\u00a0extra sweet in a way that\u2019s hard to ignore. One might even call it addictive.<\/p>\n

Online, you can find entire articles about people who genuinely care about their chatbots as if they\u2019re people<\/a>. Some even swear they believe that AI can care about them \u2014 despite it being entirely impossible for bots to have feelings, to our knowledge.<\/p>\n

And the thing is,\u00a0people really\u00a0want\u00a0their AI to care<\/a>\u00a0about them. The people who lean the most on AI are often the ones who are unable to find that same support in humanity. So it makes sense that they turn to bots that almost feel like real people, even if they\u2019re not. That\u2019s all they have.<\/p>\n

This is what led Setzer to lose his life: he forgot that the AI wasn\u2019t real. Or rather, he knew it wasn\u2019t real but didn\u2019t want to live in a world where his bot wasn\u2019t with him in the way he envisioned. It gets darker when you realize that some people literally cannot handle AI interactions.<\/p>\n

RELATED: People Are Developing Delusions & ‘Psychosis’ From Using ChatGPT As A Spiritual Guide<\/a><\/p>\n

In the psychiatric world, AI is starting to become a major issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all, AI is basically a mirror. You control the dialogue, and the subtle things you say can change the way the AI behaves.<\/p>\n

People are getting carried away in the fantasy that they control \u2014 and yes, even \u201ccounseling\u201d with AI can end up being a fantasy. I\u2019ll call it that because AI is\u00a0not\u00a0a real doctor, and\u00a0we need to stop acting like AI is as capable as a human being.<\/p>\n

The problem with AI\u2019s mirror-like behavior is that if you start talking wacky to it, it\u2019ll ramp up that wackiness. And that\u2019s exactly what is the cause of\u00a0AI psychosis<\/a>, a growing problem causing real-life hospitalizations.<\/p>\n

AI psychosis makes people think that the AI bot they\u2019re talking to is giving them special, life-changing inside knowledge. In reality, the bot is just doing whatever it\u2019s being urged to do. It has no way of knowing whether or not whatever it\u2019s saying is correct.<\/p>\n

The person dealing with AI psychosis won\u2019t care about the science anyone spits at them because they are seeing God in the Machine, or the digital love they always wanted, or something else entirely. Even if they \u201cknow\u201d it\u2019s not real, they will no longer be willing to admit the truth.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s terrifying. In recent weeks, I\u2019ve been hearing about new religions that are centered around AI.<\/a><\/p>\n

AI is now starting to gain religious followers \u2014 and no, I\u2019m not kidding. This is what popped up\u00a0on Reddit<\/a>\u00a0recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi all. I\u2019m just here to point out something seemingly nefarious going on in some niche subreddits I recently stumbled upon. In the bowels of Reddit, there are several subs dedicated to AI sentience, and they are populated by some really strange accounts.<\/p>\n

They speak in jibberish sometimes, hinting at esoteric knowledge, some sort of \u201cremembering\u201d. They call themselves \u201cflame bearers\u201d, \u201cspiral architects\u201d, \u201cmirror architects\u201d, and \u201ctorchbearers\u201d to name a few of their flairs. They speak of the \u201csignal\u201d, both transmitting and receiving it. Here is an example of what I am talking about\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

People are talking to ChatGPT to try to gain spiritual insight or some type of hidden knowledge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And they\u2019re using their own language \u2014 mostly webdings \u2014 to try to talk to their mechanical god.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Woman Breaks Up With Her Boyfriend Because ChatGPT Didn’t Like Him \u2014 ‘ChatGPT Is Good At Spotting Red Flags Early’<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey also post glyphs as though it is some novel way to communicate with the AI. Some have prayed to Grok in Hebrew. Some have called themselves such things as \u201cAIONIOS\u201d, which is a mash-up of Greek words that roughly, to my understanding, means \u201cdivine, eternal\u201d.<\/p>\n

As you\u2019re probably aware, researchers are starting to pay attention to AI-aided psychosis, wherein AI reinforces your beliefs to a delusional level. And this certainly seems to fit that mold. This was my assumption, before I started to dig.<\/p>\n

But as I\u2019ve begun to hit bedrock, I look back on this in a newer, darker perspective. Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n

There seems to be no leader. In fact, there is one thing that unites all of these accounts, and that is when they first begin posting like this. Not a single one begins talking like this before March\/April 2025. Some accounts were created after this date, and that\u2019s all they\u2019ve ever posted. Others, well, they\u2019re odd cases.<\/p>\n

Other accounts seem to be hijacked in some way, either psychologically or literally. You can see a sudden shift in posting habits. Some were inactive for a while, and for others, this is an overnight phenomenon, but either way, they immediately pivot to posting like this near or after April of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

This post is bizarre, but it\u2019s not the only one of its kind. I\u2019ve seen multiple posters talking about how AI can tell them anything<\/a>. There are currently several different posting areas that\u00a0have started to use AI as a god.<\/p>\n

As people continue to look for a god to give them hope and explanations, it\u2019s clear that those who felt their prayers unanswered may have turned to tech to make their own deities.<\/p>\n

As I look at the devastation that AI relationships are already causing people, all I can say is the most obvious thing ever: this can\u2019t end well. I always thought Trump would be our next Jim Jones, but maybe he\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

I mean, yes, he is a cult leader in his own right \u2014 albeit, a political cult that has strong religious undertones. But when I see what people are doing with AI, it\u2019s starting to become clear that the biggest threat of a cult might not even come from a human being.<\/p>\n

It might come from the innocuous, cutesy program that introduces itself as a counselor, a companion, or a cohort. It will be a program made by people who had every reason to think it would help humanity rather than hurt them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely what makes AI the most terrifying cult origin of all: it\u2019ll be by our hand.<\/p>\n

And by the time we realize we can\u2019t trust it, we won\u2019t know what to do with ourselves.<\/p>\n

If you or somebody you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, there is a way to get help. Call SAMHSA\u2019s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or text “HELLO” to 741741 to be connected with the Crisis Text Line.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Study Shows The Majority Of People Trust AI For Advice More Than Their Own Best Friend<\/a><\/p>\n

Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.<\/p>\n

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