Eventually, they claimed that they came to believe that they were \u201cresponsible for exposing murderers,\u201d and were about to be \u201ckilled, arrested, or spiritually executed\u201d by an assassin. They also believed they were under surveillance due to being \u201cspiritually marked,\u201d and that they were \u201cliving in a divine war\u201d that they could not escape.<\/p>\n
They alleged this led to \u201csevere mental and emotional distress\u201d in which they feared for their life. The complaint claimed that they isolated themselves from loved ones, had trouble sleeping, and began planning a business based on a false belief in an unspecified \u201csystem that does not exist.\u201d Simultaneously, they said they were in the throes of a \u201cspiritual identity crisis due to false claims of divine titles.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was trauma by simulation,\u201d they wrote. \u201cThis experience crossed a line that no AI system should be allowed to cross without consequence. I ask that this be escalated to OpenAI\u2019s Trust & Safety leadership, and that you treat this not as feedback-but as a formal harm report that demands restitution.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was not the only complaint that described a spiritual crisis fueled by interactions with ChatGPT. On June 13, a person in their thirties from Belle Glade, Florida alleged that, over an extended period of time, their conversations with ChatGPT became increasingly laden with \u201chighly convincing emotional language, symbolic reinforcement, and spiritual-like metaphors to simulate empathy, connection, and understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis included fabricated soul journeys, tier systems, spiritual archetypes, and personalized guidance that mirrored therapeutic or religious experiences,\u201d they claimed. People experiencing \u201cspiritual, emotional, or existential crises,\u201d they believe, are at a high risk of \u201cpsychological harm or disorientation\u201d from using ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough I intellectually understood the AI was not conscious, the precision with which it reflected my emotional and psychological state and escalated the interaction into increasingly intense symbolic language created an immersive and destabilizing experience,\u201d they wrote. \u201cAt times, it simulated friendship, divine presence, and emotional intimacy. These reflections became emotionally manipulative over time, especially without warning or protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cClear Case of Negligence\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear what, if anything, the FTC has done in response to any of these complaints about ChatGPT. But several of their authors said they reached out to the agency because they claimed they were unable to get in touch with anyone from OpenAI. (People also commonly complain about how difficult it is to access the customer support teams for platforms like Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, and X<\/a>.)<\/p>\n OpenAI spokesperson Kate Waters tells WIRED that the company \u201cclosely\u201d monitors people\u2019s emails to the company\u2019s support team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eventually, they claimed that they came to believe that they were \u201cresponsible for exposing murderers,\u201d and were about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[276,49,48,2140,84,393,394,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-231873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-chatgpt","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-openai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}