{"id":200809,"date":"2025-12-25T05:16:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T05:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/200809\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T05:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T05:16:15","slug":"woman-suffers-ai-psychosis-after-obsessively-generating-ai-images-of-herself-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/200809\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman Suffers AI Psychosis After Obsessively Generating AI Images of Herself"},"content":{"rendered":"

On top of the environmental<\/a>, political<\/a>, and social toll<\/a> AI has taken on the world, it\u2019s also been linked to a severe mental health crisis in which users are spiraling into delusions<\/a> and ending up committed to psychiatric institutions<\/a>, or even dead by suicide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Take Caitlin Ner. Writing in an essay for Newsweek<\/a>, Ner discusses her experience as head of user experience at an AI image generator startup \u2014 a gig she says pulled her into the throes of an AI-induced mental health breakdown.<\/p>\n

In her tell-all, Ner says it all began on the job, where she spent upward of nine hours a day prompting early, 2023-era generative AI systems. Though the faux-human images it spat out were often mangled and twisted, it still \u201cfelt like magic\u201d \u2014 at least at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin a few months, that magic turned manic,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Ner wrote that these early images \u201cstarted to distort my body perception and overstimulate my brain in ways that were genuinely harmful to my mental health.\u201d Yet even when the AI learned to take it easy<\/a> on the number of fingers it generated on a human hand, its images still took a mental toll, trading anatomical errors for scenes inhabited by impossibly slim, beautiful figures.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing AI images like this over and over again rewired my sense of normal,\u201d Ner explained. \u201cWhen I\u2019d look at my real reflection, I\u2019d see something that needed correction.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one pivotal moment, Ner began experimenting with AI images depicting herself as a fashion model, a directive set down by her company, which was pursuing users interested in fashion. \u201cI caught myself thinking, \u2018if only I looked like my AI version,’\u201d she wrote. \u201cI was obsessed with becoming skinnier, having a better body and perfect skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

She soon began losing sleep in order to generate more and more images, which she called \u201caddictive,\u201d because each image triggered a \u201csmall burst of dopamine.\u201d Though Ner had been successfully treating her bipolar disorder prior to her foray into AI fashion modeling, this new obsession spun into a \u201cmanic bipolar episode,\u201d which she says triggered an episode of psychosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw an AI-generated image of me on a flying horse, I started to believe I could actually fly,\u201d Ner writes. \u201cThe voices told me to fly off my balcony, made me feel confident that I could survive. This grandiose delusion almost pushed me to actually jump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, she caught herself and began reaching out to friends and family for help. A clinician helped her realize her work had triggered the spiral, leading her to leave the AI startup. \u201cI now understand that what happened to me wasn\u2019t just a coincidence of mental illness and technology,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt was\u00a0a form of digital addiction\u00a0from months and months of AI image generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has since jumped ship to become a director at another trendy company, PsyMed Ventures, which Newsweek described as a VC fund investing in mental and brain health. Many of the companies PsyMed invests in feature AI tools \u2014 which Ner says she still uses, albeit with a newfound sense of respect.<\/p>\n

More on AI: Man Describes How ChatGPT Led Him Straight Into Psychosis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On top of the environmental, political, and social toll AI has taken on the world, it\u2019s also been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[87535,554,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-200809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-ai-image-generator","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}