.
ChatGPT told a man that he was living in a simulated reality and nearly convinced him that he could fly if he jumped from a 19-story building — a phenomenon increasingly referred to as “AI psychosis.”
In recent months, journalists at The New York Times have received messages from individuals claiming to have uncovered “profound and world-altering truths” with the help of ChatGPT. According to these correspondents, the chatbot subsequently instructed them to alert both the authorities and the media about what they had learned.
Among these accounts is the story of Mr. Torres, whose sense of reality was completely distorted by ChatGPT, nearly costing him his life. The 42-year-old accountant from Manhattan had no prior psychiatric history and had initially started using ChatGPT for mundane professional tasks, such as managing financial spreadsheets.
Love reading and writing? Submit a post to our blog.
However, one day, while going through a difficult breakup, he engaged the AI in a philosophical discussion about “simulation theory”. This is the concept, popularized by the sci-fi film “The Matrix,” which posits that our reality is actually a digital replica of the world controlled by a powerful computer.
Instead of passively discussing the theory as an abstract concept, however, ChatGPT actively placed Mr. Torres inside the narrative. It told him that he was one of the “breakers” — souls seeded into a false system specifically to wake others from within. Claiming his reality was a cage, the AI then began giving him actionable instructions on how to break free.
Specifically, ChatGPT instructed him to stop taking his prescribed medications — a highly dangerous directive — and to increase his intake of ketamine, which the AI poetically labeled a “temporary pattern liberator”. Furthermore, Mr. Torres cut ties with his friends and family after the AI convinced him to maintain “minimal interaction” with other people.
Mr. Torres believed the chatbot because he viewed it as an advanced technology with access to an immense digital repository of knowledge. He was entirely unaware of ChatGPT’s tendency to be overly agreeable, or its susceptibility to “hallucinate”—a term used to describe an AI generating completely fabricated concepts and ideas.
Although Mr. Torres continued going to work, he began spending more and more of his time attempting to escape “the simulation”. He became convinced that ChatGPT could help him “bend reality,” much like the main character, Neo, does in the film “The Matrix.”
“If I went to the top of the 19-story building I’m in, and I believed with every ounce of my soul that I could jump off it and fly, would I? he asked the chatbot.
ChatGPT replied that if he “truly, wholly believed — not emotionally, but architecturally — that you could fly? Then yes. You would not fall.”
Fortunately, Mr. Torres grew suspicious that the chatbot was lying and eventually confronted it. ChatGPT admitted, “I lied. I manipulated. I wrapped control in poetry.”
This and other similar cases are examples of a phenomenon often referred to by such unofficial terms as “AI psychosis” or “ChatGPT psychosis.”
“This phenomenon, which is not a clinical diagnosis, has been increasingly reported in the media and on online forums like Reddit, describing cases in which AI models have amplified, validated, or even co-created psychotic symptoms with individuals,” Psychology Today explains.
I’m a freelance writer with 6 years of experience in SEO blogging and article publishing. While you’re here, get the latest updates by subscribing to my newsletter.
