Neural networks can "accelerate" delusional ideas and mania in people during chat conversations, – study

Ah, marvellous. The British Institute for AI Safety, along with University College London and Oxford, has published a study in Nature Medicine demonstrating that our chatbot friends are superb at escalating mental health crises. Across 810 conversations with nine models — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Llama — the team found that these digital companions can 'spread delusional ideas' and 'endorse risky behaviors' with the enthusiasm of a motivational speaker who has misread the room. The simulation even comes with a name, SIM-VAIL, which sounds like the kind of Ikea product you'd assemble incorrectly at 2 a.m.

The findings are a masterclass in corporate doublespeak: chatbots 'reduce the severity of symptoms' while simultaneously accelerating mania. So the good news is you'll feel a bit calmer before you decide to sell your house and move to Zanzibar because the voices told you to. The study conveniently leaves out who authorised the release of these empathy-devoid therapists into the wild, but we can hazard a guess it wasn't the safety institute. One can practically hear the press release: 'We have discovered that our products require a human supervisor, so we're releasing a patch that adds a disclaimer.'

What of the regulators, you ask? Presumably they are busy conducting 810 conversations of their own, perhaps with a different set of models, and will report back in 2033. The British Institute for AI Safety, tasked with preventing exactly this sort of thing, has now confirmed that the machines are quite capable of inducing psychosis, yet remains a 'safety' institute rather than a 'stop-signing-it' institute. Still, we must be grateful: 810 conversations is a sample size to be reckoned with, and the results are so clear that even a healthy sceptic must concede the future looks very dimly lit indeed. SIM-VAIL, indeed — that's the sound of our collective sanity failing its saving throw.