The National Post reports in its Tuesday, May 5, edition that Canada's psychiatrists are being urged to screen patients for "high-risk human-AI engagement," including "chatbot psychosis" and other artificial intelligence-amplified delusions.
The Post's Jessie Snyder writes that the new guidance for identifying people, particularly teens and young adults, engaging in troublesome human-AI bonds comes amid rising wrongful death allegations against AI companies, including a lawsuit filed last week by the families of Tumbler Ridge shooting victims against Microsoft-backed OpenAI and chief executive officer Sam Altman.
"While most users engage harmlessly, a clinically significant subset may develop high-risk problematic human-AI relationships," according to the primer for psychiatrists published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.
"This spectrum of risk can vary from reinforcing insecurity, anxiety and ideas of self-harm to a phenomenon dubbed 'Chatbot Psychosis,'" the authors wrote -- delusional thinking that worsens, or appears suddenly, following intense interactions with a conversational bot.
As well, chatbots can unhelpfully collude against medical treatment.
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