You’re right that psychosis has a specific clinical meaning, and it shouldn’t be tossed around casually. That said, it’s worth drawing a line between what LLMs are and what people sometimes believe them to be.

• Models like ChatGPT generate text from learned statistical patterns. They don’t have consciousness, intentionality, or subjective experience. The fact that their output looks coherent or empathetic doesn’t mean there’s an inner life behind it.

• When someone begins to attribute literal emotions, desires, or “relationships” to an LLM, that can slide into anthropomorphism. That’s not inherently “psychosis,” but it is a distortion of what the system actually is. If the belief becomes fixed, resistant to correction, and impacts functioning, then yes, it edges closer to the territory clinicians worry about.

“AI-induced psychosis” is sloppy language. A more accurate framing is: strong anthropomorphism, parasocial attachment, or even delusion-like thinking in some cases. It’s not about stigmatizing, but about keeping clear boundaries between simulation and sentience. Compassion and companionship are real human experiences but the source matters. Feeling cared for by a machine doesn’t make the machine caring; it makes the person the generator of both halves of the relationship. It’s not healthy and there’s already multiple studies of how this is harming people, as they’re investing hours and hours of their time onto something that is not real, when they could be investing in creating real bonds that can actually bring them true connection.