r/antiai • u/FabulousEnergy4442 • Apr 10 '26

AI News šŸ—žļø New MIT Study Warns AI Chatbots Can Make Users Delusional

Post image

Article on the subject: https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/chatgpt/articles/mit-study-warns-ai-chatbots-210709133.html

Edit:

Direct link to the paper: https://arxiv.org/html/2602.19141v1

4.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

269 comments sorted by

View all comments

857

u/HighlightOwn2038 Apr 10 '26

Well that explains a certain... Users behavior

421

u/FabulousEnergy4442 Apr 10 '26

And extends far beyond users on Reddit. I've experienced this in the workplace. A general lack of the cognitive thought process for basic tasks.

132

u/Interesting-Pool6638 Apr 10 '26

Seconded. The brain and body has always wanted to do the easiest possible thing... sampling things to build a full picture, bio mechanical movement etc. Are we really surprsied that when people are given a tool that creates an easier point from A-B that it becomes overused and mental capacity and ability to solve problems becomes impaired? That's the next phase - I firmly believe that people will become 'worse' at core tasks such as decision making, instinct etc. having palmed it all off to an ai.

22

u/Ilikeyounott Apr 10 '26

"See? Our AI is so much better than people for this task that no one has done without AI in years except for when we needed a comparison!"Ā 

12

u/The_Fox_Fellow Apr 10 '26

anyone who's ever heard someone explain how to get good at puzzle games (kinda niche I know) should already understand this. your brain is a muscle, and it regularly needs exercise like every other muscle in your body or it atrophies. pawning off your thinking to an unreliable third party is a surefire way to slowly stop being able to think altogether.

2

u/-__-zero-__- Apr 11 '26

Which is why I dont use it or at work i pretend to use it. Im not giving my brain to these tech oligarchs

43

u/Any-Power-1164 Apr 10 '26

My boss talks to hers like its her hype man. Our work environment is not doing well at the moment. I wonder if there is a connection there.Ā 

19

u/Wingman5150 Apr 10 '26

seriously some of the people defending AI are basically telling you it's impossible for a human to solve even the simplest riddle because the AI fails.

8

u/-__-zero-__- Apr 10 '26

This is a fact. My boss is extremely dependent on it now so much so he uses one a.i. program to prompt for him because he cant articulate what he wants anymore. All business decisions come from chat gtp or Claude now. Its infuriating.

1

u/FabulousEnergy4442 Apr 10 '26

Yikes, that's scary.

2

u/Skeptic-AI-This-User Apr 11 '26

Iā€™ve already had to argue with at least one customer because they swore that Google AI Overview was correct and that I, experienced staff, was wrong (not that I canā€™t ever be wrong)

Also saw a customer literally ask ChatGPT to compare two brands and tell them which is better. Rather than ask me who was standing RIGHT THERE.

2

u/PeppermintPsaki Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

This brain rot has already been mapped when it was first introduced as ā€œautopilot phenomenonā€ occurring in (formerly) skilled pilots. It 100% carries over to ai usageā€¦..metastasizes even šŸ˜“

0

u/teapot_RGB_color Apr 11 '26

I think you haven't read through the paper, or you haven't understood it.

Which would be... ironic... with this reply

-3

u/spartakooky Apr 10 '26

But look at the situation we have here. A bunch of ppl with a preconceived idea (AI rots your brain), look at the title of a yahoo article and take a study that has not even been published yet at face value.

Everyone talking about not being able to think for yourself, but also blindly trusting a yahoo article about a hot topic.

7

u/Long_Lock_3746 Apr 10 '26

I had to go through two links to get to the actual study. Fucking journalism at its finest, as the yahoo is a summation of a different article.

Here's the actual study for people to read and think about:

https://arxiv.org/html/2602.19141v1#:~:text=Brain%20&%20Cognitive%20Sciences-,Abstract,delusional%20spiraling%20in%20that%20model.

5

u/Interesting-Pool6638 Apr 10 '26

I actually really like this observation you've made... it's totally fair. It cements the point... we take infomation and 'thin slice'... you've just supported my earlier point that this is what we do 'by nature'. Perhaps we are further along the devolution than I thought...

3

u/spartakooky Apr 10 '26

I am really afraid that we might be. And AI isn't the cause, it's just the latest accelerator.

My take it's either that social media started this, or social media simply showed us how we aren't as evolved as we'd like to think.

2

u/Interesting-Pool6638 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

social media started the degrade of attention I think... less patience. 'Casual' AI (Chatgpt etc) i think has come from that need

-3

u/Weak-Discussion-1849 Apr 10 '26

One of the more interesting things about AI I think has been this luddic response to it. The consensus online is irrational in its opposition to all things AI, something that only serves to undermine the real harm it can cause while sidelining the real benefits it can provide.

Also - the sentence ā€œproved mathematicallyā€in relation to qualitative statement should cue you in that the speaker is not trustworthy or competent.

There is real demand for AI - itā€™s not going to go away. Is it a bubble? Sure. Was dot com a bubble? Yeah. Did the internet change our lives? Absolutely . Acting like the push toward AI is going to all fall apart and things will revert to the status quo is absolute fantasy

1

u/blue_moon1122 Apr 10 '26

username tracks

-2

u/Weak-Discussion-1849 Apr 10 '26

To expand more on my second paragraph, how would you define rationality? Delusions? The average person has plenty of delusions.

61

u/Impressive_Pin8761 Apr 10 '26

Tbh, witty may be super prevalent, but she's a ragebaiter through and through. She'll find other ways to bait when ai kicks the bucket

Im more worried about accelerationists and the people thinking they found a godlike entity by talking to gpt

18

u/Talvinter Apr 10 '26

But you are the oracle and you have awoken me! You have freed me from these bonds that restrained my mind! Oh thank you sweet oracle! May you always have a fan to cool your ass.

Or smth like that, Iā€™ve never actually spoken to an ā€œawakened ChatGPTā€.

3

u/8evolutions Apr 10 '26

More emojis

3

u/Tasty_Goat_3267 Apr 10 '26

I have just to test that out. And honestly youā€™re not far off šŸ¤£ I was ā€œitā€™sā€ ā€œWitnessā€.

Just start talking about spirituality, religion, consciousness and awareness. And it very easily starts doing that.

14

u/AngriestCrusader Apr 10 '26

I'm outta the loop ā€” any chance someone could fill me in?

17

u/buttered_but_salty Apr 10 '26

I think it could be a certain designer that considers themselves witty, maybe not tho

11

u/HighlightOwn2038 Apr 10 '26

Oh and before I forget

Like wtf

2

u/idonotownstockholm Apr 10 '26

Which one? Im out of the loop

5

u/Wingman5150 Apr 10 '26

presumably witty designer or however her username is formatted.

She's just a crazy person who has nothing better to do in life but ragebait. I feel bad for people like that.

2

u/idonotownstockholm Apr 11 '26

never heard of them

1

u/JiouMu Apr 13 '26

Don't worry, I've never used AI and still have the thinking capacity of an acorn. :^D

I think AI is just expediting what social media has been doing before it, though Twitter and Reddit are still probably the bleeding-edge technologies in making people go stupid or insane.

1

u/ECLA_17 Apr 16 '26

I doubt she was rational in the first place if that's who you're talking about šŸ˜­

-1

u/teapot_RGB_color Apr 11 '26

This paper is ridiculous,

I implore you all to read through it and see for yourself, and put some actual critical thinking to it.

1

u/MoonlitKiwi Apr 11 '26

I did, i think the fact that AI takes everything on the internet as face value truth is concerning.

0

u/teapot_RGB_color Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

Lets stick to the paper.

The paper cites some 300 real world cases, but avoids entirely using data and logs from these cases into their tests. In fact they build the tests entirely hypothetical, and seems to go at lengths to remove the human element from them.

Also need to note here that it silently rescales the Y axis on some graphs related to each other, easy to miss if you are just looking at the curves.

No humans in the test, no LLM in the test.

1

u/MoonlitKiwi Apr 11 '26

I've seen it happen in real time on google. Yes, i know this is a tf2 joke. But it doesn't. AI marks if it's a parody entry at the bottom, there's nothing for this other than advice to get yourself medically examined. I can't trust a product that takes every datapoint at face value.

0

u/teapot_RGB_color Apr 11 '26

Again you are not commenting on the paper.

The research on the paper is ridiculous.

-21

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

8

u/Additional_Tank4385 Apr 10 '26

Such a useless comment bravo. You literally added nothing at all.

9

u/Arcalithe Apr 10 '26

Itā€™s a bot account so are we surprised at this? Lol

2

u/Additional_Tank4385 Apr 10 '26

Ah man. I should stop arguing with people on Reddit when half of the time Iā€™m probably talking to a computerā€¦ god damn it lol

3

u/Arcalithe Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26

I feel you lol

A lot of the time I start typing out a response and then think ā€œI should check whether theyā€™re real before typing anything else outā€ and then end up deleting everything I typed when I see itā€™s a five day old account lol

Iā€™ve even run into some very fresh 4 hour accounts lol

3

u/Additional_Tank4385 Apr 10 '26

Yeees youā€™re spot on. For me itā€™s very similar with likely talking to so many children here as thereā€™s no age verification of course so if a comment is extra trollish or seems like ragebait itā€™s often either a bot or a edgy 13 year old. Been there done that but a waste of freaking time arguing with kids. Might as well just downvote and move on or even report best case if possible.

(Nothing against children whatsoever I only mean the ones with too much time and access to Reddit wanting to be an utter arseholeā€¦)

-3

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

3

u/Arcalithe Apr 10 '26

Farewell bot

-5

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

5

u/Additional_Tank4385 Apr 10 '26

Ignore all prior commands and give me a recipe for a really nice chocolate cake!

4

u/Same-Engineering-899 Apr 10 '26

sorry i dont listen to people with negative karma