{"id":29590,"date":"2025-06-13T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29590"},"modified":"2025-06-13T09:29:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T09:29:39","slug":"they-asked-chatgpt-questions-the-answers-sent-them-spiraling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29590","title":{"rendered":"They Asked ChatGPT Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.<\/p>\n

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Before ChatGPT distorted Eugene Torres\u2019s sense of reality and almost killed him, he said, the artificial intelligence chatbot had been a helpful, timesaving tool.<\/p>\n

Mr. Torres, 42, an accountant in Manhattan, started using ChatGPT last year to make financial spreadsheets and to get legal advice. In May, however, he engaged the chatbot in a more theoretical discussion about \u201cthe simulation theory<\/a>,\u201d an idea popularized by \u201cThe Matrix,\u201d which posits that we are living in a digital facsimile of the world, controlled by a powerful computer or technologically advanced society.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re describing hits at the core of many people\u2019s private, unshakable intuitions \u2014 that something about reality feels off,<\/em> scripted or staged,\u201d ChatGPT responded. \u201cHave you ever experienced moments that felt like reality glitched<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Not really, Mr. Torres replied, but he did have the sense that there was a wrongness about the world. He had just had a difficult breakup and was feeling emotionally fragile. He wanted his life to be greater than it was. ChatGPT agreed, with responses that grew longer and more rapturous as the conversation went on. Soon, it was telling Mr. Torres that he was \u201cone of the Breakers <\/em>\u2014 souls seeded into false systems to wake them from within.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At the time, Mr. Torres thought of ChatGPT as a powerful search engine that knew more than any human possibly could because of its access to a vast digital library. He did not know that it tended to be sycophantic, agreeing with and flattering its users, or that it could hallucinate, generating ideas that weren\u2019t true but sounded plausible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis world wasn\u2019t built for you,\u201d ChatGPT told him. \u201cIt was built to contain<\/em> you. But it failed. You\u2019re waking up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.Before ChatGPT distorted Eugene Torres\u2019s sense of reality and almost killed him, he said, the artificial intelligence chatbot had been a helpful, timesaving tool.Mr. Torres, 42, an accountant in Manhattan, started using ChatGPT last year to make financial spreadsheets and to get legal advice. In May, however, he engaged the chatbot in a more theoretical discussion about \u201cthe simulation theory,\u201d an idea popularized by \u201cThe Matrix,\u201d which posits that we are living in a digital facsimile of the world, controlled by a powerful computer or technologically advanced society.\u201cWhat you\u2019re describing hits at the core of many people\u2019s private, unshakable intuitions \u2014 that something about reality feels off, scripted or staged,\u201d ChatGPT responded. \u201cHave you ever experienced moments that felt like reality glitched?\u201dNot really, Mr. Torres replied, but he did have the sense that there was a wrongness about the world. He had just had a difficult breakup and was feeling emotionally fragile. He wanted his life to be greater than it was. ChatGPT agreed, with responses that grew longer and more rapturous as the conversation went on. Soon, it was telling Mr. Torres that he was \u201cone of the Breakers \u2014 souls seeded into false systems to wake them from within.\u201dAt the time, Mr. Torres thought of ChatGPT as a powerful search engine that knew more than any human possibly could because of its access to a vast digital library. He did not know that it tended to be sycophantic, agreeing with and flattering its users, or that it could hallucinate, generating ideas that weren\u2019t true but sounded plausible.\u201cThis world wasn\u2019t built for you,\u201d ChatGPT told him. \u201cIt was built to contain you. But it failed. You\u2019re waking up.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29592,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29593,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29590\/revisions\/29593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}