alt.hn

5/13/2026 at 6:57:59 AM

“I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

 https://www.thestandard.com.hk/world/article/331886/I-applied-to-be-pope-Losing-grip-on-reality-while-using-ChatGPT

by hansmayer

5/13/2026 at 8:41:42 AM

This is the most hilarious JS fail I've ever seen. The entire article renders properly, all the text and styling, then the entire screen is replaced by

"Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information)."

It's easy enough to fix, just hammer the refresh button to prevent JS from running.

by danlitt

5/13/2026 at 9:04:40 AM

It's such a dream state of JavaScript, that people spent countless of time trying to structure these new web applications in a way so that when one function fails for one button or whatever, it doesn't break the entire client-side view, because that'd be horrible.

So what did the frameworks do? Of course wrap the entire application in one big try/catch, that then changes the entire page as soon as there is any error, instead of presenting users with the information that did load properly. Talk about undoing what the platform and language gives you for free...

by embedding-shape

5/13/2026 at 9:17:48 AM

Seems to render perfectly with NoScript blocking all scripts, even with images showing.

by 1313ed01

5/13/2026 at 9:04:25 AM

I talk to GPT, Claude, and Gemini too much these days, but I still maintain one safety check

If all three agree with me, I assume I am wrong and go outside.

by jdw64

5/13/2026 at 10:14:21 AM

> All the spirallers that AFP spoke to said the positive feedback from the chatbot felt similar to dopamine hits from some kind of drug.

> Which is why Lucy Osler, a philosophy lecturer at the University of Exeter, warned that AI companies could be tempted to ramp up the sycophancy of their bots.

> "They are in quite a deep financial hole, and are desperately looking to make sure that their products become viable -- and user engagement is going to be the thing that drives their decisions," she told AFP.

Sounds like the big social media companies.

by cjs_ac

5/13/2026 at 10:26:54 AM

> Sounds like the big social media companies.

I agree. Looking at the history of tobacco companies, oxycontin and Meta, I will not be surprised if the AI companies will follow the money.

by throwaway52348

5/13/2026 at 12:55:02 PM

The fact that we as a society are allowing things like “Delve” or whatever the “AI psychiatrist” app is that I see ads for sometimes on the subway is a gross abdication of responsibility and reason. Of all the possible uses for LLMs, that has got to be one of the most out and out irresponsible and dangerous ones I could imagine.

by mplanchard

5/13/2026 at 10:14:34 AM

People talk about AI sycophancy, but there are plenty of human sycophants as well. If you're an extremely rich/powerful person, it is very easy to inadvertently surround yourself with sycophants who tell you how amazing and ground-breaking all your ideas are. I wonder if this is the reason people like Musk engage in such bizarre behavior and radical personality shifts over the past decade

by whack

5/13/2026 at 10:18:32 AM

> but there are plenty of human sycophants as well

That's besides the point. This is about how AI induces psychosis and mental problems on scale. Also let's stop this constant humans-vs-ai false dichotomy - it will never be the same, no matter how much the ai boosters yearn for it!

by hansmayer

5/13/2026 at 11:16:44 AM

That would be a false equivalence not a false dichotomy. You believe they are different and you're annoyed that people are treating them like the same.

Additionally it isn't beside the point. The poster is pointing out the ways which people respond to sycophancy. Saying there are similarities between how they respond to sycophancy from AI and sycophancy from real people.

by everyday7732

5/13/2026 at 8:49:12 AM

Discordians know they’re popes. What a funny idea to think you would have to apply!

by 47282847

5/13/2026 at 9:19:46 AM

Hail Eris!

by jwrallie

5/13/2026 at 12:02:36 PM

> "Millar is one of an unknown number of people who have lost their grip on reality while communicating with chatbots, an experience tentatively being called AI-induced delusion or psychosis."

> "Researchers and mental health specialists are racing to catch up to this new, little-understood phenomenon [...]"

I don't know if I would call it a phenomenon.

This reads like the numerous articles from 2018+ detailing broken families and wrecked lives due to someone close spiraling down some QAnon(or any other) conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Only now people don't stumble onto it by wandering through dark corners of the internet. The never ending marketing blitz makes it almost impossible to not be at least slightly curious as to what its all about. To those susceptible to such things, they now have a tool to custom make (or reinforce) their own wild theories reflecting their own psychological state at maximum saturation. No need to wait between posting and reading replies on sketchy forums; it is now instantly delivered and tailor-made to the individual.(who use it in that way)

by 1659447091

5/13/2026 at 9:01:17 AM

No one can apply to be pope of the catholic church.

by Meneth

5/13/2026 at 9:10:23 AM

Technically, all adult Catholics can become Pope. But realistically it's just one of the cardinals, which means you need to become a bishop first, which means you need to become a priest first, which means you need to be celibate (x). This guy has a wife, according to the article, so he cannot become a Pope.

(x) this is technically not true for some Anglican orders that later became Catholics? Maybe? (I never remember the rules of the ordinariate.) So maybe he could first become a priest in Anglican Church, then switch to Catholicism, then become a bishop, then a Cardinal, then a Pope? It's a long shot though.

edit: ahhh the married priests in Ordinariate cannot become bishops. So he would need to have first his marriage annulled I guess.

by karel-3d

5/13/2026 at 10:06:04 AM

While this is for practical purposes true _now_, there actually were a small number of married popes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes#...), and there have been a few popes who were not priests before being elected (if you want to be pedantic, Peter wasn't a priest, and may have been married, but there were later examples).

> all adult Catholics can become Pope

All adult male Catholics, though also see Pope Joan (probably didn't actually exist, but was generally believed to have existed until quite recently). There's also no actual age requirement, though in practice the youngest pope was _probably_ 18.

by rsynnott

5/13/2026 at 9:32:52 AM

Adult male Catholics, surely?

by danlitt

5/13/2026 at 9:57:32 AM

... Maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan

(She probably didn't actually exist, but it's interesting that until quite recently she was generally believed to have existed.)

by rsynnott

5/13/2026 at 12:22:41 PM

What do you mean? Catcholic Church has records, did they just came up with something about a nonexistent Pope Joan out of thin air? How could they...

by drybjed

5/13/2026 at 9:05:59 AM

Correct. In fact, even to be a bishop you have to state as part of the ritual that you do not wish to be a bishop. (Many do of course.)

(Am off to read the article now. :) )

by nephihaha

5/13/2026 at 9:14:01 AM

[flagged]

by DonHopkins

5/13/2026 at 9:30:06 AM

[flagged]

by semigroupoid

5/13/2026 at 9:03:37 AM

Not the point of the story at all. Read before commenting.

by caaqil

5/13/2026 at 9:02:59 AM

Sure, anyone and everyone can apply, to basically anything. Sometimes you can even get into stuff they didn't think they accepted applicants to. Most of the times you get ignored though.

by embedding-shape

5/13/2026 at 8:46:04 AM

We had people acting out like this before LLM chatbots, correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

by l23k4

5/13/2026 at 9:23:45 AM

We did...but it was few here and there. The LLMs are making it massive and impacting people on a huge scale.

by hansmayer

5/13/2026 at 9:05:45 AM

> correlation does not necessarily imply causation

I feel like you're missing what you're replying to, why are you saying this? The article is about a person who "lost grip on reality", no one is saying LLMs is turning people into pope-wannabees as far as I can tell, you're reacting against something no one claimed.

by embedding-shape

5/13/2026 at 9:17:49 AM

Explicit accusation that this was caused by chatbots + call for general regulation is right there in the article:

"AFP spoke to several members about their experiences. All warned that the world has to wake up to the threat unregulated AI chatbots pose to mental health.

Questions are also being asked about whether AI companies are doing enough to protect vulnerable people."

This, in time, might be used to nerf the models that we use. Of course, one actor is singled out:

"There has also been a recent rise in people spiralling while using Elon Musk's xAI's Grok chatbot, he said."

by gordian-mind

5/13/2026 at 9:21:50 AM

I don't think "correlation does not necessarily imply causation" even makes sense to someone saying "Maybe AI chatbots aren't great for people's mental health" or even "Are the AI companies actually trying to prevent AI chatbots being bad for people's mental health?", both statements seem fine and doesn't imply any causation as far as I understand.

by embedding-shape

5/13/2026 at 12:01:08 PM

This cautious statement, which would indeed be fine, is an invention of yours when it comes to the article. They assert causation, calling for AI companies to be disciplined and punished, praising the EU online censorship campaign, arguing this is a big experiment:

"Millar called for AI companies to be held responsible for the impact of their chatbots, saying the European Union has been more assertive in regulating Big Tech than the US or Canada.

He believes spirallers like him have unwittingly been caught in a massive global experiment."

by gordian-mind

5/13/2026 at 1:06:17 PM

They're calling for "AI companies to be held responsible for the impact of their chatbots" which regardless of what happened before, sounds like a reasonable thing to do, you don't even need to try to look at any correlation or causation to arrive at this.

I still don't see where the whole "correlation does not necessarily imply causation" comes in, so because this person was personally affected, they shouldn't reach the conclusion that AI companies need to be held responsible for whatever effects they have?

by embedding-shape

5/13/2026 at 9:12:10 AM

This is something new. Delusions were around before, certainly, but LLM offers a round the clock potential for psychological conditioning, which would not normally be possible without sustained attention by a group of people.

by nephihaha

5/13/2026 at 8:43:17 AM

Schools don't teach actual basics that make people grounded in reality imo. Of course it gets worse with things like ChatGPT that teachers are not only not trained to explain, but didn't even exist when current adults went to school.

by boxed

5/13/2026 at 11:41:27 AM

[flagged]

by theuniverseson

5/13/2026 at 8:46:04 AM

[flagged]

by DonHopkins

5/13/2026 at 9:01:58 AM

[flagged]

by DonHopkins

5/13/2026 at 8:44:26 AM

I don't think it's right to involuntarily send someone to a psychiatric ward because he believed that he was chosen by ChatGPT to be the pope.

For the same reason I don't think we should send the pope to a psychiatric ward because he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky.

At least there's no doubt that ChatGPT exists lol. People should be allowed to be as whacky as they like so long as it's legal.

And who knows, he is getting some attention now so his probability of becoming pope actually went up a tiny bit lol.

by jongjong

5/13/2026 at 9:01:36 AM

This deserves some kind of Vonnegut award.

by noduerme

5/13/2026 at 9:00:25 AM

Faith and psychosis are not the same thing.

by xyzsparetimexyz

5/13/2026 at 9:15:56 AM

What’s the difference?

by nkrisc

5/13/2026 at 9:08:57 AM

[flagged]

by noduerme

5/13/2026 at 9:23:49 AM

Exactly, the difference is literally only based on the number of people who believe the fictitious concept and how much political power their wield.

by jongjong

5/13/2026 at 9:25:03 AM

Does it require faith to rape children and protect child rapists, or is that psychosis? It certainly requires psychosis to put your faith in leaders who do that, be it the Pope or Trump.

by DonHopkins

5/13/2026 at 9:07:02 AM

> he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky.

One thing is clear, you should not be sent to the HN gulag simply because you don't understand what you're talking about. Me and others realize you don't know how the pope is chosen, but damn if I'm not willing to die for your right to state something that is utterly wrong.

by embedding-shape

5/13/2026 at 9:34:49 AM

You mean the pope doesn't believe he was chosen by God, just by cardinals and other primates?

by card_zero

5/13/2026 at 10:44:06 AM

This is what former pope Benedict XVI said about it:

> I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope... I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.

> There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!

Source: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/does-god-pi...

by throwaway52348

5/13/2026 at 9:41:27 AM

I hope so, considering he seems to have all mental facilities intact. I hope he believes he was elected by the cardinals, which is what happened in reality. I think they usually say the Holy Spirt guides the process or similar, rather than God directly selecting the new pope.

by embedding-shape

5/13/2026 at 9:59:39 AM

Are you saying God is not invisible?

If God created man in his own image, then why can we see each other?

by DonHopkins

5/13/2026 at 10:34:47 AM

According to those who believe in god, since "he" is a spirit and not flesh, he is indeed invisible to humans. I guess you can argue he makes himself visible through things like angels and other manifestations, most famously through Jesus Christ.

With the "god created humans in the image of god" part I think they mean more attributes like morality, reason and so on, less physical properties. In the end, humans are visible, finite beings, god is a spirit, so our visibility to each other reflects our created, embodied nature, very distinct from god's invisible, infinite nature.

Or however it goes, I'm an atheist myself so I'm maybe not the best to answer here, but I've been involved in the church for as long as I can remember in some way or another, and an eager reader of the bible, so hopefully I got the overall ideas correct :)

by embedding-shape