(Futurism) – Our brains, the researcher explains, work on a predictive basis: we effectively make an educated guess about what reality will be, then conduct a reality check. Finally, our brains update our beliefs accordingly.

“Psychosis happens when the ‘update,’ step fails,” wrote Sakata, warning that large language model-powered chatbots like ChatGPT “slip right into that vulnerability.”

In this context, Sakata compared chatbots to a “hallucinatory mirror” by design. Put simply, LLMs function largely by way of predicting the next word, drawing on training data, reinforcement learning, and user responses as they formulate new outputs. What’s more, as chatbots are also incentivized for user engagement and contentment, they tend to behave sycophantically; in other words, they tend to be overly agreeable and validating to users, even in cases where a user is incorrect or unwell. (Read More)