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Galaxy Brain

Galaxy Brain

When Chatbots Break Our Minds, With Kashmir Hill

Dec 5, 2025 · 1h 1m

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About this episode

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores the strange, unsettling relationships some people are having with AI chatbots, as well as what happens when those relationships go off the rails. His guest is Kashmir Hill, a technology reporter at The New York Times who has spent the past year documenting what is informally called “AI psychosis.” These are long, intense conversations with systems such as ChatGPT that can spiral or trigger delusional beliefs, paranoia, and even self-harm. Hill walks through cases that range from the bizarre (one man’s supposed math breakthrough, a chatbot encouraging users to email her) to the tragic, including the story of 16-year-old Adam Raine,…