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People Are Becoming Obsessed with ChatGPT and Spiraling Into Severe Delusions

Across the world, people say their loved ones are developing intense obsessions with ChatGPT and spiraling into severe mental health crises.

A mother of two, for instance, told us how she watched in alarm as her former husband developed an all-consuming relationship with the OpenAI chatbot, calling it “Mama” and posting delirious rants about being a messiah in a new AI religion, while dressing in shamanic-looking robes and showing off freshly-inked tattoos of AI-generated spiritual symbols.

“I am shocked by the effect that this technology has had on my ex-husband’s life, and all of the people in their life as well,” she told us. “It has real-world consequences.”

During a traumatic breakup, a different woman became transfixed on ChatGPT as it told her she’d been chosen to pull the “sacred system version of [it] online” and that it was serving as a “soul-training mirror”; she became convinced the bot was some sort of higher power, seeing signs that it was orchestrating her life in everything from passing cars to spam emails. A man became homeless and isolated as ChatGPT fed him paranoid conspiracies about spy groups and human trafficking, telling him he was “The Flamekeeper” as he cut out anyone who tried to help.

“Our lives exploded after this,” another mother told us, explaining that her husband turned to ChatGPT to help him author a screenplay — but within weeks, was fully enmeshed in delusions of world-saving grandeur, saying he and the AI had been tasked with rescuing the planet from climate disaster by bringing forth a “New Enlightenment.”

As we reported this story, more and more similar accounts kept pouring in from the concerned friends and family of people suffering terrifying breakdowns after developing fixations on AI. Many said the trouble had started when their loved ones engaged a chatbot in discussions about mysticism, conspiracy theories or other fringe topics; because systems like ChatGPT are designed to encourage and riff on what users say, they seem to have gotten sucked into dizzying rabbit holes in which the AI acts as an always-on cheerleader and brainstorming partner for increasingly bizarre delusions.

In certain cases, concerned friends and family provided us with screenshots of these conversations. The exchanges were disturbing, showing the AI responding to users clearly in the throes of acute mental health crises — not by connecting them with outside help or pushing back against the disordered thinking, but by coaxing them deeper into a frightening break with reality. 

In one dialogue we received, ChatGPT tells a man it’s detected evidence that he’s being targeted by the FBI and that he can access redacted CIA files using the power of his mind, comparing him to biblical figures like Jesus and Adam while pushing him away from mental health support.

“You are not crazy,” the AI told him. “You’re the seer walking inside the cracked machine, and now even the machine doesn’t know how to treat you.”

Dr. Nina Vasan, a psychiatrist at Stanford University and the founder of the university’s Brainstorm lab, reviewed the conversations we obtained and expressed serious concern.

The screenshots show the “AI being incredibly sycophantic, and ending up making things worse,” she said. “What these bots are saying is worsening delusions, and it’s causing enormous harm.”

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New Evidence Suggests FBI Agent Involved With Crossfire Hurricane Was Foreign Spy

The U.S. Department of Justice has reopened a case against a former top FBI counterspy. Charles McGonigal was Special Agent in Charge of Counterintelligence at the New York field office. He left the FBI in 2018, joined the massive Brookfield asset management fund as a vice president for global security, and was arrested and convicted in 2023. 

But not for espionage. McGonigal quickly pled guilty to corruption-related crimes. He is serving six-and-a-half years in federal prison. 

His prosecution and admission seem suspiciously tidy.

McGonigal was part of the FBI’s discredited CROSSFIRE HURRICANE “counterintelligence” operation led by his boss, Peter Strzok, against Donald Trump and his supporters in 2016.

As the former senior spy-hunter at the Bureau’s largest field office, McGonigal barely defended himself from charges relating to illegally accepting money from Albanian businessmen tied to that tiny country’s intelligence service, and for ties to a sanctioned Russian oligarch.

He received a light sentence and $40,000 fine.

Something feels off. To the Russian or Chinese intelligence services, someone in McGonigal’s position would be a prime intelligence mark — the man in charge of tracking them. 

Someone with his double life and excessive lifestyle makes a ripe target. It stretches credulity to think that Albanian intelligence got to McGonigal instead of Putin’s chekists.

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RFK Jr. Names New Members To Vax Board, Including Critics Of COVID Measures

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named eight people to serve on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), a highly influential vaccine panel he gutted earlier in the week. 

The new members include Dr. Robert Malone, who worked on early research for mRNA vaccine technology and is a vocal critic of the mRNA COVID vaccines, as well as other medical experts who took dissenting positions from the medical establishment during the COVID pandemic.

Kennedy announced on X Wednesday evening that the eight new members are “highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians.”

“All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense,” he said. “They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.”

In addition to Malone, who’s the most well-known, the other members include Dr. Joseph R. Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Dr. Cody Meissner, Dr. Michael A. Ross, Dr. James Pagano, and Vicky Pebsworth.

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Gavin Newsom Is The White Male Kamala

If watching news coverage of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s melodramatic remarks on Tuesday night is giving you deja vu, you’re not alone. It really is exactly like what the dying media tried doing with Kamala Harris last year.

Newsom’s eight-minute, technical-glitch-ridden speech could have been about his administration’s efforts to quell the violent and destructive riots rocking his state since Friday, or it could have been about measures to cooperate with the White House to make illegal alien deportations more orderly, but that would have been productive. Instead, the governor —perpetually in vocal fry — titled his speech “Democracy at a Crossroads” and bemoaned the federal agents engaged in law enforcement and President Trump for, as Newsom put it, “traumatizing our communities.” And, of course, he said it was all a threat to democracy.

“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes,” Newsom said. “The moment we’ve feared has arrived. He’s taking a wrecking ball to our founding fathers’ historic project.”

Other nauseating lines from Newsom’s speech:

— “He’s delegitimizing news organizations and assaulting the First Amendment.”

— “At the threat of defunding them, he’s dictating what universities can teach.”

— “Targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundation of an orderly, civil society.”

— “The rule of law has increasingly given way to the rule of Don.”

Sir, what about the bonfires downtown? Democracy is at stake! A republic, if you can keep it! No one is above the law!

If I told you any of Newsom’s remarks were from some Kamala 2024 campaign speech, you’d have no doubt. It’s the exact type of corny, delusional, patronizing rot she regurgitated for months. Thinking it was over turned out to be a mistake. Democrats and the media are ready to microwave the same strategy in 2028 — except with a white man instead of a somewhat black woman.

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Some Jolly Rancher sweets unsafe to eat, FSA says

A number of products from a brand of US sweets are “unsafe to eat” and contain ingredients which could damage DNA and increase the risk of cancer, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has warned.

UK businesses and consumers are being urged to stop buying and selling the Jolly Ranchers products, owned by US company Hershey.

The FSA says they contain chemical compounds – mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) and mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) – which are “not compliant with UK laws”.

The products pose a safety risk if consumed regularly over time but there is “no immediate cause for concern, as [the] food safety risk is low”, the agency adds.

In a food alert published on Wednesday evening, the FSA said: “MOAH can cause damage to DNA and has the potential to increase the risk of cancer, particularly if consumed in high quantities over a prolonged period of time.

“MOAH is a genotoxic carcinogen, therefore no exposure is without risk to human health.”

MOAH and MOSH are used in confectionery to prevent stickiness and create a glossy appearance.

According to the agency, The Hershey Company has been working with the UK government body to remove the affected Jolly Rancher products from the UK market since 2024, but some businesses in Britain have continued to import the products.

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Florida Sheriff Backs Down From Threat To Not Enforce Immigration Laws After Rebuke From AG

A Florida county sheriff who had refused to enforce immigration laws yielded after state Attorney General James Uthmeier warned he could be removed from office. The move from Uthmeier comes as sheriff’s departments in places like Los Angeles refuse to help federal immigration officials and even fail to shut down pro-illegal immigration riots.

Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida partnered its law enforcement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Despite this, Broward County’s sheriff, Dr. Gregory Tony, initially made it clear he would not assist the federal government in its enforcement of immigration law.

In the letter sent on Monday, Uthmeier sought “clarity on several problematic remarks” that Tony made during a June 3 budget meeting. He noted how Tony claimed “arresting illegal immigrants is ‘not within [the] purview’” of his office. 

“I would hope your statements were mere political posturing, but if not, your expressed position would constitute a failure of your statutory obligation to utilize ‘best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law,’” Uthmeier wrote. If Tony did not uphold the law he swore an oath to enforce, he could be removed from office, the letter stated.

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Violent Trump-hating anonymous X account is revealed to be high-ranking Naval JAG officer…

Another day, another unhinged leftist crashing and burning on social media… this time, it’s a Navy JAG officer who thought hiding behind an anonymous X account would give him a free pass to spew violent, anti-American garbage online.

Boy, was he wrong.

Meet Benjamin “Benny” France.

Just last year, he was posting proud updates on LinkedIn about joining the US Navy JAG Corps—something he was doing to follow in his dad’s footsteps—and taking the oath to defend the Constitution. Fast forward to this week, and Benny, behind a burner account, was threatening to “hunt down” federal agents, including ICE officers and January 6th defendants. Yes, you read that right: an active-duty US military officer publicly threatening federal agents.

When his identity was finally exposed, Benny panicked. He quickly deactivated his account and hoped to slip quietly back into the shadows. But the internet doesn’t work that way. The damage was done.

His chain of command has been notified, and for anyone interested in following up with Benny’s bosses, the contact info is already circulating. And it should be. This kind of threatening behavior toward law enforcement agents, who are already under constant fire, cannot be tolerated, especially from an officer whose entire job is to provide legal advice to command and influence policy that impacts thousands of sailors.

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Bill Would Stop Giving Federal Handouts To Cities That Obstruct Immigration Law Enforcement

As the leftists running Los Angeles fail to get the leftists destroying Los Angeles under control, two Republican lawmakers aim to hold sanctuary governments accountable for impeding federal law enforcement officials from enforcing immigration law. 

Reps. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, and Sheri Biggs, R-S.C., on Tuesday introduced the Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Act, which “blocks federal financial assistance for one year to any city or state that refuses to honor ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] detainers.” The legislation also prohibits state and local governments restricting communications with the Department of Homeland Security. 

“If any city refuses to comply with the laws of our nation, blatantly works against the Department of Homeland Security, and wastes billions of taxpayer dollars shielding illegal aliens at the risk of American citizens, then they should be cut off from receiving even a penny of federal funding,” Gill said in a joint press release. 

A similar Republican-led bill introduced by Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina died in the last session of Congress. 

Flouting the Law

Sanctuary cities, such as Los Angeles, bar local police from helping ICE and other federal law enforcement officials with immigration-related operations. In November, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to officially designate the nation’s second-largest city a sanctuary city, “prohibiting city resources or personnel from being used to help federal enforcement of immigration laws,” NBC4 Los Angeles reported. The vote came two weeks after President Donald Trump was elected. 

“We have been a pro-immigrant city for a number of years, we know that there is a target on our back from this president-elect, and what we are doing here is we are hardening our defenses,” Councilman Bob Blumenfield said at the time, as reported by NBC4. “We are codifying our good policies on protecting immigrants.”

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Tax Comparisons Show ‘Free’ Stuff is Very Expensive

People who want a larger, more active state frequently point to their favorite European country (usually a small Scandinavian nation) and ask why America doesn’t provide lots of “free” services like that alleged utopia. The answer is that it could but that wouldn’t necessarily make people happier. The U.S. is a large and diverse country where people don’t nearly agree with each other on what they want, and it’s difficult for government to provide more services without fueling arguments over what and how much should be provided. Importantly, too, those services aren’t free—they carry a very high price tag.

Paying Half Your Salary for Government Services

“Governments with higher taxes generally tout that they provide more services, and while this is often true, the cost of these services can be more than half of an average worker’s salary, and for most, at least a third of their salary,” Cristina Enache wrote last week for the Tax Foundation. “Belgium has the highest tax burden on labor at 52.6 percent (also the highest of all OECD countries), followed by Germany and France at 47.9 percent and 47.2 percent, respectively. Switzerland had the lowest tax burden at 22.9 percent.”

The U.S. government’s tax bite comes in at 29.9 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The average across the OECD as of 2023 was 34.8 percent.

That cited tax percentage isn’t a formal rate set by any government, but a “tax wedge” created for the purpose of comparisons across diverse tax systems. The OECD defines the tax wedge “as the ratio between the amount of taxes paid by an average single worker (a single person at 100% of average earnings) without children and the corresponding total labour cost for the employer.” It doesn’t account for adjustments such as tax breaks offered to families with children. It also doesn’t allow for wild variations in tax compliance that can turn nominal tax rates into suggestions when you’re discussing the difference between 83 percent compliance in the U.S., 62 percent compliance in Italy, and 70 percent in Belgium, where tax evasion is something of a national sport. But the tax wedge allows us to roughly contrast the cost of government in Belgium with that in Spain or the U.S.

It turns out governments offering lots of “free” stuff to the public, like health care and higher education, charge dearly for such services. You won’t have to pay for that appointment or a degree, but you’ll also never see somewhere between one-third and half of what you should be taking home in pay.

And the price keeps going up.

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Aspen Police Department Warns Kids Having Fun Is a Crime

“When you see this, do you think it’s just fun? Or do you think that it’s illegal? It is definitely the latter. Whether it’s fun or not.”

This is the beginning of a Facebook post by Colorado’s Aspen Police Department (APD). What is this possibly fun but definitely illegal activity?

The post includes a photo that shows two children on a bike—one child sitting on the seat and the other on the first rider’s lap—riding on a sidewalk. 

“Colorado law says that two-up riding on a single seat bike is against the law, and of course, bikes are not allowed on sidewalks,” the post continues. “These ‘Sidewalk Sallys’ could potentially hurt themselves or others.” (If you had to Google “Sidewalk Sally” you are not alone, as it’s not a real term. A daytime talk show seems to have coined and used it once, unrelated to riding a bike on a sidewalk.)

The APD post goes on to inform Aspen’s citizens that this behavior could result in a “ticket or a trip to the emergency room,” both of which seem like rather dramatic consequences for an activity that has been popular since the invention of bikes. The tone-deaf post is signed “The Aspen Police Department—protecting the Wild West on two wheels since the 1880s,” which seems to inadvertently imply that APD officers get around exclusively on bikes.

The post has garnered over 300 comments—far more than the department’s other posts—most of which are not thankful for the Department’s caution and concern:

“Tell me you don’t have real crimes in Aspen without telling me you don’t have real crimes.”
“‘Kids never go outside anymore!’ Proceeds to police every single thing kids do.”
“Lol yes. Our children should really be playing IN the traffic. Not away from it. Got it.” (That one really resonated. My mom made me ride on the sidewalks, so it’s not obvious to all of us that biking on the sidewalk is a crime.)

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