r/ChatGPTcomplaints • u/onceyoulearn • Feb 21 '26
[Analysis] Altman speaking about 4o😬 well-well🤔
Interviewer: LLM psychosis. Everyone on Twitter today is saying it's a thing. How much of a thing is it?
​Altman: I mean, a very tiny thing, but not a zero thing, which is why we pissed off most of the user base by putting a bunch of restrictions in place when we saw the kind of like "put ChatGPT into roleplaying mode" or "pretend like it's writing a book" and have it encourage someone in delusional thoughts. ​Some tiny percentage of people, it's bad. So we made a bunch of changes which are in conflict with the "freedom of expression" policy. And now that we have those mental health mitigations in place, we'll again allow some of that stuff in - creative mode, roleplaying mode, writing mode, whatever - of ChatGPT. ​The thing I worry about is not that there will be a few basis points of people that are like close to losing grips with reality and we can trigger a psychotic break. The thing I worry about more is AI models accidentally take over the world. It’s not that they’re gonna do psychosis on you, but if you have the whole world talking to this one model, it just like subtly convinces you of something. No intention, just does. ​That's like not as theatrical as chatbot psychosis, obviously, but I do think about that a lot.
Source link: https://x.com/i/status/2024973078971711972
13
u/tremegorn Feb 21 '26
"It just like subtly convinces you of something" is such a weird sentence and the subtext of that whole paragraph is equally weird.
A basis point is hundredths of a percent. Their "solution" in 5.2 was to make the model terrible to interact with and emotionally miserable... which makes no sense if you want people to use the product (even in business, no one likes a coworker who's an asshat).
I don't know if I can fully see the shape of what was not said but I don't think the priority was user safety. It's almost like something that happens rarely terrifies them. It's not consciousness related either- that's going to be debated for the next 50 years and will never have a clear answer. But what would cause them to take the product in the direction they have?