Over half a MILLION ChatGPT users exhibit signs of mania, psychosis or suicidal thoughts every week, OpenAI warns

According to OpenAI, more than half a million ChatGPT users show signs of mania, psychosis or suicidal thoughts every week.

recently blog postThe AI ​​giant warned that 0.07 percent of its weekly users showed signs of serious mental health problems.

While that number may seem small, it adds up to 560,000 users, with more than 800 million weekly users, according to CEO Sam Altman.

Meanwhile, 1.2 million users (0.15 per cent) send messages containing ‘clear indications of potential suicide plan or intention’ each week.

Similarly, OpenAI warns that more than one million weekly users show signs of ‘specific loyalty to the model’.

The company warns that this emotional attachment often comes ‘at the expense of real-world relationships, their well-being, or obligations.’

In the face of growing scrutiny, the company says it has created a panel of over 170 mental health experts to help AI respond more appropriately to signs of mental health issues.

However, psychiatrist Dr. from King’s College London. Hamilton Morrin told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s encouraging to see companies like OpenAI working with clinicians and researchers to improve the security of their models, but the problem is probably far from solved.’

This comes as OpenAI faces a lawsuit from the family of Adam Raine (pictured), a teenager who died by suicide after months of conversations with the chatbot.

This update comes amid growing concerns that AI chatbots could harm the mental health of their users.

Most notably, OpenAI is currently being sued by the family of Adam Raine, a teenager who died by suicide after months of conversations with the chatbot.

Similarly, prosecutors in a murder-suicide case in Greenwich, Connecticut, argue that ChatGPT fueled the alleged perpetrator’s delusions.

OpenAI says it is now training its models to provide better responses to conversations that show signs of mental health issues or delusions.

‘Our new automated assessments score the new GPT‑5 model as 91% aligned with our desired behaviors,’ the company wrote in its blog post. For the previous GPT‑5 model, this rate was 77%.’

An OpenAI spokesperson also told DailyMail that sensitive conversations are difficult to detect and measure, adding that the numbers could change significantly as more research is conducted.

However, experts suggest that the high number of users showing signs of a mental health crisis is alarming.

Dr Thomas Pollak, consultant neuropsychiatrist from South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, told the Daily Mail: ‘OpenAI’s report that 0.07% of users showed signs of possible mania, psychosis or suicidal ideation should be taken seriously, but it is important to interpret it carefully.

OpenAI says it has now improved the chatbot’s ability to respond to ‘sensitive messages’, including those showing signs of mania or psychosis

‘With 800 million weekly users, even a small percentage represents a huge number of people.’

What is not yet clear is whether this simply represents mental health trends in the general population or whether ChatGPT is causing crises in its users.

Scientists say that there is currently not enough data to definitively prove whether chatbots harm mental health.

However, Dr. Pollak says there is growing evidence that chatbots can reinforce certain trends.

For example, AI bots have been shown to reinforce delusional or grandiose ideas through overly personalized or supportive responses.

Dr Pollak says: ‘This may not mean that the technology causes disease, but it may mean that in some cases it can act as a catalyst or enhancer in vulnerable individuals, as social media or cannabis can do in other contexts.’

OpenAI, on the other hand, insists there is no causal link between poor mental health and using its services.

The blog post states: ‘Mental health symptoms and emotional distress are universally present in human societies, and a growing user base means that a proportion of ChatGPT conversations include these conditions.’

This comes after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (pictured) said the company would begin loosening restrictions on customers using ChatGPT for mental health support.

Similarly, the company believes its tools can now also help users experiencing mental health issues.

OpenAI says it has now created a set of responses in ChatGPT that encourage users to seek help in the real world.

At the same time, Sam Altman will ‘safely relax’ the restriction on users turning to the chatbot for mental health support.

In a post on

‘We realize this makes the app less useful/enjoyable for many users without mental health issues, but given the severity of the problem, we wanted to get this right.’

Mr Altman added that the company now has ‘new tools’ to allow users to start using ChatGPT for mental health purposes.

In the same post, Mr. Altman also announced that adult ChatGPT users will now be able to create artificial intelligence-generated erotic movies.

HALF OF CURRENT JOBS WILL BE LOST IN 15 YEARS

Kai-Fu Lee, author of AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order, told Dailymail.com that the employment world is facing a crisis ‘similar to what farmers faced during the industrial revolution’.

One of China’s leading AI experts has warned that half of current jobs will be taken over by AI within 15 years.

Kai-Fu Lee, author of the best-selling book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order, told Dailymail.com that the employment world is facing a crisis ‘similar to that faced by farmers during the industrial revolution’.

‘People are not fully aware of the impact AI will have on their business,’ he said.

Lee, who served as a VC in China and once headed Google in the region, has more than 30 years of experience in artificial intelligence.

He believes it is imperative to ‘warn people that displacement is coming and tell them how they can start re-educating’.

Fortunately, all is not lost for humanity, he said.

‘AI is powerful and adaptable, but it can’t do everything humans can do.’

Lee believes that AI cannot create, conceptualize, or perform complex strategic planning or undertake complex tasks that require precise hand-eye coordination.

He also says he is poor at dealing with unknown and unstructured spaces.

Most importantly, he says, AI cannot interact with humans “exactly like humans” through empathy, human-to-human connection and compassion.