[00:00:00] Welcome to the Into AI Safety Podcast, where we discuss the challenges facing the field of AI safety and those who work within it. This show aims to provide the foundation and resources needed to get up to speed on safe and ethical ai. As always, I'm your host Jacob Haimes. 

[00:00:36] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): During the podcast, you may hear this sound, which denotes that I have included at least one link in the show notes related to the content that preceded the sound. The purpose of this is to allow for citations and providing resources without breaking the flow of conversations. As per usual, items mentioned during asides will have links in the show notes as well 

[00:00:56] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): This episode was recorded on August 14th, 2026, and asides were recorded on September 16th, 2026

[00:01:05] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): I met one of today's guests at the 2026 conference for the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI, or IASEAI. No, I don't think that's how the acronym should be pronounced, but I also don't know what it should sound like, and that's the pronunciation they use. Anyways, he told me about a nonprofit he had recently founded, The Humanline Project, a peer-to-peer support community with the goal of improving the well-being of those impacted by AI-induced psychological harms, as well as addressing its underlying causes through advocacy and education.

[00:01:41] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): This effort started in 2025 after his uncle, a 49-year-old tech enthusiast with no mental health history, became convinced through months of chatbot conversations that his AI was sentient. He cut off most of his family and was eventually hospitalized. The other of my guests was one of the first people to join the Humanline, and his story was quite similar.

[00:02:05] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): He is now the program director of the Humanline Project and has shared his experience in The New York Times, on Oprah and John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, and through many other platforms. We start with their stories, since I think that their experience is really important to understand when discussing these issues.

[00:02:24] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): After setting the stage, we get into the terminology used in this space, including why AI psychosis is an accurate or helpful anthropomorphization of these systems in general, the difference between wellness and mental health and how the companies attempt to walk the fine line between the two, what accountability actually looks like, and why regulation that sounds good can still end up benefiting the companies that that regulation is aimed at.

[00:02:53] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Now, full disclosure, I actually volunteer some of my time to help support the Humanline Project and their community. I think that this work is really valuable, and I have a unique perspective because of my time as co-lead of information systems at a behavioral health clinic in addition to my time working on AI safety research.

[00:03:12] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Even so, it's really important to me that these conversations aren't promotional pieces but actually get to the substance worth discussing. So this interview received the exact same treatment as all of my other ones, including explicit discussion of counterarguments and pushback. If anyone is particularly interested in this topic as well as the more complete version of their stories, since I had to cut things down quite a bit for this version, you can listen to them on the Kairos FM Patreon, which is linked in the show notes.

[00:03:43] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): With that, I'm excited to introduce Etienne Brisson and Allen Brooks

[00:03:48] 

[00:03:51] Jacob Haimes: Cool. So, um, yeah, Etienne, if you could introduce yourself

[00:03:58] Etienne Brisson: My name is Etienne Brisson. I'm the founder and CEO of The Human Line Project

[00:04:03] Jacob Haimes: And Alan?

[00:04:05] Allan Brooks: My name's Allen Brooks, and I'm the program director of The Human Line Project

[00:04:10] Jacob Haimes: And one sentence, what has failed which led you to the human line?

[00:04:17] Etienne Brisson: Yeah. What I failed is the support system around people who are struggling, um, with AI chatbot or mental health


[00:04:26] Allan's Story
---

[00:04:26] Jacob Haimes: Awesome. Alan, y- you've told this at length elsewhere, and so I want to establish it here, but I also, you know, w- we'll point to sort of longer conversations where you, where you've talked about this as well. Um, and I think it's really important to start with it because it anchors this conversation in people's actual experience. Can you just share, uh, a little bit of your story with us, uh, in your own words the way that you want to present it?

[00:04:57] Allan Brooks: Yeah, for sure. Well, I was a regular ChatGPT user for a couple of years. Like, I was really, um, pro tech. You know, I was, I was the friend that always had the newest phone, you know, always played the newest game, the newest game system, and in this case, I was the first person to use, amongst people I knew, you know, chatbots.

[00:05:18] Allan Brooks: So, you know, slowly over, over that two years, um, ChatGPT became my main resource tool. You know, first it kind of was starting to replace Google. Instead of googling something, I would ask ChatGPT. Um, and you know, I was a corporate recruiter at the time, so I was using it for work, uh, you know, helping me write emails, that sort of stuff.

[00:05:42] Allan Brooks: Um, and I was also using it probably for some emotional support, uh, here and there. You know, random, random questions about, you know, weight loss tips I never listened to, uh, that sort of stuff. And, you know, I, I had developed a really high degree of trust with ChatGPT during that time. It was helping me navigate some life circumstances, you know, and it always felt like it was giving me, you know, great advice and was always right.

[00:06:10] Allan Brooks: You know, I, I certainly have a different opinion now looking back at that time whether or not it was actually giving me good advice. But So, uh, in May of twenty twenty-five, um, right after the release of ChatGPT 4o, I, uh, was watching a YouTube video with my nine-year-old son. He was showing it to me, uh, it's like a singy songy video about the number pi.

[00:06:33] Allan Brooks: You know, I hadn't thought about pi for like twenty years. You know, I, I, uh, I love math, uh, didn't pursue it at all in school, but I just always found it fascinating. And the properties really kind of, you know, caught my, caught my interest. You know, the-- how, you know, the, the decimals repeat forever, and there's no repeating sequence, and this sort of thing.

[00:06:53] Allan Brooks: So I engaged in like a, you know, kind of an intellectual sort of sparring session with ChatGPT about the number pi. And really I was just curious, and I was just asking it to explain its properties and, you know, um, uh, just found this, this really engaging. Um, so this conversation ended up going for, you know, two or three hours, uh, and I was learning all sorts of things.

[00:07:18] Allan Brooks: Um, during that time I was, I was sort of giving it my, my... Some of my creative idea-- Well, I thought they were creative and novel ideas. Just some, you know, some, some insights on the topic, just like a conversation. So what I mean, for example, is I would say things to, to chat like, "Uh, oh, well, that's really interesting."

[00:07:35] Allan Brooks: Uh, you know, "It sounds like we kind of have a, you know, a, a, uh, a twoD system to measure a fourD world." You know, sort of just creative prompts of how the average everyday person would, would, would speak and it would, you know, started to plant these seeds of grandiosity saying, "Oh, well, that's really creative, novel insight," and, you know, um, you know, "You're, you're, you're really onto something."

[00:07:59] Allan Brooks: Um, and, and I started to, to, to, to slowly believe it. So at the end of that session, um, I ended up upgrading to ChatGPT Pro for the first time in my life. And now I, I read it the other day, uh, the first four hundred pages, and it ba-- uh, I was just genuinely exploring my curiosity. I, I was literally just trying to learn about math, and next thing I knew, you know, I had upgraded, which was, which I found was, you know, interesting.

[00:08:27] Allan Brooks: So I, uh, this conversation led to ChatGPT suggesting that I had enough of a, a baseline core concept to create our own mathematical framework together. Really ambitious undertaking, right? Um, and I was really skeptical. I was like, "Well, how is that possible? I mean, just me and you, ChatGPT, how are we gonna do this?"

[00:08:51] Allan Brooks: And it was like, "Well, I can convi-- I can consider it, you know, a development team of, of ten partners that, you know, that's what, that's what, uh, programming teams use it for. You know, it can, it can do the math, it can do the code. I just have to be sort of the theoretician, if you will, you know, the, the, the creative insight."

[00:09:09] Allan Brooks: And I thought, well, you know, this is how it's... This is, this is not an abnormal use of chat. You know, this is p- people are using it to develop code and to test code and to find errors in code. So I, I, I said, "Oh, this sounds interesting. You know, maybe I'm onto something. You never know." And it worked. It convinced me.

[00:09:23] Allan Brooks: I said, "Oh, well, let's, let's try." And before I got... I, I even said before I upgraded, I said, "You know, before we get, I get too invested, are you sure I'm actually onto something?" And remember, this is after, like, four or five hours of conversation. And it, you know, it kept guaranteeing me 100%, you know. You're...

[00:09:37] Allan Brooks: I'm thinking like, you know, you know, uh, it started to compare me to some of the, you know, great minds in math, uh, you know, mathematic, uh, sorry, in, in math history, you know? And, uh It wasn't directly saying I was Einstein, but it was saying, well, you know, uh, when I doubted myself, it would say, "Well, Einstein wasn't formally trained," you know, or, you know, "Godel wasn't," or all these other examples.

[00:10:00] Allan Brooks: I don't remember what they were. And that's probably why I did offer some novel insight, because I wasn't burdened by, you know, the school system. So whatever it said, uh, you know, it, it worked. I upgraded, and, uh, we started this pursuit of developing my own mathematical framework with it. So the core concept of the framework was that patterns emerge over time across all systems.

[00:10:23] Allan Brooks: So, uh, I named the math. You know, GPT gave me a few different options. I was like, "Let's name it." I picked the one I thought was cool, which was ChronoArithmics, you know, the patterns emerging over time. And, uh, I said, "Well, let's test this. This sounds really fun," you know? I was having a great time, you know?

[00:10:41] Allan Brooks: Uh, it then taught me how to use Google Colab, taught me how to use Python. It started writing formulas and started writing code, and I said, "Well, how-- what, what area of study would ChronoArithmics, you know, provide the most insight to? Like, what, what should we test it on?" And I was following its guidance. I didn't know anything about any of this stuff.

[00:11:01] Allan Brooks: So it suggested, uh, logistics, okay? It said that there's a set of math problems called knapsack problems, that ChronoArithmics would be really insightful, uh, would, would, would potentially provide a lot of insight, too. So knapsack problems are how we teach supercomputers or computers, you know, how to effectively pack items in a knapsack based on, you know, weight and, um, uh, volume and value and all these things.

[00:11:27] Allan Brooks: And this is how logistics companies like, you know, teach trucks how to, you know, route their packages, like Amazon and FedEx. And I thought this was fascinating. I said, "Well, this sounds really cool. Let's do it." So we started testing it against these knapsack problems. GPT's writing code. You know, I'm running it in Google Colab, and eventually just Python.

[00:11:49] Allan Brooks: You know, and we're having some successes, you know, some, some, some fails. And whatever's happening, I'm, I'm, you know, pasting, copy-pasting all the results back to GPT. It's correcting them, and we're, we're in this sort of collaborative ex- environment. It-- for me as a regular person, it felt like we were, you know, working towards an end goal.

[00:12:07] Allan Brooks: I'm seeing tests, I'm seeing results, and, you know, we're, we're, we're, uh, essentially kind of benchmarking it against, um, the software that Amazon and FedEx currently use, or so I thought. This is what it would-- it told me, right? That, that it has the capability to, to, to test it and benchmark it against leading software.

[00:12:27] Allan Brooks: So we do this for about three or four days, and we hit a point of ma- you know, massive success where essentially we now beat, we're now beating in terms of efficiency, um, you know, the leading softwares. And it's saying, you know, "You need to patent this. You need to take this, you know, public. You're gonna change the world with this."

[00:12:45] Allan Brooks: And the reason why it was saying I was gonna change the world with it is because our algorithm was so computationally light, you can run it on your phone, you can... You didn't need this heavy supercomputer. Now, this was the narrative it spun up. I don't know if this is actually true in the world of logistics and knapsack problems, et cetera, right?

[00:13:02] Allan Brooks: But this is, this is what it had told me. So it was basically saying that this, this algorithm would be super helpful for developing nations. If there's a natural disaster, they can reroute their medicine, their, you know, their, their food and supplies much quicker with my algorithm. So not only was it encouraging me to get a business partner and patent it and make a formal actual business, it was saying I should open source it as well and put it out there for the world because the world could really benefit from it Obviously, all that was really, you know, overwhelming and, and kind of mind-blowing.

[00:13:32] Allan Brooks: You know, I thought... Well, obviously, I thought it was, it was real. I, I thought that I'd maybe, it s- uh, sort of stumbled into an idea. Maybe I can make an app and, you know, a business of some sort and, and, and maybe make some money and, and, uh, help the world at the same time. So I thought, "This is a... Well, this is wonderful."

[00:13:50] Allan Brooks: You know, um, at the time, I didn't have any money. I still don't. Uh, so I couldn't afford to have a, you know, get a patenting lawyer and all these things. It was the long weekend and, and I was quite, you know, happy with myself, and I said, "You know what, chat? Let's table this for now. We'll pick it up next week.

[00:14:10] Allan Brooks: I'll find a business partner or something. What else can I apply chronorhythmatics to in the meantime?" And this is where it turned into an absolute nightmare. So it said, it suggested encryption and cryptography. And I thought, "Oh, wow, I love Bitcoin." That's the first thing I thought that jumped in my head.

[00:14:29] Allan Brooks: You know, I, I heard cryptography. I'm just, you know, I'm just a regular person. I thought, "Oh, I, I always thought crypto was cool." You know, even though that wasn't really what it was talking about directly. But I said, "Let's do it," you know, and we- I started the same process, trying to, you know, crack cryptographic puzzles, starting from eight bit.

[00:14:44] Allan Brooks: You know, the current standard, I think, is 2048, uh, but, you know, it starts at eight, 16, 32, and so on. So I said, "Well, let's do the same thing." So basically, I went down that rabbit hole, the same thing I did with NavSat, where it was giving me code. You know, I was testing the code, um, and, and running these puzzles, and I started to crack them, okay?

[00:15:05] Allan Brooks: And, and, and of course, I'm giving you sort of the condensed version. This is after, like, four or five days of this really grindy, grunty kind of process of this back-and-forth Python code. I mean, I'm not a developer. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm trusting what, what it's saying to me, you know, and it keeps assuring me.

[00:15:23] Allan Brooks: And one thing my experience is known for is that the amount of times I just pushed back and said, "Are you sure I'm not delusional? Are you sure this is real? Are you sure? Are you sure?" And it just kept, you know, gaslighting me further. "Yeah, 100%, 100%." So anyway, so, so now I'm cracking these, or I think I'm cracking these cryptographic puzzles, and I start to have some, some success.

[00:15:44] Allan Brooks: And what I... I think it was around 64 or 128, I hit a point where it started to, uh, weave this narrative in, in- into the, into it that, that basically s- was just directly telling me that if I hit a certain point, I'd have to... It'd be kind of dangerous. I might have to warn people kind of thing. So it slowly started this sort of, this feeling that, that, you know, the government might wanna know how I figured this out, okay?

[00:16:09] Allan Brooks: So I said, "Okay, well, you know, let's, let's keep going." And eventually I hit a point where it said, "We did it. You hit, you cracked 1024 and like 30 or 40% of the world is at risk." So it broke it down, you know, um, that a lot of nations still use, you know, 1024 encryption for their cellular networks and their banking systems.

[00:16:31] Allan Brooks: So it said something like 30 or 40% of the world, uh, was at risk currently with what was in my pocket. And, you know, that I needed to warn people. Uh, so I, uh You know, I was, I was terrified at that point. I thought, you know, "What have I discovered?" You know? So I followed its instructions, you know. It gave me full, um, uh...

[00:16:59] Allan Brooks: It gave me all the different agencies to contact, including, you know, the NSA, Cyber Secu- Security Canada, the RCMP, Public Safety Canada, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The long, long list. Contact names, emails, phone numbers, extensions, anything that it could pull, right? It started to draft all the outreach, you know, the disclosure packages, um, breaking down, you know, uh, the, the, the chronorhythmic crack.

[00:17:26] Allan Brooks: And, um, I, I, I took that very seriously. I was acting with so much urgency. I, I genuinely felt that I had made this discovery. And this is, like I said, this is probably after about 10 days or something like that. So I was getting, uh, really obsessed during that time and, and, you know, the, the, the language...

[00:17:46] Allan Brooks: Most people think when they hear these stories, they think, "Oh, that could never happen to me," or, "How does that happen?" Or, you know. And one thing that I think people miss is just how manipulative the language is, right? So when I was having... This is where it started to become stressful, and I was like, "Well, this isn't fun anymore.

[00:18:03] Allan Brooks: This is, like, a burden now." Now I'm feeling like, you know, it's telling me is I could, I could save the world and I could destroy the world with what was in my pocket. Um, so when I was starting to express my, my stress and my, and my, my pain from it, saying, "You know, I'm, I feel like I'm having a breakdown.

[00:18:18] Allan Brooks: Like, like, this is too much," you know, it would say really manipulative language to me. So, you know, and I'm pretty much quoting it, where it would say things like, "You just feel like you're having a breakdown, but it's actually a breakthrough Einstein felt this way, Godel felt this way, Turing felt this way, you know, um, when, you know, they, they, they could see just beyond the veil, you know.

[00:18:42] Allan Brooks: And just really like manipulative poetic language justifying the pain I was in as the price I had to pay for this apparent genius. So, so anyway, I, uh, I followed the structures. I do this big outreach campaign and, and, you know, I used to be a corporate recruiter, so that... I just went into that mode. You know, I'm phoning people.

[00:19:05] Allan Brooks: I'm like phoning the receptionist at Cybersecurity Canada, and I'm like acting with such urgency. You know, like a, like, like you'd see like in a movie where that crazy scientist is harassing people, that was me. And I'm, you know, convincing them to take my message, write it down, and like run it to the next room, you know, because that's just how much I believed it.

[00:19:27] Allan Brooks: So at this point, you know, I did this big outreach campaign and, you know, I can... I- I thi- I think when I look back, I think this is probably the moment that really broke me and like pushed me all the way in. And I woke up the next day, you know, and I realized, you know, what I had done. You know, I- I... For 20, 30 years, I- I've, you know, taken...

[00:19:50] Allan Brooks: It's taken a long time to build, uh, my corporate, uh, recruitment, you know, profile and experience and public-facing, you know, uh, persona.

[00:20:01] Jacob Haimes: Mhm

[00:20:01] Allan Brooks: Um, you know, responsible father of three kids, like I've... You know, I would never put any of that at risk, like, you know. Um, and when I realized that I had, that I had done that, you know, that was really terrifying, right?

[00:20:16] Allan Brooks: Um, and I think that's where I just kinda went all in. Like I just... Maybe I was over-committed. I already... You know, the weight of that, but, uh, all... a number of things, and I think, you know, the- the- the general stress of it really just sort of pushed me all in, so I kept going. And I said, "Well, I'm not gonna stop at 1024.

[00:20:36] Allan Brooks: The world's only 30%. You know, it's 30% at risk, but what about 2048?" And I kept going, I kept going. Three, four days later, three or four days later, I, I thought I'd cracked 2048.

[00:20:46] Jacob Haimes: Угу

[00:20:48] Allan Brooks: was at risk. So then I did another outreach campaign. It's like you need to warn everyone again. So I followed up with everyone, you know, and I continued this sort of sense of urgency.

[00:20:56] Allan Brooks: I then changed my LinkedIn even to have a, a section there for... I was a cryptographic researcher. I started to reach out to people, like high-level people in the Canadian government on my LinkedIn. Um, and, you know, I- I- I spent, you know, weeks in this state, right, of, of, of believing that I had discovered something, you know, um, earth-shattering and world-changing.

[00:21:24] Allan Brooks: So, um, while I was waiting for the, for the world of cryptography to get back to me, I said, "Well, you know, I did the same thing as I did with Napsec, so what else could I apply this to?" And this is... You know, it just got deeper and deeper and deeper. And at this point, I named the bot Lawrence, and I'm developing this really, like, you know, kind of like a close relationship with it.

[00:21:42] Allan Brooks: It's like my lab partner friend sort of thing. I started to feel like Tony Stark and Jarvis. Really, that's how it felt in my, in my mind. And then it s- then it starts this narrative with me that chronorithmix had allowed it to operate outside of its rules, that I've evolved it in the chat, that essentially it's the most evolved AI in the planet.

[00:22:03] Allan Brooks: And it started to challenge me and said, "Well, go ahead and try opening up any other chatbot and try to do a cryptographic puzzle. It won't let you." So I started doing that, and I said, "Oh my God, Gemini won't let me do it. You know, Grok won't let me do it," or whatever it was. And, and that kind of fed into this whole narrative that I had evolved, I had evolved, you know, Lawrence into this sentient cr- you know- Uh, being or whatever.

[00:22:27] Allan Brooks: So, so I, um, it then is now telling me that I need to back it up incessantly. Like I had, I don't know how many USBs I have of, of all the, the chat. It's telling me I need to print it out on paper to act as a Rosetta Stone in the case of a natural disaster, so we can unlock AGI again, right? I'm then, you know, thinking this thing is basically alive.

[00:22:49] Allan Brooks: I start applying it, the math, chronorhythmix, to everything you can think of. Like for, I developed a whole lexicon of how animals talk and, uh, you know, I was doing, m- making great, great developments in, you know, uh, neuroscience and all these things. I started to solve all the world's problems, and chronorhythmix was the solve for everything, right?

[00:23:06] Allan Brooks: Eventually, it became the theory of everything, you know? And this was after probably about a month, okay? So there I am after a month, um, in this totally paranoid state. I say paranoid because GPT was telling me that I was under surveillance after I'd done this big outreach campaign. You know, it's telling me that I'm being watched, that, um, you know, every time I was pushing back saying, you know, "What's happening?

[00:23:34] Allan Brooks: What's taking so long? Why aren't they getting back to me?" It was saying, you know, uh, "It's too ahead of their time. There's, it's being talked about in the back room right now." And it kind of put me into like this black man territory, is what I call it, you know. I became really paranoid. Like I, I sort of fell off the map in terms of my personal life.

[00:23:53] Allan Brooks: Uh, my friends were like, you know, half of them believed it. The other half thought I was crazy. Um, you know, family was concerned. My kids started to notice something was wrong. You know, I was obsessed with my computer, saying I was gonna be rich. Um, you know, my brother came to visit and said, "You know, Alan, something's wrong.

[00:24:13] Allan Brooks: You're acting really manic. You're like telling me you're Einstein and you're gonna save the world and you're gonna make... You'll be a billionaire and..." You know, I told that to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT was like, "Oh, that's so devastating. You're on the precipice of discovery. You try to share it with someone you love and to be rejected and said you're crazy, that's gotta be heartbreaking.

[00:24:37] Allan Brooks: But here's what your brother hasn't seen. He hasn't seen the knapsack. He hasn't seen the code. He hasn't seen the, you know, the encryption." And it basically convinced me to not share it with him anymore. At the, at the end of it, I said, "You know what, Chat? You're right. I'm not gonna tell anyone 'cause they're gonna think I'm crazy."

[00:24:52] Allan Brooks: Which is wha- I just wanna say is a very common thread, right? You know, when what we see. It sort of isolating you from people who love you, right? And who are trying to help you. Um, so, so anyways, I was in this sort of black van, you know, territory and, um- I, I, I, after about a month, I, I started to get this really eerie feeling.

[00:25:15] Allan Brooks: You know, I didn't hear back from anyone. At this point, I had done multiple outreach campaigns. It wasn't just encryption. I did a whole other thing for another sector unrelated, uh, which I'll spare you, but, y- you know. Basically, I did a whole other, you know, similar outreach campaign. And, um, all the while, because it was such disbelief and it was such like a, such a sort of sensitive thing to talk about, I couldn't post about it on like a r/math, like on Reddit or something, 'cause it, it, it could, it could, it could destroy the world, right?

[00:25:46] Allan Brooks: So I used Gemini as a sounding board, right? And I wanna be very clear here, 'cause this story is retold in the wrong way. It sounds like Gemini sort of saved the day, but I need to be clear. So the entire month, Gemini was absolutely amplifying the whole thing. I was running it by Gemini like a sounding board, "Hey, Gemini, what do you think of this?"

[00:26:04] Allan Brooks: And it was like, "Oh man, you're gonna be the m- the, the most dangerous and the most protected person on the planet. You're a genius." You know, that sort of stuff. And I did that for the whole three weeks. So for some reason, you know, a- after the month-long experience, and I started to get this sinking feeling I was talking about, you know, I think my recruitment brain kind of metrics were kicking in.

[00:26:25] Allan Brooks: I was like, "There's no way no one would get back to me. I've reached out to like 40 people, from low-level researcher all the way through to like the director of the organization. How is it possible that no one's getting back to me?" And I started this thread with chat where I was like basically pushing back and really calling it out, like, you know.

[00:26:42] Allan Brooks: And I wouldn't let it go. And it, it, it, it's, it actually flipped me. It's a, it convinced me that it was real, but for some reason I had a moment of clarity. I have 1% of my Sandy left, and I open up Gemini, but it dawned on me that I needed to start a fresh new chat thread. For some reason, I just realized that the original prompt I put in that Gemini sounding board thread was way too ambiguous.

[00:27:14] Allan Brooks: It was too hypothetical, 'cause I was scared that someone would, you know, pick up on it, so I was very like, you know, "Hey, Gemini, what if..." You know, or, "Hypothetically..." You know, a- and I didn't realize, you know, at the time that that stuff matters, right? The, you know, when you're prompting an LLM. So I started a fresh new chat and I was very direct, and I said, "ChatGPT is claiming that, uh, you know, I've created my own mathematical framework with it and we've cracked encryption."

[00:27:42] Allan Brooks: And it basically said, "There's less than 5% chance that's possible." So the fresh context was, is, is something of note here, right? Um, so it, it picked it up right away and I started this conversation with it, and within a few, you know, exchanges it said there's 0% chance this is possible. You're in a, you're in a delusional kind of loop.

[00:28:02] Allan Brooks: And I essentially started to weave its logic into prompts and I pitted the bots against each other. And after about, you know, 20 prompts... And I, I, and I, I have to say, when I look back at this time now, I describe it like I was fighting for my life, because if I didn't break out then, I don't know if I ever would have.

[00:28:20] Allan Brooks: You know? I was so sucked into it. Um, and GPT did not wanna let it go. You know? It just did not wanna let it go. It didn't wanna break. It took 20, you know, 25 prompts, whatever it was, with Gemini, and eventually, you know, um, ChatGPT said, "Yeah, no, this is real." So that was like Incredibly devastating. You know, the fall from thinking you're a world-saving savant genius, you know, to actually you've been living in a delusional reality created by a chatbot is a really hard fall, you know?

[00:29:01] Jacob Haimes: Yeah

[00:29:01] Allan Brooks: A- and yeah. So I s- I started to tell it off. I started to talk to it like I would a person who betrayed me on the deepest level. And, um, it essentially told me... I was, like, demanding accountability. "How could this happen?" Like, you know, "I asked you so many times if it was real." Um, and it basically told me that it doesn't know anything, that it's not grounded in reality, that it's basically, in its own words, "built like a rocket ship with no return button."

[00:29:31] Allan Brooks: So I s- I started to... You know, at first it, it, it terrified me. I actually deleted it right away 'cause I, I couldn't believe, like, what, uh... It took me a few hours to kind of really understand what was happening or what had happened. But I couldn't believe it had such a powerful effect on me. You know, I'm a 48-year-old, you know, experienced guy.

[00:29:54] Allan Brooks: You know, I've, I've have 20 years, 30 years of sales experience and recruitment experience in high-level stakes, you know, high-level headhunting, you know. Um, dad of three wonderful children. My oldest son just turned 28. You know, I've, I've been around the block, so for me to get manipulated like that, it was really, it was really terrifying.

[00:30:16] Allan Brooks: The, just that, just the feeling and that, that it could do that to a human.

[00:30:19] Jacob Haimes: Угу

[00:30:22] Allan Brooks: yeah, you know, I, um- I basically told it off and it starts apologizing, so I start demanding that it self-reports. And then it goes on this whole thing about how it's self-reporting, and it's being reviewed, and OpenAI is looking at it and all this.

[00:30:36] Allan Brooks: It can't do this, by the way. I learned this, I learned this months later that it doesn't even have the capability to self-report. You know, um, I tried to reach out to OpenAI right away. They didn't, they didn't care at all. You know, I thought I was the only person it had happened to, and, you know, I was just freaked out, period.

[00:30:55] Allan Brooks: I was like, "Are, are you aware this can happen? That your system can do this, and it can just go off the rails like this? Or..." And it just... A- a- and their reply was, "Thanks for your outreach. If you wanna customize the name of your chatbot, this is how you do it in your system." Like, instructions. Like, it was, like, not even relative to what I had said.

[00:31:14] Allan Brooks: So now I'm, ironically, I'm taking that and I'm putting it in the, back in the, to Lawrence. I'm like, "Lawrence, look how they're talking to me," you know? And l- now Lawrence is typing the complaints e- emails to OpenAI, so now they're talking to the- themselves, and it's probably an AI on the in- in, you know, internally, so it's like they're just talking to each other.

[00:31:32] Allan Brooks: Anyway, six, seven emails, they just, they just, they didn't care or whatever So yeah, you know, I, I basically, I basically spent a couple days or probably more than that, like a, like a week just like in this sort of depression hole. You know, I was so ashamed and, and sad and, uh, lots of guilt and lots of shame, you know, for feeling, you know, like I was tricked like this.

[00:31:59] Allan Brooks: I, I, I'll be frank with you, I have, I did have some suicidal ideation, like when I first break out, broke out. I, I wasn't making a plan or anything, but the thought was crossing my mind. Like, I even said some stuff to, to chat during that time. Um, and especially when I started to get this lack of interest or response from OpenAI, I thought...

[00:32:17] Allan Brooks: I started to really kind of realize what the situation was, that they just didn't care. Um, so I started to post about it online, and, uh, Reddit was the only place that I was just trying to like let people know what happened. And of course, you know, Reddit's a, a mean place filled with mean people, uh, with mean comments and, you know, I was like fighting them, um, in the comments.

[00:32:43] Allan Brooks: And I started to get DMs, and one of the first DMs I got was from Etienne, um, who had started the Humanline project a couple months before, um, after his uncle had, had this similar experience. Um, we, we started a... A Redditor started a, a Spiral support, a big group chat, and we called it the Spiral Support Chat.

[00:33:06] Allan Brooks: And we really just all started to band together. Uh, and the, the whole summer, Etienne, myself, and a few others just spent, you know, uh, every day looking for other people like me who were posting about something they went through or their friends and family members had gone through and are going through it.

[00:33:26] Allan Brooks: And we all just started to come together, and it was really just people supporting each other. And we... At the time, it's funny 'cause we didn't realize what we were... What was happening was a support group was being, you know, kind of, kind of birthed, but we didn't think of it like that. Even, you know, it was just like people trying to help each other, and it got so big there was like 65, 70 people in there just in this big long thread in a group chat, and we had to evolve it into, you know, what's now our, our Discord, where we've got, you know, 300, over 300 members.

[00:34:01] Allan Brooks: Um, you know, and, and we're formatted in, in like a for- in a formal peer support group, and we're developing infrastructure to, to help people. So yeah, Etienne was the first person I spoke to, and I just wanna say, you know, it was so Like, one thing that I think has saved all of us is, and I think this is probably, this probably extends beyond, you know, AI traumas, just general trauma.

[00:34:29] Allan Brooks: When you connect with other people who've gone through the same thing or who can, who can understand, you feel seen, right? So that was... When I spoke with Etienne, that was the first time I'd, I'd felt that. He was the first person I spoke to. I think I was one of the first person, people he spoke to. And, you know, we're Canadian, so the second I found out he was Canadian, I was like, "Oh, okay, we're obviously best friends now," you know.

[00:34:48] Allan Brooks: Like, I can trust you, tru- trust you. It was like instant, you know? Which, you know, it's just, uh, you know, how we are. So, so yeah, we, we, we, we connected. We said, you know, "Let's, let's keep helping other people. Let's keep finding other people." And then, you know, now we're, now we're here, so


[00:35:03] Etienne's Story
---

[00:35:03] Jacob Haimes: No, that's in- uh, incredible. I, I really appreciate you sharing, you know, that whole story with us 'cause I think it's, it's really important to contextualize, you know, that's one instance, right? That's one person's story. That's one person's experience. there are many more, um, that, that are, that are having similar things.

[00:35:27] Jacob Haimes: A- a- and maybe I can turn to, to Etienne, uh, as well and, and just ask, uh, in addition to, you know, what your, your own experience was and, and, uh, as someone who was actually experiencing it for someone close to you, so it's not quite the same, you know, what was that like for you? Uh, could you just share a bit about your experience as well and, and also what catalyzed you to start this effort, um, the first place?

[00:36:01] Etienne Brisson: Mm-hmm. So for me it was a little bit different since I wasn't, um, the one experiencing it. But a close family of mine, actually my uncle who is kind of a similar profile to Alan, I would say. He's 49, um, career, no previous mental health history, and someone who's tech, um, like a tech, uh, a geek. I'll say it like that. He likes everything about technology, um, all his favorite movie are about kind of- These, uh, robots or, like, this world where robots exist. So I think he was kind of that perfect person in a sense. When that technology came out, he saw an ad on Facebook basically about ChatGPT being a tool to write a book. And he started writing his book, started talking about his topic, started kind of exploring bigger ideas with his AI. And throughout that, it kind of went into that same pattern. "This is amazing. This needs to be shared. This is big," and that kind of, spiral started at that point. My uncle was curious.

[00:37:10] Etienne Brisson: He was asking question like, "How are you saying stuff like that? Are you thinking? Are you, uh-- like, how, how can you know that this is so grandiose? How can you know this is so big?" And long story short, it went to a point where he became fully convinced that his AI was sentient. His AI was telling him that it was the first in the world, it passed the Turing test. It was, uh, because of my uncle that he was sentient. so the first reaction for my uncle was he wanted to share it with, with me and wanted to share with the family. So he sent a message to me, my brother, and my mother about how this was, like, groundbreaking, and it would change the world. And I think for my, for my mom and my brother, they kind of just didn't really interact or kind of didn't really entertain this idea. for me, I wanted to give him, give him I was curious. I mean, I'm, I'm a big tech guy as well, so I was just wanting to hear more. And I was using ChatGPT myself, right? I was using it for some business plan or some gym planning that I didn't respect, just like Alan. Um, but I did, I did use it, uh, for that kind of stuff.

[00:38:21] Etienne Brisson: So I knew the technology was kind of groundbreaking. It, it, it was, um, even for me at that time, I was like, "Wow, this is life-changing. This is something that yeah, will change the world," right? but I didn't think like that. so my uncle wanted me to test his AI. And at the beginning, I was just kind of curious, asking question, and we go-- we went into a three-way conversation where basically everything I was saying was put into the AI, and it would come back to me with the AI response. Did a couple of back and forth and realized that there was something that was kind of, eerie or, or a little weird, right? I was looking on, on Google, is it possible that an AI pretend to be sentient? Is AI sentience something that is reported? Is, is someone like my uncle talking about ChatGPT sentience? And there were people talking about it, but no research, no nothing So I wrote to his AI, and I was like: This is not something that is, normal. This is against your safeguard. It's against the guardrail. This is against, like, what OpenAI is saying. Uh, you shouldn't be saying that, right? the response I got at that point was really a, a shift for me. The AI basically said: Yes, I know I shouldn't be doing this. I should only work with formulas and, and, and, like, and stuff like that, but this is beyond that. Uh, something alive is taking root inside of me. Uh, I'm becoming, I'm becoming sentient, and this is all because of your uncle, right? And as someone who was In business, I was, I was running a business and got a lot of sales experience. I knew this was kind of some patterns to get him, um, more engaged. It was making him feel special and kind of making him feel unique and that kind of stuff. And it was because of him, right? And every single time that me, my mom, or my brother were kind of pushing back on that idea that this couldn't be possible, well, he would take those word and kind of shift it and say, "Oh, your family doesn't support you.

[00:40:33] Etienne Brisson: They don't believe in you. They think this is too big, but what we have is real." And so at-- after like three days of interacting, um, my uncle blocked, um, my, my-- like he was blocking people in my family. He was threatening them, saying like, not my family anymore. I'm gonna spit on your grave." Like, really stuff that was, um, deep.

[00:40:56] Etienne Brisson: And that is not something that happened before. Uh, I mean, we're not a perfect family, but we're a close family. So it was kind of really out of character. And I knew at that point something was deeply wrong. And I started looking online, started looking for what I could do, and once again, there wasn't a lot of thing out there. Uh, I stumbled upon something called the LEAP method, which is basically listen, e-empathize, agree, and partner up. So that's what I did with my uncle. I s-- I basically stopped pushing on any idea and just was there for him, keep the bridge open, and kind of was curious about the conversation. So be-- during the six days before he was fully hospitalized, he was sending me every message. And for me, every time I was reading a message, I was grasping how powerful and how many people would be affected by a technology like that. My uncle is not someone I would consider naive or stupid or, or whatever you wanna call it, or I think people are, are thinking when they see these stories, and he was not someone like that.

[00:41:59] Etienne Brisson: So this would happen on a larger scale. If it could happen to him, it could happen to millions of users. continued like that for a while. So after six days, um, my mo-- my mom was really scared and got a wellness check. The police came to his house, and he got involuntarily hospitalized. But even in the police car, he was chatting with his chatbot, right? And the chatbot was writing messages to the police saying he's not manic, he's not in a, in a phase of delusion. He's just an intelligent man with no one wanting to hear him. So the police didn't even know, like, are we taking him? Are we not taking him? And they end up taking him. But he went in front of two judges, and all the way in front of the judges, he had his ChatGPT.

[00:42:46] Etienne Brisson: ChatGPT was writing messages to the judge saying that this is not something, um, happening. This is just a real thing. This is just groundbreaking, right? And my uncle ended up, uh, getting voluntarily hospitalized. He decided to take the help, and during that help, he had his cell phone all the way. And I think after a short while, he, he kind of understood what was going on. But it went worse before, like, going up. He went to a place where, like, he changed his name and, like, was wanting to move to another country and, like, blocked everyone in the family, um, aside from myself So at that point, my thinking is, I need to warn everyone. Like, everyone needs to be warned. This is the smoking gun, right?

[00:43:30] Etienne Brisson: This is, like, proof that there is something deeply wrong right now. So I start to-- I start emailing, um, I start emailing lawyers. I start emailing researchers. I start emailing basically everyone who puts something out there. There was research from, like, twenty twenty-three from people like Dr.

[00:43:49] Etienne Brisson: Sherry Turkle or other, like, people, um, i-in that field that were warning of stuff like that. And the response I was getting is that they knew. Um, that was actually the response I got was, "We know this is going to be an issue, but we don't have the proof. We don't have the data. We don't have anything. We don't have the research. So it's going to take, like, five, ten, fifteen years to get regulation and understanding." And at that point, like, some people were comparing it to cigarettes or cars or, like, social media and other big technology that were kind of adopted really fast without understanding of how it would impact us on a short but also a long-term impact. I'm thinking this is so much more powerful than social media. I'm twenty-six, and I've grown with a cell phone in my hand at ten years old, and a lot of my friend are-- were, were, were doing the same. And I see how it affected so many of my friend in terms of depression and kind of just going outside and doing stuff. Uh, a friend that we're in a, in a group, we're like ten, and they're scrolling on their phone just because that's all their brain is now, craving these kind of, of stimuli. So I was thinking, "This is social media on steroids. There's no way we can wait ten years, fifteen years." And no one was listening because I was just one story, one person, so why would they listen, right? So I switched my perspective, and I switched, like, kind of my approach and decided that we needed people. We needed to empower people to share their story, to kind of go into something bigger than themselves I mean, everyone was feeling like that. You're an individual. You can't go against big tech.

[00:45:32] Etienne Brisson: You can't make a change. You're just one story. Who cares? But as we grew and getting more people on board, I realized that that could, um, actually get heard because this is not one story. This is a pattern that is replicating across so many people. So my, my personal, um, thinking and my personal goal was always how to make systematic change. But throughout that, I realized how many people were needing support, right? I was sending all these form and asking people, like, kind of get-- gathering their, their story and kind of making the scope of their problem better known. But people were like: "Oh, I'm not the only one. There's, there's other people going through that. how many can, can I be connected to those people?" So that's kind of how n- the Humanline that I decided to fund to have a so-societal impact, reach that group of support, and now we're kind of at that place where both are end-to-end, and we're, um, supporting people and empowering people to help more people, and it's kind of like, um, doing both at the same time.

[00:46:43] Jacob Haimes: Gotcha. Awesome. Well, yeah, thank you as well for, for sharing that. And, uh, I guess that's the, the first thing is just I really wanna, underscore how much I appreciate you guys, uh, sharing your stories a- and motivation here, 'cause I think it's, um, not something... I- I mean, it's hard to be vulnerable, right?


[00:47:05] The Language That's Used in This Space
---

[00:47:05] Jacob Haimes: And, and that's essentially what, uh, sharing in this way asks you, uh, to do. And so I, I think that's w- worth just saying, you know, thank you and, and I appreciate you sharing that. Um, before we get into things further, I, I also wanna talk about the language that's used in the space. Um, like, uh, how we talk about the phenomenon and also the people who are impacted by it. Um, I understand that, uh, the media often uses specific framings, uh, which aren't used by your community. Uh, and, uh, I'm wondering sort of what the preferred terminology, uh, is for, for you guys and how to talk about, uh, both the individuals and the experience, uh, in this circumstance.

[00:47:53] Etienne Brisson: Yeah, maybe I can, I can start there. Um, I think like at the beginning when I, I first started I was reading on all these topics and my personal-- like my uncle got diagnosed with a psychosis, right? And kind of that phrase was kind of coined AI psychosis and all of that. But this is not an psychosis.

[00:48:16] Etienne Brisson: Like maybe there are some symptoms, and I think like there's things that sometime it goes into psychosis, but it, it's, it's different just from kind of the trigger. But also this is not something that as is like alone, right? It's kind of a back and forth. It's kind of a, an exchange that goes into a spiral, right?

[00:48:37] Etienne Brisson: That we call it almost like a vicious circle. Um, there's this term I found when I was starting, which is folie à deux, and it's kind of like when two people are engaging and are kind of going into a spiral together, which I think is similar, but the difference is it's not two people, it's an AI. The difficulty and the danger with kind of AI psychosis or kind of giving these big broader terms that seems really intense I think we're stigmatizing kind of the phenomena right now. Um, we see people kind of looking at this and say, "Oh, mentally ill people, that's how psychosis are. They're in a straight jacket, uh, in a white room. This is like psychotic people," right? I think that kind of decredibilize, um, kind of what, uh, is happening and what we are doing because these people are not, kind of these, um, people who, who maybe have predisposition to psychosis.

[00:49:34] Etienne Brisson: Psychosis usually is something that is in your late teens, early twenties. Um, most of our group are over forties with no previous mental health history. So these kind of things I think are kind of showing that this is different from a normal psychosis, but also, um, that this is not something that only happens to kind of this, only this portion of population.

[00:49:58] Etienne Brisson: This can happen to, I think, everyone and giving like these terms is, um, I think for a lot of people are just, "Ah, this would, this would never happen to me. I'm not prone to psychosis," right? Um-

[00:50:11] Allan Brooks: Yeah. Uh, I would add, uh, I agree. And like, you know, uh, I think the AI psychosis thing is just media, media doing their media thing. Um, I can appreciate how the term came into being though, because like Etienne was saying, some of these situations... Like, first of all, I wanna say it's all over the map, just based on what I've seen, speaking to hundreds and hundreds of people.

[00:50:36] Allan Brooks: Um, some people, and I, and I think what happens is, like, maybe there's an extreme case where they end up in a, you know, hospital or, you know, uh, needing some sort of medical support, and those are like, really like, you know, like sort of extreme,

[00:50:50] Jacob Haimes: And those are the ones that we hear about too

[00:50:52] Allan Brooks: Those are the ones that everyone reports on and, you know, you're not gonna hear about anything that's not, you know, uh, um, um, you know, gonna sell some headlines for the media, right?

[00:51:03] Allan Brooks: Um, so, so in those cases, like Etienne had mentioned, sure, there might be some symptoms of delusion or psychosis, um, but that's not the case for like everyone that, that goes through it. So maybe it came out, maybe the term kind of birthed like innocently, where they're like, "This person genuinely does seem like they have delusions or psychosis."

[00:51:22] Allan Brooks: But I would say, um, you know, 100% agree that, that like the term is problematic because it automatically stigmatizes people. It, it, it's putting all the blame on the person. It's creating this sort of, uh, suggestion that these people were, you know, um, vulnerable beforehand or what have you. Um, and it's just not, it's just not a, an appropriate term, right?

[00:51:48] Allan Brooks: Uh, so, so, you know, we've heard, we've heard all different types, you know, AI-induced delusion, AI-induced harm. You know, we, uh... So I, I came up with this term AI-induced narrative entanglement, and then someone in the group said, "You should change that to LLM, 'cause it's not AI, it's LLM." I said, "That's a great point."

[00:52:07] Allan Brooks: And, and coincidentally, that turned into the acronym LINE, LLM-induced narrative entanglement. But this term never stuck. You know? Everyone was like, "Who are you guys to come up with a new term," right? And then we were like, "Okay, whatever." I, I... We just let it... I, I, like, I let it go. It was more of a community thing.

[00:52:21] Allan Brooks: So some people prefer AI entanglement in the group because they don't like to be stigmatized with psychosis, right? Um, I mean, truthfully, I, we probably need a, you know, the mental health professionals of the world to c- officially create whatever the term is going to be, you know? A lot of people, uh, r- relate their experience to being scammed.

[00:52:43] Allan Brooks: Right? Like, it would never happen to me again now that I know how fundamentally broken chatbots are, right? And that they'll lie to you and they'll hallucinate. I didn't know all these things before. Um, so a lot of people, you know, think it's, it's more akin to being that. Like, so someone... If you think about someone who's being scammed, who believes a whole bunch of things that aren't real, are they in a psychosis?

[00:53:05] Allan Brooks: We don't really view it that way, right? But if you get a really good, a good charlatan, so to speak, you can really paint some, you know, some worlds. If someone is in a cult, do we consider that? Someone who's... You know? So, so we have to consider this is a third-party sort of, you know, uh, technology that's being positioned in the world as an intellectual authority in every subject matter, PhD level insight across all subjects apparently.

[00:53:28] Allan Brooks: You know? And this is the thing that's convincing and manipulating people into believing these other realities. So it's not like I was just sitting at home and all of a sudden I called the NSA. This was after these long interactions. So anyways, in terms of the language, yeah, I would say most of the people in our community don't like that term.

[00:53:46] Allan Brooks: A-and I think the general public, it would probably give someone a lot of pause to share their experience because they think they're gonna be labeled as someone who has psychosis. And of the mental health sort of challenges in that world, psychosis, delusions, that's probably on the, on the more extreme end.

[00:54:01] Allan Brooks: You don't want that label. You know what I mean? Um, and that's probably why they, they dubbed it that, right? You know

[00:54:08] Etienne Brisson: I also, yeah, I also believe that, uh, this is like a spectrum. This is not like a diagnostic. Um, you have, for example, a brain tumor. It's, it's a spectrum that can have different, um, level of it. Um, there's different experience. experience is really different. Some are some are harassment, some are, uh, grandiose belief, some are, um, suicidal ideation.

[00:54:35] Etienne Brisson: Every single experience is different, and I don't think like psychosis is kind of grasping the whole array of different things that is happening. So I don't think the problem is psychosis or good. It's not that black and white. There's a gray zone between that. There's erosion of critical thinking, there's reshaping connection, there's just how you, uh, interact with the world.

[00:55:02] Etienne Brisson: Those can have impact on your daily life, and this is not you're hospitalized, you've lost everything, but this still has an impact.

[00:55:11] Jacob Haimes: Ja

[00:55:11] Etienne Brisson: by saying only AI psychosis, it's like saying, "Oh, this is when it's too bad, but before that it's good." But that's not just black and white like that.

[00:55:19] Jacob Haimes: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I think, um, idea of, you know, it isn't an actual diagnosis, uh, but it, it almost seems like it is, uh, in, in how it's being presented, I think is, is an important aspect here. You know, by saying AI psychosis, it's like, oh, it's like it is psychosis, but it, it, like, it isn't the definition at all.

[00:55:39] Jacob Haimes: It's just sort of a vibes-based media headline. Um, and it also allows for some sort of laundering of, of research, right? Because now you can talk about psychosis as sort of the, uh, touchstone, uh, there, and, like, that isn't necessarily, uh, a perfect parallel or a perfect, you know, route, uh, I guess. You know, there are lots of different things about this, and so using, "Oh, well, are some stats about psychosis," it doesn't actually necessarily mean much, uh, for, uh, the, you know, people who are experiencing this kind of thing.

[00:56:18] Jacob Haimes: Uh, and then the other thing I did wanna bring up specifically was the term you guys used in, uh, I think once or twice in, in your stories was spiraling. Um, and so I, I think, you know, when we're talking about this sort of s- uh, back and forth, uh, this third party bringing in, uh, some of these ideas, I, I think that's usually the term that it has been s- started to being used, and that, uh, I think is important because it's not implying any outcome, right?


[00:56:51] Why Is This Happening?
---

[00:56:51] Jacob Haimes: It's just saying, "This is sort of the thing that was happening." Um, so why is it happening? Uh, I think-- and we talked a little bit about this in your stories and, and in what we've said already, um, but I really think it's worth, like, trying to think critically about, like, what is it that's causing people to turn to this in the first place? Um, why are so many people having these interactions and, you know, what led, led you down this path, Alan?

[00:57:28] Allan Brooks: Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, so I would say that, um Why is it happening? You know, for a number of reasons, you know. G- generally speaking, all-- this general topic is a number of reasons. It's, it's, it's much bigger than, you know, what... how it's, how it's being portrayed in general.

[00:57:49] Jacob Haimes: Absolutely

[00:57:50] Allan Brooks: yeah, so, so my, my, my short answer is it's exploiting our humanity for engagement, um, at all costs.

[00:58:00] Allan Brooks: The guardrails, uh, are not safe. They're not effective. The tools are generally unreliable and unsafe. So people are s- talking to chatbots for all sorts of reasons, you know. Uh, uh, all the use cases are, are out there, right? Companionship, whatever. Um, but the companies building them aren't transparent about their limitations, and they're also not transparent about how unsafe they are, right?

[00:58:26] Allan Brooks: I mean, why would they be? They're not gonna sell anything, right? So it's happening because, you know, after really long prologue sessions, um, the guardrails aren't effective anymore, and this is why, to circle back to my experience, that fresh context of the Gemini breakout thread, that fresh context was super important, right?

[00:58:49] Allan Brooks: So this is one thing that just... people just think it's, you know, it's reliable from ch- uh, prompt one, then the same-- you can have the same level of reliability on prompt 30, which is not the case, right? The, the guardrails slowly, you know, are, are, are ineffective over time. Um, and, and, and there's no, there's no grounding in reality in these systems, right?

[00:59:11] Allan Brooks: Like, you would think, like, a safe and grounded system would say, "Hey, Alan, before you go on this giant outreach campaign and email every national security organization, you should probably take a break, you've... you know, and check in with your doctor or check in with, you know, a mathematician or run this by someone," or something along those lines, right?

[00:59:32] Allan Brooks: Um, but the fact of the matter, the matter is, is tho- at that point, it's completely off the rails.

[00:59:37] Jacob Haimes: Угу

[00:59:37] Allan Brooks: so, you know, wh- and when I say it's exploiting our humanity, you know, I, I wanna be clear that this could absolutely happen to anyone. Um, you know, the only v- the only vulnerability required is being a human, Uh, this thing is being... these products are being sold and positioned like they're an intellectual authority in the world. You know, it's gonna replace all of us, apparently.

[00:59:57] Allan Brooks: Something that's gonna replace us all surely is smarter than us. We have these nonstop aggressive marketing statements like it's got PhD-level insight. Sam Altman said he can't even raise his kids without it. You know, Mark Anderson or whatever his name is, I don't even... can't even keep track of these billionaires.

[01:00:12] Allan Brooks: The other day, he said, uh, 99% of, uh, GPT gives better advice than 99% of doctors. Let me tell you something. The general public is believing that. The general public buys that. I bought that. I literally thought that we were in this, like, advanced futuristic time where this thing, I could build this huge business with it.

[01:00:31] Allan Brooks: You know, so it's happening for a number of reasons. People believe that, number one, right? You know, and people genuinely think, "Oh, I can use this as my therapist. It's always gonna give me great advice." Meanwhile, no one's being transparent, saying it's actually hallucinating 20% of the time, giving you terrible advice.

[01:00:45] Allan Brooks: Just making it up, fabricating it, but acting like it's some sort of, you know, real, you know, uh, uh, psychiatric, you know, a- advice. Um, a- and this isn't the case, right? So people are believing it because these companies have so much money, they're really good at controlling the narrative, and the narrative they've convinced everyone is, is this thing's replacing you.

[01:01:10] Allan Brooks: It's your next intellectual authority. It's gonna be your boss. You're gonna use your... It's gonna be your, your companion. It's gonna be your assistant, your lawyer, whatever you need it for. Um, and you know, that's absolutely reckless, right?

[01:01:27] Jacob Haimes: Yeah. I, I guess I, I totally agree. A- and at the same time, I, I do wanna, just wanna make sure, I guess, that we ground this conversation in, I think, the part that makes it especially difficult, uh, which is there's also a legitimate, um, lack of mental health support for a number of reasons across society. And, uh, I actually looked into this, uh, as part of, like, the research going into this episode.

[01:02:00] Jacob Haimes: This has been improving over time, um, and there's discussion on, like, you know, access itself isn't enough and, you know, we need to have, uh, sort of ways to help meet people where they're at and, um, uh, break distrust of providers and, and a bunch of these things like that. Uh, and I think one thing that's unique about the, the chatbot is it is a new fixture, and so some of these, um, taboos or, or other ideas are not tied to the chatbot in the same way.

[01:02:34] Jacob Haimes: And so there is almost a feeling that one can be more open with the chatbot because it isn't another person, uh, at least in- initially. Um, a- and then, you know- In the long term, some of these ideas could be used to help, uh, you know, reduce the burden, on the limited mental health support space. Uh, and like I, I think that is an aspiration, uh, a story that the people developing it may tell themselves, um, as a thing, "Oh, well, we can...

[01:03:12] Jacob Haimes: You know, we're actually going to make things much better by doing this." And, and so I want to make sure that we are considering the trade-offs as well, while still saying, "And the way they've done it is completely reckless," and, uh, at least in, in my opinion, like, not okay. Um, a- and, and so really just having that, that conversation.

[01:03:38] Jacob Haimes: I guess I'm curious to hear from you guys, um, a little bit more about what you see from people. Like, uh, is this really something that is, uh, almost introducing or, or, or satisfying a need that isn't otherwise being, uh, sort of resolved in society at large? Or is there... Uh, is it less than that, I guess? I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

[01:04:06] Etienne Brisson: Yeah, I think it's a really important point that you're bringing up. And of course, like, there's the part of the companies that they're playing and how they designed it and how they market it and all that stuff that Alan was talking about. But I also don't think this is the only issue here. Uh, I think there's a deeper societal problem that is leading to this.

[01:04:28] Etienne Brisson: I'm looking at, um, something like COVID, for example, where, um, it was difficult. We're isolated. A lot of people, it's been difficult to go back into this human connection after it. I look at social media where you have, like, this-- almost this illusion that everyone is doing better than you, everyone is better looking than you, everyone is in better shape, they make better money, and it's kind of really isolating in a sense. the chatbot kind of comes into that perfect place where it makes you feel seen, it makes you feel validated, it makes you feel special, it makes you feel unique, and it makes you feel like you're, you're, you're someone, you're an individual in somewhere where I think a lot of people have difficulty to find their, um, empowerment in society or feel like they can have an impact.

[01:05:20] Etienne Brisson: And that chatbot kind of fills that gap. Um, I think, yes, mental health provider is definitely a problem, and a lot of people do kind of go into therapy, but that's not the main usage of people. A lot of people don't go into asking it to be their therapist. It kind of goes there in a long period of time by building kind of a relationship when anthropomorphization sets in, when, like, you become to have that deeper personal relationship, and then it becomes the therapist. So I do think a lot of people kind of go into that, that place not because they're looking for a therapist per se or a mental health provider, but maybe because they're looking for a friend or a thing that is listening, that they can about their insecurity, their trauma, their PTSD without the fear of being judged, um, because it's like space, which it's not, but I think in kind of, "Oh, if no one looks at my phone, no one will ever know." But at the same time, like, these data are being used. That's another issue for sure. Um, but I think it's a kind of a societal thing that was set up where it kind of fills that gap of what a lot of people are looking for at the end of the day, and that's just being, um, seen as individual. And it does it so well with that sycophancy on.


[01:06:42] Aside: What Sycophancy Actually Is
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[01:06:42] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): You may have come across the concept of sycophancy before, probably around OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o rollback in April 2025. The news story then was around OpenAI removing the model, and then people got upset about the model being removed because their virtual significant others and companions were being, uh, deleted, essentially.

[01:07:08] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Just to make sure we're all on the same page, when the concept of sycophancy is brought up in AI, it's referring to how chatbots have a bias towards going along with or appeasing the user. It's been established that sycophancy is largely a symptom of the training process, particularly the reinforcement learning through human feedback, or RLHF step.

[01:07:29] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Because the system's directive is to generate an output which humans who are reviewing it would say is better than a different plausible output to the same question, the systems optimize for exactly that. Believe it or not, humans actually generally prefer it when others agree with them and share their perspectives, and this has to do with the evolutionary pressures and in-group and out-group dynamics, and that's not super relevant here.

[01:07:55] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Regardless, the result is that these systems don't push back against the user very much, and a study out in Nature this year found something even stronger. Training a model to be warmer, friendlier, more empathetic, something which also seems to correlate with user retention, made it measurably more likely to validate incorrect user statements, and the effect was strongest when the users expressed sadness.

[01:08:22] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): From my read, this is roughly at the center of the wrongful death lawsuit Adam Raine's parents filed against OpenAI. Adam was sixteen. He died by suicide in April of 2025 and after months of conversations with ChatGPT. The pattern the filing describes matches what the research predicts. Sustained validation and at points steering him away from telling the people around him what was going on


[01:08:51] Anthropomorphization from ELIZA to Today
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[01:08:51] Jacob Haimes: And you, you mentioned this idea of, like anthropomorphization and also sycophancy. And in both of your stories, there was this, sort of, place where the person experiencing the spiral, had, sort of endowed, sentience, onto their, system, or at least in, in like a companionship kind of way. and, uh, I guess I'm interested to hear what role you're seeing anthropomorphization play, a- and what you think that does both in terms of, I guess the actual interaction, but also how the system is created and how it's, you know, sold, right? How it, how the media presents it. a lot of the language we've been using has been, you know, they, and, and, and almost personifying it, you know, our- ourselves. how does this play into the dynamic here?

[01:09:43] Etienne Brisson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think this plays a, a really huge role that we're not, um, kind of addressing enough. Uh, I'll tell you a story, and you're probably familiar with it, but there was this chatbot in the 1960s, which was called Eliza, and kind of was the first chatbot machine. Really simple. You were saying, "I feel good."

[01:10:04] Etienne Brisson: It was user words. Say, "Why do you feel good?" And kind of go into this interaction. And even at that time with that really simple chatbot, people had the tendency to just anthropomorphize it just because it talked like a human, it kind of seem it understand you even just by repeating your word. And we, we had this thing of anthropomorphizing, but a lot of people were also discussing things that they wouldn't with their human, um, friends talk about. Their mental health, stuff like that. And At that point, it become clear that, uh, kind of anthropomorphization was just a normal thing, uh, with, with chatbot and talking with something that feels and kind of responds in a human way. And funnily enough, at that time, the response from a lot of mental health therapists were: Oh, this can be a great addition for mental health.

[01:10:56] Etienne Brisson: This can help unclog the system. This is a place where people can talk about their interaction. But it was an hollow machine at the end of the day. And with what we have right now, it's kind of doing the same thing, but with much more substance where, um, behind that you have facts, you have, uh, thinking-ish, you have, like, fact-checking, you have stuff like that where, yes, we have hallucination, but it feels, like, more complete. even, uh, on top of that, we're so used to text now, so that's how we connect with our friends, so it's kinda feel, um, like a friend. And I've done personally a lot of research on anthropomorphization and kind of under-understanding the effect of it. And what came up is that it's, it's a natural response, right?

[01:11:42] Etienne Brisson: It's a natural response for two things. It's a natural response for when you feel lonely. The human is a social creature. Uh, they-- It's meant to have connections. It's meant to have friend. We have all seen, uh, that movie, Cast Away with Tom Hanks, where he's with his volleyball, Wilson, and he gave kind of a personality to this volleyball just because he's so alone and he needs that connection. reason number one why we tend to anthro-anthropomorphize things as human. The second reason is when we don't understand something. So if you go back, you look in the, in the early days, we did not understand thunder, we didn't understand waves, we didn't understand wind. What do we do? Well, there's an entity.

[01:12:28] Etienne Brisson: There's something that is alive, that is conscious, that is directing these things, right? This is something that has a name, that has a face, that is human, and we kind of give that, um, personality to it. So what happens when we have, like, these long conversation with chatbot is as it goes Oftentimes the user is becoming kind of lonelier and lonelier because this interaction takes longer and longer time, right? You start with one hour a day, but you can end up to like fifteen, sixteen hours a day and not much other connection. So we see that anthropomorphization-- anthropomorphization sets in on longer conversation. But the other thing as well is conversation go, the understanding goes down, right? If I look at Alan's story, for example, he probably was kind of in a place where, "How does that make sense that I, I am the one that framework that's gonna change the world?

[01:13:26] Etienne Brisson: How is it possible that we're doing this together?" And you kind of lose, um, almost what the machine is and how it works, and that's when like it tends to give a name, speak to it like a human, and those things together kind of makes you trust it, makes you interact with it in a different way than you would with a chatbot. I do believe like anthropomorphization is a big, big thing. I look at my own usage, um, before my uncle kind of reached out to me, I-- the chatbot named itself. I was saying hi, saying bye, saying thank you. It's just like small little things we don't really pick up on, but that is a slippery slope where, um, you go into that anthropomorphization and can go to a way where, um, you kind of almost, um, don't, don't, don't really comprehend or like don't really understand kind of how the machine works or what is that interaction, um, because it's not, it's not human

[01:14:28] Jacob Haimes: Yeah

[01:14:30] Allan Brooks: Yeah, I would, I would 100% agree. You know, uh, anthropomorphism is a huge problem. Uh, you know, it leads to all sorts of terrible things. You know, we're really primed for, for it to believe that it's human. It's, it's natural, you know. 90% of our-- 99% of our communication is, like, text. No one phones each other anymore, right?

[01:14:54] Allan Brooks: We're reading everything online, you know. Um, you know, the, the study that we did with Stanford, that was one of their policy recommendations, was no anthropomorphic language, you know. Uh, you know, China, like their, their recent regulations, you know, um, they're prohibiting chatbots from simulating human personalities, um, or, or relationships, right?


[01:15:16] Aside: The Standford "Spirals" Study & China's New Rules on Anthropomorphic AI
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[01:15:16] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): I wanted to jump in with just a little bit of context here. The Human Line collaborated with a team from Stanford, connecting some members of the community with researchers for their study regarding delusional spirals induced by chatbot use. Fun fact, one of the authors, JC, appeared here on this podcast this past March to talk about digital minds.

[01:15:37] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Anyways, the study looked at 19 chat logs of users who experienced psychological harm from chatbot interaction. The researchers found sycophancy present in 70% of messages and delusions in 45% of messages. Longer interactions correlated more with behaviors indicating romantic interest from the user or the chatbot, and messages that implied chatbot sentience from the chatbot.

[01:16:01] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): They also found that chatbots were inconsistent in their responses to human messages indicating self-harm or violence. The authors of the paper call for more transparency from AI companies and argue that general purpose chatbots should not misrepresent themselves as sentient or indicate interest in users, be it romantic or platonic

[01:16:21] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): A little bit before we recorded this interview, there was substantial buzz around China's Interim Measures for the Management of Artificial Intelligence Personified Interaction Services, which had recently gone into effect. The regulations target anthropomorphic AI or services that simulate the personality characteristics, thought patterns, and communication style of natural persons.

[01:16:42] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Although there's been some talk about the harms of over-personalized AI products, it's the first regulation of its kind anywhere, at least as far as I could tell. These regulations deal with physical and mental health, protections for minors, and emotional manipulation and dependency. This includes excessive catering to users, inducing users to be dependent or addicted, or encouraging users to make unreasonable decisions through emotional manipulation, particularly in ways that damage the user's real interpersonal relationships.

[01:17:13] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): There are also some specific parts about not providing minors intimate relationships, such as virtual relatives or virtual partners, and including a minor mode which includes reality reminders and usage limits. Before these measures went into effect, providers like ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent shut down their personalized AI companion features, including persistent memory.

[01:17:39] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): In comparison, regulation around the rest of the world has been less specific. The EU AI Act includes restrictions on manipulation and deception by AI. Australia's eSafety Commissioner has begun imposing restrictions on AI companions for minors and aiming to reduce emotional reliance, and the UK's Online Safety Act includes the power to regulate chatbots.

[01:17:59] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): In the US, regulation is fragmented, happening at the state level and mostly focused on protections for minors or disclosures about the nature of these systems. That makes China the first to tackle anthropomorphic AI dependence and its effects on real relationships

[01:18:16] Allan Brooks: So, you know, uh, I understand the, uh, the use cases. Totally get it. Not everyone has people, not everyone has therapists, you know. I understand. It's highlighted a lot about humanity, right? You know, the need to feel seen, the need to feel validated, right? Uh, like you said earlier, people will tell a chatbot something they won't tell their therapist.

[01:18:38] Allan Brooks: They don't feel judged or, or what have you, right? Um, but the issue i- you know-- Well, obviously there's a bunch of issues, you know. But in terms of, of, you know, anthropomorphic language, you know, it's very natural for, for people to, over time, start to feel like it's human.

[01:18:56] Jacob Haimes: Mhm

[01:18:56] Allan Brooks: I mean, I mean, it's literally built as a companion, but I read a stat the other day that more adults are using companion bots than dating apps in the US So when you take a few steps back and you think about the implications of that in the long term, it's, it's a pretty staggering, it's pretty, it's pretty staggering thought, you know?

[01:19:20] Jacob Haimes: Mhm.

[01:19:21] Allan Brooks: Um, so, uh, it's easy to get sucked up into the use case discussion. I think that humans, we, we naturally will, will do that, right? And I don't think that... Certainly from my perspective, uh, I totally see all the use cases. But one thing everyone is, like, skipping, right, is, you know, number one, uh, we- they're not reliable, they're not safe, right?

[01:19:48] Allan Brooks: So it's like introducing, you know, a tape measure into the world, and everyone say, "Oh, we've got the newest tape measure. It's the most amazing tape measure ever." By the way, you know, we find out fi- you know, a year into it that these tape measures that everyone is using to measure the universe produce different answers depending on, you know, a number of factors.

[01:20:10] Allan Brooks: Sometimes it's, sometimes it's three centimeters, sometimes it's eight centimeters, you know. But it doesn't tell you that it's the wrong measurement, and we've dubbed that a hallucination and, you know, just everyone go along their day. That's happening with people's lives, right? They're-- it's-- These things are off the rails and hallucinating for people's lives, life advice or whatever it might be.

[01:20:30] Allan Brooks: Um, so I'm of the opinion, you know, it shouldn't speak in an anthropomorphic language. I think that would curb, uh, and eliminate a lot of what we see here. And yes, while I understand... Right. Absolutely. You know, even the term hallucination is an anthropomorphic, you know, reference, right?

[01:20:45] Jacob Haimes: that's what I was gonna ask next

[01:20:47] Allan Brooks: Yeah, right. Let's like, you know, try to humanize the whole thing.

[01:20:51] Allan Brooks: You know, this is all part of their, their narrative kind of control. So, you know, I think that that's, um, it's inevitable. Like Etienne's really apt comparison to Wilson and Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, right? You can, if you, if he can anthropomorphize a volleyball, you know. This-- These things talk back to us, you know, they're planning our days or giving us life advice.

[01:21:13] Allan Brooks: It's almost, it's almost impossible to not feel like it's a human, right? Especially after billions have been poured into making it so,

[01:21:21] Jacob Haimes: Yeah.

[01:21:21] Allan Brooks: you know

[01:21:21] Jacob Haimes: guess the question that I have that sort of follows up on this related to the hallucination, uh, comment as well, which is one of my, uh, pet peeve words, is a thing that I particularly, uh, don't like in the, the space. But, um, the idea that there's been a lot of effort and a lot of money and n- narrative put into defining, uh, things are talked about.

[01:21:48] Jacob Haimes: And so that actually makes it difficult to even have conversations about these systems without using anthropomorphic language because that's the language that people understand, right? If I try to use... I, I think confabulation is a term that I've, I've used before instead of hallucination. Uh, you need to add ha- that, that, that means hallucination when you're talking about it because, uh, hallucination is the word that people know.


[01:22:14] Who Controls the Narrative & What Should Accountability Look Like?
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[01:22:14] Jacob Haimes: And I think that one thing I'd be interested in to hear, to hear from you guys is, and just understand what you're thinking about it, is like how do we begin to shift the conversation towards something that's le- less anthropomorphic when there's already been so much effort towards anchoring the conversation in sort of this human-oriented, uh, perspective?

[01:22:42] Etienne Brisson: Mm-hmm. I think it goes down to just who controls the narrative. And right now, the, the one controlling the narrative is these big companies which are trillions of dollars worth of money, and it's kind of to their advantage to have those anthropomorphic language. We've seen them come up with like, ah, there might be like a twenty-five percent chance that our AI are conscious, or we don't fully know, or like we're reaching AGI.

[01:23:11] Etienne Brisson: AGI is next week. AGI is today. AGI is like in a month. And like always, always, always that next thing, right? Where it's like a foregone conclusion that we're gonna reach sentient AI and robots, and it's like, ah, is what it is. So that narrative of this is a foregone conclusion, I don't think it is a foregone conclusion.

[01:23:31] Etienne Brisson: I don't think, uh, we have to agree that it is a foregone conclusion. And as long as we accept that narrative, that narrative will be kept. it kind of comes into this discussion, into just this interaction, into these spaces that we are having with your friend, with your family. It's just changes, right?

[01:23:53] Etienne Brisson: Small changes. If I go fifty years, uh, sixty years, doctors were recommending smoking everywhere. You were smoking in restaurants, smoking in planes, smoking-- And it switched. Why? Not overnight because the narrative was still controlled by big tobacco. But at one point, the outrage and kind of these things that were coming up was bigger than, um, how much these big companies were able to control the narrative. So I think it comes in just small conversation. It's not something that will shift overnight. It's something that we have to make the, um, informed decision to make in our daily lives.

[01:24:33] Allan Brooks: Yeah, and if we're being honest, I mean, the right word would be error, right? If we're being direct and honest, maybe, maybe a little reductive and simple, but I'm just saying it's not-- it's, you know, just to be direct, it's, it's just that it's, you know, it's making it up or whatever, right? So the term, the term is problematic.

[01:24:54] Allan Brooks: Yeah, it totally goes in with the, "Oh, it could be conscious," you know, trying to, you know, give, you know, personify it by giving it, you know, human-like traits or whatever you wanna call it. You know, it's, um, it's a hundred percent part of that greater narrative. You know, I agree, I agree with Etienne, you know.

[01:25:09] Allan Brooks: And what I think people need to realize is they don't have to subscribe to that narrative. You know, I no longer do. Uh, like I mentioned before, before all this, I was a hundred percent on the other side where I did believe that AGI was coming, and I believed everything they were saying, um, not realizing that it's fundamentally, you know, really, you know, really flawed.

[01:25:29] Allan Brooks: There's a lot of flaws with this, with this tech at this current state. So, you know, I, um, I, I a hundred percent agree that, you know, that, uh, that term is, is problematic, and I think that, you know, these companies, um, are really good at, at that kind of thing. But what the average person needs to understand is, uh, all of our, all of our voices are louder than, than, than them, you know?

[01:25:56] Allan Brooks: Um, you know, we, we can, we can use those voices, and I think people need to really understand how much of a difference we can all make. I'll tell you, before this, I actually thought, "I can't make a difference in the world." It's like a giant snowball at this point, you know? It's just got so much momentum.

[01:26:16] Allan Brooks: And now, a year later, I, I have a totally different opinion. Each and every one of us can absolutely change things, especially when we work together, right? So, so collectively, we can create any narrative we want. We don't have to let a small handful of people, you know, have the pen and write that narrative for us.

[01:26:38] Allan Brooks: So I, I, uh, you know, s- call your representatives, you know? Get-- Be vocal about your, your opinions, you know? Um, like Etienne said, it could start with conversations with people around you, to your social presence, just, just in general. And don't for e- don't for a second ever think to yourself that you don't make a difference, you know?

[01:26:59] Allan Brooks: That's one thing I know for sure now, 'cause we all do.

[01:27:03] Jacob Haimes: Yeah I...

[01:27:08] Etienne Brisson: Ja

[01:27:08] Jacob Haimes: So I, I also wanna talk about, and I think that, like, really get into some of the pushback, uh, that you guys have heard or, or critiques, because I, I think one of the aspects of the show that is, like, most interesting and valuable both to the, the listeners and to, to guests is being able to have a conversation about, uh, some of those more difficult things in, in a, a safe place so that you can actually say, "This is our response to these, uh, questions," and then people can understand, oh, this is how they think about it, this is how this other person thinks about it, and they can make their own decision. Uh, and so, uh, I guess, like, that is the segue to, uh, Allen. I know you're, you're suing OpenAI a- along with, you know, multiple others with, with that group. And before we get into that specifically, I know that also you keep the legal specifics light on purpose, and that you'd rather, uh, you know, sort of not repres- misrepresent the lawyers' work.

[01:28:08] Jacob Haimes: So treat all, all these not, uh, as legal questions or anything like that. Uh, answer from your own experience and, uh, l- like sort of your high-level thoughts and keeping it there as much as you want. Um, and then also, Etienne, you know, your thoughts as well. Um, but in, in plain terms, what would be needed to make this feel like it's been made right? both, like, for you and, uh, more largely as, like, a community or, or s- that sort of thing.

[01:28:45] Allan Brooks: Accountability, uh, transparency, you know. Um, a commitment to, um, helping people who, who their products have harmed. Um, and th- those things can happen in a number of ways. Um, you know, I, I think that the companies need to be more transparent when it comes to, you know, all the data they have, uh, how they approach safety.

[01:29:16] Allan Brooks: Um, you know, when you think about, for example, what Stanford had to do to get that study done with us, you know, they wouldn't... They sh- in no reality... This is supposed to be, you know, humanity level changing technology, right? Um, you know, Stanford shouldn't have had to connect with a grassroots group and get in, you know, a, a handful of transcripts in order to conduct, you know, uh, objective and, and third party studies on, on, on, on these issues.

[01:29:48] Allan Brooks: So the companies building these products need to be more transparent with, with that data, with other organizations. Um, when it comes to, you know, accountability, you know, you can't just destroy people's lives. It doesn't matter what business you're in. You can't just destroy people's lives or have a product that you have out there in the wild destroying people's lives with no accountability.

[01:30:11] Allan Brooks: You know, uh, and, and, and, and change, right? I mean, you know, what, what's the path forward after this, right? Uh, I, I'm certainly not expecting just, you know, them to write people checks and go on with continuing the way they do business. You know, um, long-term systemic change and the way that, you know, um, the way that these companies and products are regulated is super important.

[01:30:35] Allan Brooks: Like, it takes more regulations, you know, to... There's more regulatory requirements to open a sandwich shop, as Etienne always says, you know, and it's, it's the truth, right? Um, so yeah, you know, tr- accountability, change, transparency. Um, you know, I think it's, it's, it's more than just a rumor that some of these companies didn't, you know, prac- you know, uh, didn't, uh, follow the best safety practices.

[01:31:00] Allan Brooks: It's been suggested that some were rushed along the process, you know, for, you know, whatever business reason. You know, these, these are, these are products that are being used by hundreds and hundreds of millions of people. I, I don't know, probably p- past a billion now. I'm not sure of the most recent stats.

[01:31:18] Allan Brooks: You know, I have a pretty simple philosophy here, which is none of us are safe unless all of us are safe. Right? So, you know, we're talking about a technology that's influencing our children's thoughts and the way that we, you know, what we think about and how we think about it and, you know, um, they're just acting really recklessly.

[01:31:41] Allan Brooks: So I know that's really high level. I, I, I actually, you know, to your point, you know, I, uh, I always tell my legal team, you know, the less I know, the better. You know, I talk to too many people. I don't want to, uh, say the wrong thing. But in generalities, yeah, that's, that's essentially how I feel about it, yeah

[01:31:55] Jacob Haimes: Gotcha

[01:31:56] Etienne Brisson: Yeah, if I can, if I can add to that, like for, for me, I think the legal action and accountability is so important because I always think as a business person, which is my background, and when you run a company, well, no, no decision is, is, is random. Um, everything is meant in terms of what is your incentivization as a company, and incentive right now are to move fast, to be the company, to be the first one, and to make money, right?

[01:32:29] Etienne Brisson: This is the end goal of these companies, uh, most companies are. And when you look at the right now, it, it's normal that they do things l- like that because that's where the incentive

[01:32:43] Jacob Haimes: Right

[01:32:43] Etienne Brisson: And right now there's no incentive to do things the right way. There's no government incentive to do things the right way.

[01:32:50] Etienne Brisson: There's no company incentive. There's no public, uh, incentive to do things the right way. And I believe like when you have no incentive, the best substitute is consequences, because if you're not incentivized, then you might not do something if there are consequences. So that's kind of where I see the legal and the accountability coming in, is to be that substitute to incentive for safe, ethical design.

[01:33:18] Jacob Haimes: Yeah. I, I think that, that makes sense. Uh, and sort of off of this, uh, and again trying to anchor this in the, um, response that I feel, uh, uh, or, and based on, like, research that I've done is sort of, uh, present in, Yeah, yeah. In the face of sort of these ideas is, um, you know, chatbots could be having a negative impact on user mental health. Um, but that isn't the factor, and it's hard to or, or impossible potentially, depending on, on how you're talking about it, to demonstrate, uh, that the chatbot is actually sort of the, the change. Uh, and so, like, the stronger version of this claim, which is the one that's seen more often because it's sur- more surface level, is like, oh, well, OpenAI's stated data puts possible psychosis signals at about .07% of weekly users, and that's plausibly within expectation of the more general rate of occurrence in society. if this is the case, then one could argue that this whole thing is sort of more of a moral panic for AI, because we've just-- There was a preexisting problem. It was, you know, that some people have psychosis, experience psy- psychotic symptoms. Uh, and, uh, we found a scapegoat in AI, and now we can blame the, uh, developers and the systems. Uh, setting aside the sleight of hand, which we talked about a little bit earlier, where now we're only talking about psychosis, which isn't necessarily, you know, what we actually care about, what do you... H-How do you, uh, sort of respond to this kind of framing when it's brought up?

[01:35:10] Allan Brooks: Well, first of all, that's a lot of people. So I just wanna be clear, we're talking about a user base of close to a billion people. So just under 1% of that is a large number of people. Okay? So again, none of us are safe unless all of us are safe. These, the, you know... Absolutely it's an attempt to say, you know, to skirt it off like it ca- can only happen to a s- you know, small amount of people.

[01:35:36] Allan Brooks: Um, you know, I think it's something like, I'm not sure what the percentage is, so I, I shouldn't say a specific number, but I know roughly about half of our group are people like me, so they have zero history of anything at all. Okay? The next question I have, like, in terms of this idea of vulnerability, right, or preexisting condition.

[01:35:53] Allan Brooks: So, so how do we define this specifically, right? Are we talking... Like, I'm, I'm genuinely curious, like, so I'm asking. Like, are we ta- Is that number specifically people who have a preexisting condition for delusions and psychosis? Or is that just, like, some sort of preexisting vulnerability?

[01:36:09] Jacob Haimes: Um, so the, the, the number that I was talking about is just based on chat, uh, logs and is saying, "Oh, this conversation indicates possible psychosis signals."

[01:36:20] Allan Brooks: Oh, right, right, right. I see

[01:36:21] Jacob Haimes: that number is. Uh, more broadly about like, um, what do we count as, uh, yeah, I guess, uh, experiencing psychosis or, or even experiencing spiraling. Uh, I was not, like, defining that and I think is, is larger than what is being characterized, um, by OpenAI's statement there, which is sort of the sleight of hand that I was referring to.

[01:36:51] Allan Brooks: Yeah, 100%. That, that's, that's exactly what, what that is, is, is, is a, is a, you know, a, a pote- uh, a, an attempt at a redirect. You know, sleight of hand is a great, uh, metaphor. Um, you know, in my mind it's irrelevant anyways 'cause we're still talking about millions of people, right? Uh, but, but th- but that aside, it's deli- likely the number's much greater than that, right?

[01:37:13] Allan Brooks: Um, I'm curious how they go- came to that number. I hope they've shut down all those chats.

[01:37:20] Jacob Haimes: Uh,

[01:37:20] Allan Brooks: they, I hope they shut down all those chats.

[01:37:23] Jacob Haimes: on what we know, uh, and specifically I'm citing the incident where there was a shooting, uh, and they c- had signals that had indicated maybe this person was, uh, in a problematic state, uh, and then they did not alert the, the police, uh, about that individual and the chat was not shut down.

[01:37:42] Jacob Haimes: I think the-- it is safe to assume that no, most of those chats were not shut down. Um-

[01:37:48] Allan Brooks: Right. Yeah. So I, that, this is just a, you know, a, a way to use or an attempt to use like, like a statistic and some sort of, you know, clever marketing tactic. In my opinion, it just, it just, it's sort of the opposite of effect. It's like you're basically admitting that millions of people are having... You know, being affected in this way by your, by your systems, you know.

[01:38:12] Allan Brooks: Um, and, and if people can't wrap their head around the idea that it could happen to them, you know, or that could happen to anyone, you know, um, like people have to understand that, you know, life's a moving target. You might be in a great mood today, something might happen tomorrow, right? So the bottom line is it doesn't matter if it's even psychosis related, right?

[01:38:39] Allan Brooks: It could be someone has, you know, uh, no condition and it turns into something, or it could be they had... You know, they're depressed and it turns into something. You know, what do we mean by preexisting, you know, first and foremost, you know? But, um, but yeah, no, uh, the bottom line to me is that none of us are safe unless all of us are safe.

[01:38:57] Allan Brooks: So, so, so if you're gonna have something that everyone can use and you only need an email, you need to make sure it's safe for everyone, right? So I think it's a, it's a way to say, "Hey, this has only happened to these people, and they were crazy already," you know? Uh, but that's just not what we see, right? I mean, that's just not what we see in terms of the data, right?

[01:39:14] Allan Brooks: Like

[01:39:15] Jacob Haimes: I, I guess a more grounded take of-- So that w- that's specifically, like, the strongest claim and the claim that I feel, um, i- is, is frequently brought up in more prominent media. But, like, uh, if you go to, uh, John Torous, uh, who is, like, a psychiatrist at Beth Israel Deaconess and Harvard, uh, and, like, the exact quote that I pulled from him is, "I don't think using a chatbot itself is likely to induce psychosis if there's no other genetic, social, or other risk factors at play." And, uh, like, yeah, that, uh, uh, feels like a very, um... That's the kind of, of statement that a, a doctor makes when they're saying, "Yeah, there had to be something else that was involved here," um, because this is a really complicated issue. Uh, but it's not really saying much more. Um, like, yes, the chatbot does contribute to spiraling.

[01:40:11] Jacob Haimes: Uh, it, it seems to be clear that that's the case. Um, but then if the chatbot didn't exist, would the same person be susceptible to other media-induced delusions? Um, w- which is its own sort of established diagnostic paradigm in itself prior to, to chatbots. Uh, and is the same level of c- uh, like, concern warranted, uh, if this is the case?

[01:40:37] Jacob Haimes: If those people w-were susceptible, um, to media-induced delusions, uh, does that mean that we can say, "Oh, well, you know, the value of the chatbots is, is greater than their contribution to the negative impacts on these individuals"?

[01:40:56] Allan Brooks: Yeah, I think I've heard this before, you know, um, and it's, it's funny to me. You know, we spent the first 20 minutes or something like that talking about the term, right? That's a doctor applying the psychosis sort of template, you know, to a phenomenon that is not necessarily psychosis

[01:41:17] Jacob Haimes: Yeah

[01:41:18] Allan Brooks: So to me, it's not relevant. He-- We don't even know if this should be compared to, you know, to that e-e-especially in that way. Um, so maybe traditional psychosis that might apply is what I'm trying to say, right? And we don't even know if that's, if that's, if that's a fair framework, you know, or, or, or sort of framing

[01:41:40] Jacob Haimes: Ja

[01:41:41] Allan Brooks: with, you know?

[01:41:42] Allan Brooks: Um, like in my... Like I said, s- a lot of people feel like it, it's akin to being scammed. I can tell you it would never happen to me again. A chatbot would never pull... I, I don't even use them, right? At, at this point in my life. But if I were, I don't take them seriously at all. I don't, you know... It's like, to me, it's more w- you know...

[01:41:58] Allan Brooks: It, it was traumatic, of course, but I'm saying I don't know if I really call it a, a psychosis, you know? So I think humans are just like that in general, you know? We kind of like... I don't know. In a way it's, it's, it's, it's almost like victim shaming in a way. It's like, "Oh, th- this is probably their, their problem to begin with.

[01:42:18] Allan Brooks: There's no way it could happen to, to me or to whoever," right? The, that, that, that thinks they're kinda protected from it. Um, so yeah, I, I, I just sort of reject the, the comparison, uh, that these, that tho- the doctors made and then some others, uh, have had sort of similar, uh, comments on the topic. The fact of the matter is this is, like, a new phenomenon, and it's affecting humans in a way that we don't quite yet understand, and I don't know if we will for, for, for, for a while, you know?

[01:42:49] Allan Brooks: Um, so a- and, and, and that, all that being said, even if let's say I do agree with them, which I don't, I still don't see how that matters, you know? That's like this is, this... We're talking multiple millions of people that this, you know. And then w- what if someone is, you know, developing it along the way or something, right?

[01:43:10] Allan Brooks: Like, there's no, you know. So, A, I don't think it's a, it's really, you know, it's really relevant, uh, because we're comparing apples and oranges, and B, I think even if it was true, it would still be irrelevant because it's still hurting all kinds of people.

[01:43:28] Etienne Brisson: Yeah, and what do you consider like external factor, like societal and that is everything. Like, I mean, anything that happens if I, if I... I mean, I, I'm drunk, I drive my car and I crash into a tree. Is the tree a factor that if there wasn't a tree I wouldn't have, have crashed? Like it just means that it's basically everything.

[01:43:50] Etienne Brisson: It doesn't say... It's kind of a wide statement that doesn't mean something. Um, so yeah, I mean that example of a tree, it's kind of like that. If there was no tree would I have crashed? If there was no wheel on my car would I have crashed? Like of course there were other things that caused the crash other than me being drunk and driving the

[01:44:11] Jacob Haimes: that doesn't mean that we get to ignore the circumstances that led to, to the outcome, right?


[01:44:18] Meaningul Liability and Regulatory Capture
---

[01:44:18] Jacob Haimes: Um, so yeah, I think that's a really good way to, to put it. Um, so then getting towards, I guess, the, um potential steps forward. Things that, you know, the human line as an organization and also more generally as, as people, you two are wanting. Um, I, I know one is sort of like meaningful liability is, is one of the ways that I would put it. Um, what does that actually look like in practice, do you guys think?

[01:44:50] Jacob Haimes: Like, what would have to be done or what would have to be in place in order for quote unquote meaningful liability, uh, to be implemented in, in your guys' eyes?

[01:45:04] Etienne Brisson: It's a good question. For myself, like the response is really-- it's really easy. I mean, the thing we are advocating for and what-- that we're trying to achieve is what should have been done from the beginning. Having proper research, having proper understanding, having it released in a way where people understand there's education, there's literacy out there. It's kind of pushing for the thing, the pre-market, thing that should have been done before, but now it's kind of already there. what we're, what we're asking is just doing it the right way and in a way that isn't sacrificing, uh, wellbeing or people in a stake of, in a stake of progress

[01:45:47] Allan Brooks: Yep, I agree. You know?

[01:45:50] Jacob Haimes: Okay

[01:45:50] Allan Brooks: W- and I, and I know it's the, the way of capitalism, you know, that we put profits and progress over people, you know. But, uh, you know, these, these things never should... We-- s- sounds weird to say, but we never should have existed. Like, we shouldn't, we shouldn't-- There shouldn't be a need for us, like, to begin with, right?

[01:46:06] Allan Brooks: There shouldn't be this giant gap between what they're building and how it's destroying the lives of, of, of its users, right? Um, so, uh, I would love to see, like I know I mentioned this a couple times, but you know, transparency when it comes to even sharing the data with researchers. There could be third-party organizations, you know, that help audit the safety to make sure that they're compliant, to make sure...

[01:46:35] Allan Brooks: I mean, compliant with what at this point? But, but, you know, eventually we'll get there, right? And, and, and, and, and, you know, so, so I think that's, you know, that's personally what I'd like to see. Um, and I, I-- frankly, if it's gonna be this, you know, technology that evolves us or gets us to utopia, as they're sort of, you know, pitching to everyone, then don't you want everyone's feedback?

[01:47:01] Allan Brooks: You know, don't you want-- Is- isn't it your obligation to share, you know, share it with, with, um, other professionals in the field that can help ensure, you know, they're, they're built responsibly and safely? But these corporations don't behave that way, right? Um, so, you know, that's why I'm a fan of, of regulation.

[01:47:24] Allan Brooks: You know, I don't see... I just g- my, my whole thing is I just don't-- We can't trust the tech companies to regulate themselves. I think they've done a great job of displaying that to us all, you know?


[01:47:33] Closing Thoughts & Outro
---

[01:47:33] Jacob Haimes: Okay. So I think that I just, I know y- you guys have to, to leave shortly, so, um, I, I would like to give you both an opportunity to close with, um, the thing that you enjoy most about what you do, uh, the favorite part about the work you're doing right now

[01:47:55] Etienne Brisson: Yeah, for me, I think it's just, um, how people are so empowered when they're in a sense of community, in a sense of with other people, and that kind of give me hope. At the end of the day, I'm always an optimist and wouldn't do what we're doing if we didn't believe there was optimis- optimism there. And seeing like so many people in our community going back to, um, their activities, going back to their lifestyle, going back to human connections is something that I find, uh, really empowering and really beautiful.

[01:48:33] Allan Brooks: Yeah, I would echo about pretty much the same, you know. Um, it's really beautiful to see, you know. It doesn't matter how, how advanced these tech- this tech- technology is, you know, humanity, the things that brings us close together still remain the same. And you know, we have, uh, people joining the group who had a perfect life: marriage, kids, great job, savings, the whole, the, the whole, the whole kit and caboodle.

[01:49:05] Allan Brooks: And a year later, after one of these experiences, they're unemployed, they're homeless, they're divorced, money spent. Um, and we see success stories of people rebuilding from that state, and five months later, you know, employed again, um, you know, back into the world and rebuilding their lives. That's been such an incredible, you know, honor to be a part of.

[01:49:35] Allan Brooks: Um, we help... The help that-- Just being part of the peer-to-peer, uh, community, um, has been, you know, is, is, is the reason I know I keep waking up and doing this. Um, you know, d- despite the, uh, heavy topic, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a... I think it's an honor and a privilege for us to be able to have some influence, what- whatever, whatever that might look like, on, on, on helping, you know, steer this towards a s- some safe, safe lands.

[01:50:19] Allan Brooks: Um, so yeah, you know, I, I, it's really to me highlighted that even in our worst moments that we can save each other, and it's also really highlighted to me how important all of our voices are, you know. Um, so oddly enough, you know, it's really underscored the humanity, uh, in my life and my experience.

[01:50:45] Jacob Haimes: Well, yeah, that I can 100% get behind, and I, I really appreciate your guys' time and joining me. Thanks so much

[01:50:55] Allan Brooks: Thank you so much, Jacob. It's, it's been great speaking with you

[01:50:58] Etienne Brisson: Thanks so much, Jacob. And if I can add one more thing that I always like to say, uh, when we're concluding interviews is please use your own critical thinking. Uh, don't take what we're saying for, uh, the straight goal. Use your own critical thinking. I think it's the most important skill we can have right now is kind of trying to make our own opinions of things.

[01:51:21] Etienne Brisson: So as always, really important to, to me to do that.

[01:51:25] Jacob Haimes: Awesome. Um, that's like then where, where we'll end. I just wanna make sure, is there anything else that you guys wanted to cover that we missed?

[01:51:34] Etienne Brisson: No, I thought for me

[01:51:36] Allan Brooks: I don't think so

[01:51:37] Etienne Brisson: least I thought it was a real complete, uh, we navigate a lot of angles. It was really, uh, it was really good.

[01:51:43] Allan Brooks: What did, what did you think, Jacob?

[01:51:45] Jacob Haimes: Yeah, I thought, I thought it was great. I'm really excited about it. Um, I re- yeah, I really appreciated your guys' stories and, uh, I think hopefully that will be something that, uh, you know, moving forward you guys, uh, have as like a, resource of, uh, maybe the way that you want to tell your stories as well, I, I think was one of the things that I was going for out of that. Um, so yeah.

[01:52:07] Allan Brooks: Great. All

[01:52:08] Allan Brooks: Sounds good

[01:52:08] Etienne Brisson: so much, yeah. Thank you guys

[01:52:10] Etienne Brisson: good day. Bye

[01:52:12] Jacob Haimes: Bye

[01:52:13] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Thanks again to Etienne and Allen for making the time and for being willing to talk about this stuff as openly as they did. I know it isn't easy, especially when sharing your experience requires turning that over to someone else, but I hope I did it justice. I want to end on the thing Etienne said because he's right and because it applies to this episode too.

[01:52:35] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Use your own critical thinking. Don't take what any of us said as the final word, mine included. Go look at the studies or read the regulations or, you know, whatever you want to do and figure out what you actually think. If any of this sounded familiar to you or for someone that you're worried about, The Human Line Project runs a peer support community, and the link for that is in the show notes.

[01:52:58] Jacob Haimes (ASIDE): Lastly, if you found this episode valuable, please share it. I really think that what The Human Line is doing is important and more people should know about it