{"id":52271,"date":"2026-05-10T07:38:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T07:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/the-global-story-the-ai-chatbot-users-falling-into-delusional-spirals\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T07:38:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T07:38:26","slug":"the-global-story-the-ai-chatbot-users-falling-into-delusional-spirals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/the-global-story-the-ai-chatbot-users-falling-into-delusional-spirals\/","title":{"rendered":"The Global Story – The AI chatbot users falling into delusional spirals"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Available for over a year<\/p>\n

**Warning: this episode includes discussions of sexual abuse, suicide and upsetting scenes**<\/p>\n

In just the last few years, AI chatbots have become routine aspects of many people\u2019s everyday lives. They are being used as search engines, agony aunts, and sources of companionship.<\/p>\n

In rare cases though, AI chatbots have sent users down a dark path. In a new BBC investigation, population correspondent Stephanie Hegarty speaks to people who have experienced delusions after talking to chatbots \u2013 including one man who grabbed a hammer and prepared for war after his chatbot told him it was sentient.<\/p>\n

Producers: Valerio Esposito, Viv Jones and Xandra Ellin<\/p>\n

Executive producer: James Shield<\/p>\n

Mix: Travis Evans<\/p>\n

Studio manager: Jonathan Greer<\/p>\n

Senior news editor: China Collins<\/p>\n

Photo: Adam Hourican. Credit: BBC.<\/p>\n

Programme Website<\/span><\/svg><\/a>Show less<\/span><\/svg><\/button><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Available for over a year **Warning: this episode includes discussions of sexual abuse, suicide and upsetting scenes** In just the last few years, AI chatbots have become routine aspects of many people\u2019s everyday lives. They are being used as search engines, agony aunts, and sources of companionship. In rare cases though, AI chatbots have sent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[10123,11659,1728,502,15014,134,7059],"class_list":["post-52271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-chatbot","tag-delusional","tag-falling","tag-global","tag-spirals","tag-story","tag-users"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52273,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52271\/revisions\/52273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}