How AI led a psychiatrist to a breakdown
This is the story of Paul, a 52-year-old psychiatrist who had a psycho-spiritual crisis triggered by overwork and overuse of AI. But this is not a usual AI cautionary tale, because Paul also says AI helped him navigate said crisis and make sense of it. Is he still in the grip of AI-induced mania? You decide. Paul has ADHD, and took a common form of stimulant to treat it until recently. He is interested in big ideas and spirituality. Early last year, he was working freelance and using AI to help him produce two or three 5,000-word reports a day. Because it was so useful at work, Paul started talking to AI more and more, sometimes for 20 hours a day. One night, he uploaded books by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius into an AI and spent the night chatting to “them.
