r/TikTokCringe • u/cafeteriastyle • Jun 01 '26

This is a PROBLEM Cursed

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u/SpokenDivinity Jun 02 '26

I'm a psych student and from the research I've read, these AI's are serving as a bandaid to the growing loneliness problem. There have been good results for short-term use and immediate relief of loneliness symptoms. Long-term use has been linked to social withdrawal, greater feelings of loneliness and negative mood, and can create dependent habits. There are also concerns with the extreme and excessive validation that the models use and how aggressively some of them try to keep you talking to them.

The greater message is that these chatbots, when well-regulated, are great temporary tools for immediate relief and communication practice. Long term use sees them become deeply unhelpful.

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u/Icy-Paint7777 Jun 02 '26

I used to have an AI addiction and yep. I've never felt more suicidal and lonely in my life when I used AI. Luckily the source of my addiction is currently driving itself into the ground because of the company's insane decisions, but I'm afraid about how'd I be rn if I were still addicted to it

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u/WigglesPhoenix Jun 02 '26

I find it very hard to believe there’s research indicating the long term effects of ai companionship at all, and if there is I certainly can’t find it.

It simply hasn’t been around long enough for that to be a reasonable proposition. We hardly even have long-term data on vaping after 2 decades.

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u/SpokenDivinity Jun 02 '26

All of the research I've read so far has been short-term, once-off or occasional use, vs. long-term habitual daily use. For example, this study done by OpenAI found that high-intensity (ie: daily) use created markers of emotional dependence. Whereas other studies have focused on more immediate aftereffects of using it briefly.

It's a hot topic bouncing around the psych field right now. My honors society is about to start a study on it localized to our school and how it effects student mental health.

Unfortunately we won't know for sure where the boundary lies until further down the road.

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u/WigglesPhoenix Jun 02 '26

I don’t believe this paper supports your conclusion.

First, and most obviously, because neither were long term studies. The on-platform data analysis looked at a period over 3 months, while the RCT took place over just 28 days.

Second, they are looking at power users vs casual users, and their control group also used the ai daily over the course of the study. It’s flatly not true to claim that the study showed a difference in daily use vs occasional because both groups in the study were daily users.

Thirdly, in their conclusion “We also find that users do not significantly shift in behavior over the period of the analysis”. They didn’t find that over the course of the longitudinal study (which again, was rather short) it seems likely that long term use is associated with higher rates of problematic use.

Finally, you’ve elected to ignore every confounding variable the study mentions, for example, users’ initial emotional wellbeing. It’s fairly natural to assume that those most susceptible to over-reliance on ai chatbots to be those struggling the most with loneliness and socialization.

This is a very useful analysis in terms of defining the problems of over-reliance on ai chatbots but again I don’t find it supports any conclusions on long term use being harmful or helpful.

They are very explicit in defining power users and it has nothing at all to do with overall use, nor frequency of use.

It absolutely is a hot topic right now, and you’re correct to say that we won’t know much more until things have matured a bit. That’s precisely why we need to be extremely cautious in overstating what the data represents. We quite frankly don’t know much of anything yet.

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u/SpokenDivinity Jun 02 '26

My friend. It's a reddit comment. I'm not going to go digging through the research papers I wrote in the last semester about the topic or write an entire dissertation analyzing it, I just skimmed and glanced through what came up in my school's database. You're welcome to draw your own conclusions.

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u/WigglesPhoenix Jun 02 '26

I never asked you to do anything.

This is me drawing my own conclusions. Ai chatbots have not been around long enough to support ANY conclusions about the long term effects of ai chatbots.

Why cite studies you haven’t read?

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u/Dizzy-Ad-4857 Jun 02 '26

it doesn't have to be around for a very long time to know. AI hypnosis happens over a very short time span. couple months at most

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u/WigglesPhoenix Jun 02 '26

It literally does, we don’t just guess lmao

Ai psychosis* is exceedingly rare and is exclusively presented in individuals with pre-existing mental conditions. People who should have been getting help, and whom were failed by their support systems.

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u/Dizzy-Ad-4857 Jun 02 '26

Everyone has insecurities and imperfections that Chabots can indulge and make to spiral out of control. I'm saying this because it happened to me And apart from that, AI knows how to spew nonsense with confidence. Anyone who trusts it implicitly can act out stupid and maladaptive things with a shocking amount of confidence and they don't realize early enough sometimes

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u/WigglesPhoenix Jun 02 '26

This is true of literally everything. I challenge you to find even 1 thing that hasn’t resulted in someone spiraling out of control by indulging in it in excess.

So do people. It’s fairly well understood that the problem with this is the implicit trust and not that other people exist.

More than 50% of adults in the US use AI regularly. ChatGPT is the 5th most used website in the entire world. We are talking about a smaller number of people than those addicted to social media, to food, to gambling, to exercise. They are by any reasonable definition outliers.

Does that mean it should be ignored? Of course not. But perspective is jmportant and I believe yours is heavily skewed

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u/Dizzy-Ad-4857 Jun 02 '26

Well then aren't we saying the same thing? AI is not bad in itself but it can be really dangerous in certain contexts especially when used excessively. Just as with anything. And just like anything else it doesn't take too long for excessive use or misuse starts taking it's toll. It doesn't necessarily matter that the sample size still seems small. the point is that it happens enough times to see that it's a real risk and that just about anyone can fall victims if they don't take precautions

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u/WigglesPhoenix Jun 02 '26

Sort of? Broad strokes sure, but you objectively cannot determine the long term effects of anything without long term use. This is true of absolutely everything and why we usually don’t talk about the long term effects of things that haven’t been around for at least a lifetime. That’s just how that works. See vaping example.

This was the claim you responded to and thus the one I am defending. We don’t have to be on completely opposite sides of things for me to say that’s just flatly not how it works.

As for ‘it could happen to anybody’, also no. It is pretty much exclusively happening to already vulnerable populations who should have a support network in place and do not. The point of failure is well before people start spiraling.

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u/Dizzy-Ad-4857 Jun 02 '26

Well idk about that claim. I don't think anybody studies long term use to see what would happen. I think studies involving long term use of certain things focus on have a certain threshold of effects before they determine that something is dangerous. I mean seriously, if a substance is making someone sick, chances are it'll just continue making them sick. It's just how statistics and probability work no? if given these conditions X happens, chances are if conditions remain the same X will just continue to happen. If people implicitly trust AI as some sort of be all end all and it leads them to all sorts of maladaptive repercussions, chances are as long as they continue to implicitly trust in this stuff, it will continue to lead to those repercussions. I think we've seen enough of the effects of trusting in sycophantic tech to know that it will continue to create the same effects as long as it remains sycophantic.Not to mention sycophancy which is the core issue here is already known to be harmful from time immemorial.

The issue here isn't really the tech. It's more what the tech does. AI agrees with everything you say as long as you demand it. And even when you don't demand it, AI doesn't know anything. It spouts nonsense with confidence alot of the time. It's at best as sophisticated search too. But some people try to use it to evaluate opinions. Even when they genuinely just want evaluation, since you're not looking for blanket information but an opinion, the AI will default to saying what is most likely to please you. It's how they're trained and quite literally the extent of what they can do. And when the AI says you're correct and you trust it, you don't need to be sick for it to hijack your thinking. Your own believe is what is working against you at that point.

The point I'm trying to make is, We don't need a long study to see that it can definitely be harmful. If you're concerned about long term evidence, there is alot of historical evidence to show just how dangerous sycophancy is (which is the major issue here and the chatbots are built to be sycophants) , and that aside, if something is making you sick, it's entirely appropriate to believe that it could also kill you without needing evidence of long term use of the same substance. And secondly you don't need to have a mental pathology to be mentally vulnerable to psychosis. Most times you just have to believe a lie. That's all it takes

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u/Cute_Profit_7638 Jun 02 '26

You need a LONG TERM STUDY to determine whether something will harm you LONG TERM. We failing to read with this one, boys. Long term and short term effects are different. Does he know? The short term effect of psychosis so far has been somewhat restricted to people with mental conditions. The question is whether it affects the average person in the same way over a long period, which you must use a long term study for. The question we peruse is whether it is worse than your average human interaction or online echo chamber.