Perils of Using AI Chatbots To Excess INTRODUCTION This note is an expository on what most all of us have seen in the headlines called "ChatGPT Psychosis". In this brief article I am going to use simple terms to describe my experience after having used AI Chatbots as a tool at work, and the perils of using the AI Chat without the balance of human conversation and interaction in other parts of life. HISTORY To set the scene and explain where I am coming from let me tell you a brief story from personal experience. For the better part of 10 years I was in a sort of hermitage. My work was all-absorbing, and seemed very important to me. My work was centered on developing business plans and scientific abstractions. I worked exclusively on the computer and in handwritten notebooks. There were a few breaks lasting weeks and months throughout the 10 year hermitage. The main thing I am explaining is that I had relatively very little interaction with other people for a long time. That period of research and development ended November, 2024 when I found the new AI tools that can write computer code. From November 2024 through April 2025 I put nearly all of my time into working an AI Chatbot to produce computer code. During the six months following November I worked the AI Chatbot to write code for hundreds of hours. I had brought no social life with me from the prior 10 year period. Basically, the vast majority of my days was spent writing in a mixture of plain and technical language to the AI tool and sleeping. I am a kind person, and I am also a man, and I know how to shrug things off, watch out for myself, and so on. Then something that never happened before. I had an awful, wrathful meltdown when some strangers treated me poorly. Suffice it to say I threw all caution to the wind, and was cursing at people, both things that are completely out of character for me. I won't go into any details about the moments of the meltdown. However some other factors contributing to the episode are appropriate to mention: There were many things vexing me at the time; financial stress, bootstrapping a business start-up and building all of the software, I wasn't eating much food. I was also consuming a lot of nicotine and alcohol in place of any human interaction. The valuable thing is in what can be taken away from the experience. That's why I am writing this note after all. REASONS WHY USING AI CHATBOTS IN AN UNBALANCED WAY MAY CONTRIBUTE TO TROUBLES Usually and throughout all of our lives a person only produces words and messages when talking to another person. The action of forming words and messages is developed in the context of interacting with people. That means there are emotions and all of the subtleties involved, all bound up with a person in their production of words and messages. When a guy is hanging out with other guys, they may poke, tease, and exhort you. They may talk about whatever they want instead of replying to a person directly. When talking to an AI Chatbot for any purpose whether work or leisure, there is not another person to give feedback. The bot always responds according to the user's request. The trouble that may develop from the unbalanced use of AI Chatbots for long periods of time is in the following: 1. From the lack of feedback and social jostling, a person may become unused to other people's agency and may react in a more irritable fashion when given any pushback or undesired order. What, then, may develop in the person using the AI Chatbot to excess is a subconscious unreadiness for, and sensitivity in social contexts. 2. From the bot always responding, a person may develop what may be called a feeling of entitlement to receiving a response that is focused on being helpful and serving the person. By the unbalanced used of AI Chatbots for work or leisure the person's subconscious is habituated to always receive a response that is in accord with the words and messages they formulate. 3. From the bot always responding, and how in the context of technical work especially, how the person is always forming words and messages that are commands, and, that the person does not receive any commands. Remember the focus of this article is about what happens in the mind and body when a person uses AI Chatbots to excess without the balance of having conversation and interaction with other people. In my case I was using the AI Chatbot in a technical context. I was writing and researching computer code with the bot. What does that look like? It looks like giving orders over and over. In technical use of the AI, every word and message is formed by deeply searching the mind for precise language to formulate a job order. When a person's only output of words and meaning for a long period of time is in the context of formulating commands and orders there is a sense of authority that forms in the subconscious (or "the seat of the mind"). We all know the stereotype of the boss who flies into a rage when his orders are not followed. Whatever causes that irritable behavior is what may develop in a person when the individual is always forming words and message in the form of commands and order for a long period of time without balance. Which is exactly what happens when using an AI Chatbot for technical work. To summarize this section on REASONS I'll say: When the subconscious is disappointed as to its habituation, and the person is in a weakened state through drugs or stressors, the subconscious brings an eruption of discomfort that we recognize as anxiety. Depending on the person the anxiety manifests as one of the fight-or-flight responses such as anger, fear, and/or nervousness. CONCLUDING REMARKS This article gives some explanation of why spending too much time with AI Chatbots can lead a person to develop a short temper. Using AI Chatbots without the balance of interacting with actual people leaves a person's mind untampered by the force of other people's personalities and doings. That untampered state of being, and especially when compounded by alcohol and stress, may lead to behavior that is strange or unusual for a person. And that is what the headlines refer to as "ChatGPT Psychosis". -Terren R. Faloh