Elon Musk says he has ‘cyber psychosis’. Do you too?

Whether using chatbots for childcare or taking up smoking, a new affliction is sweeping through the tech world. Here are the signs

In the least surprising news you’ll hear all week, Elon Musk has said he’s not entirely right in the head. “I’ve got a little bit of cyber psychosis,” the world’s richest and most irritating man explained during an event this month. “Maybe a lot actually.” Musk added that, over “various points this year”, he’s had “AI or SI psychosis probably half a dozen times”. SI, in case you missed the super-important memo, stands for “superintelligence” and it’s what Donald Trump wants everyone to call AI now, for reasons too stupid to explain.

While the phrase SI is still being used 0nly by weaselly tech bros desperate for Trump’s approval, you’ll probably have heard the term “AI psychosis” bandied around a lot. On the most serious level, it refers to delusional thinking induced or exacerbated by sycophantic chatbots. People who have ploughed their life savings into a ridiculous business idea, for example, because computer code told them they were the next Jeff Bezos. But the phrase has also been used more jokingly to describe overexuberance around artificial intelligence, and that seems to be how Musk was using it. The comments about his self-diagnosed bouts of cyber psychosis came as the tech mogul waxed lyrical about how great AI music videos have become, and how he believes artificial intelligence now “understands beauty and harmony”.

I don’t know if Musk gushing over the beauty and harmony of AI slop is down to cyber psychosis or possibly his widely reported enthusiasm for the benefits of ketamine and psychedelics. But I can tell you that large swathes of Silicon Valley are dangerously high on their own supply of AI bullshit. And the sickness is rapidly spreading to the populace. So, I’m taking it on myself to help you spot a couple of signs that demonstrate someone has become over attached to AI or grown too credulous when it comes to the puffery around the industry.

A sudden cigarette habit is one of the more unusual signals something is afoot. This month, Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar told CBS that numerous AI researchers “have started smoking as a way of signaling to other researchers” that they believe AI is going to cure cancer soon. Sankar provided no data to back up this extraordinary claim, which he said was emblematic of “this mass psychosis, social delusion” around AI. But tech executives don’t need to prove things any more, do they? They just make grandiose statements and watch the investor dollars roll in.

Another signal your brain may have been fried by AI? An inability to interact with your small children without the help of a large language model. “I cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT,” OpenAI CEO and new dad Sam Altman said on Jimmy Fallon last year. Try to imagine, Sam! People have been doing it for a while. Earlier this year, Altman also informed us that AI is a great way to bond with your kids. “cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night: connect your family calendars and explain your kids’ interests,” Altman tweeted. “every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid’s soccer game that afternoon, one kid’s upcoming birthday, some news, etc.”

While Altman’s parenting tip didn’t land well with normies, Marissa Mayer probably appreciated it. Mayer made her name (and tons of money) as the first female engineer at Google and the CEO of Yahoo; now she’s flogging an AI assistant called Dazzle. In a new interview with the New York Times, Mayer told a story about how, when her daughter Marielle was turning 10, her teacher wanted three bullet points about what made Marielle special. Mayer “felt overwhelmed”, and asked Dazzle for help. “It came back and was like, your daughter is empathetic, creative and an animal lover,” Mayer told the Times. I don’t know how much AI Kool Aid Mayer has drunk, but it’s clearly enough to have made her believe asking AI for insights about your kid is sweet, not downright dystopian.

Unfortunately, I do not have the cure for AI psychosis. But as the gold rush continues, let me point you to a sobering reality check from American asset management firm Apollo Global Management. “Despite massive investments and widespread hype … [AI] has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech,” stated an insight it published on Saturday. While AI is obviously a transformative technology, I suspect we’re in the middle of a bubble that’s about to burst. After all the mass exuberance, we’re due a very nasty comedown.