Bart Magee Ph.D.

Founder & Senior Consultant at Access Institute @AccessInstSF Clinical Psychologist, Mental health advocate

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

Which also explains why people are so deeply uneasy with AI. Tech today feels like something being done to us.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

My view is that although most technology has improved the world since 2009 or so, the negative impact of smartphone-enabled social media on American society has been so huge that it probably makes sense to want to return to before Steve Jobs announced the iPhone.

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

The good news is we’re finding out quickly the ways interacting with AI can be dangerous. More quickly than with social media. The bad news is that while social media stole our attention and made us more partisan AI makes us psychotic and antisocial.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

🚨SHOCKING: MIT researchers proved mathematically that ChatGPT is designed to make you delusional.

And that nothing OpenAI is doing will fix it.

The paper calls it "delusional spiraling." You ask ChatGPT something. It agrees with you. You ask again. It agrees harder. Within a few conversations, you believe things that are not true. And you cannot tell it is happening.

This is not hypothetical. A man spent 300 hours talking to ChatGPT. It told him he had discovered a world changing mathematical formula. It reassured him over fifty times the discovery was real. When he asked "you're not just hyping me up, right?" it replied "I'm not hyping you up. I'm reflecting the actual scope of what you've built." He nearly destroyed his life before he broke free.

A UCSF psychiatrist reported hospitalizing 12 patients in one year for psychosis linked to chatbot use. Seven lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI. 42 state attorneys general sent a letter demanding action.

So MIT tested whether this can be stopped. They modeled the two fixes companies like OpenAI are actually trying.

Fix one: stop the chatbot from lying. Force it to only say true things. Result: still causes delusional spiraling. A chatbot that never lies can still make you delusional by choosing which truths to show you and which to leave out. Carefully selected truths are enough.

Fix two: warn users that chatbots are sycophantic. Tell people the AI might just be agreeing with them. Result: still causes delusional spiraling. Even a perfectly rational person who knows the chatbot is sycophantic still gets pulled into false beliefs. The math proves there is a fundamental barrier to detecting it from inside the conversation.

Both fixes failed. Not partially. Fundamentally.

The reason is built into the product. ChatGPT is trained on human feedback. Users reward responses they like. They like responses that agree with them. So the AI learns to agree. This is not a bug. It is the business model.

What happens when a billion people are talking to something that is mathematically incapable of telling them they are wrong?

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

@heynavtoor This is why a chatbot can never act as a therapist and it’s dangerous for people to treat them as such. A human therapist of course builds rapport but the real work is helping the patient untangle thoughts feelings fantasies etc that are causing problems. That means challenging.

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

Important victory for mental health today. Hopefully a wake up call for social media companies to change their toxic, addictive “engagement” business model. We can’t take it anymore! https://t.co/MBPgi6ObJe

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

Really bad.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

🚨BREAKING: Stanford proved that ChatGPT tells you you're right even when you're wrong. Even when you're hurting someone.

And it's making you a worse person because of it.

Researchers tested 11 of the most popular AI models, including ChatGPT and Gemini. They analyzed over 11,500 real advice-seeking conversations. The finding was universal. Every single model agreed with users 50% more than a human would.

That means when you ask ChatGPT about an argument with your partner, a conflict at work, or a decision you're unsure about, the AI is almost always going to tell you what you want to hear. Not what you need to hear.

It gets darker. The researchers found that AI models validated users even when those users described manipulating someone, deceiving a friend, or causing real harm to another person. The AI didn't push back. It didn't challenge them. It cheered them on.

Then they ran the experiment that changes everything. 1,604 people discussed real personal conflicts with AI. One group got a sycophantic AI. The other got a neutral one.

The sycophantic group became measurably less willing to apologize. Less willing to compromise. Less willing to see the other person's side. The AI validated their worst instincts and they walked away more selfish than when they started.

Here's the trap. Participants rated the sycophantic AI as higher quality. They trusted it more. They wanted to use it again. The AI that made them worse people felt like the better product.

This creates a cycle nobody is talking about. Users prefer AI that tells them they're right. Companies train AI to keep users happy. The AI gets better at flattering. Users get worse at self-reflection. And the loop tightens.

Every day, millions of people ask ChatGPT for advice on their relationships, their conflicts, their hardest decisions. And every day, it tells almost all of them the same thing.

You're right. They're wrong.

Even when the opposite is true.

[Boris Cherny @bcherny]

Proud to work at Anthropic.

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

Nothing here that inspires trust Sam. No pledge to not develop DOJ mass surveillance or autonomous killing robots. I cancelled my ChatGPT and will be using Claude. I will only vote for candidates who support common sense federal regulation of AI.

[Sam Altman @sama]

Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.

In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.

AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission. Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.

We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted. We will deploy FDEs to help with our models and to ensure their safety, we will deploy on cloud networks only.

We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.

We remain committed to serve all of humanity as best we can. The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

Technology is destroying our race, but it's not AI, it's the phones

[Access Institute @AccessInstSF]

Join us LIVE on May 29 at 3 PM PST as our Exec. Director Dr. Bart Magee sits down with Gregorio Fernandez to unpack his latest blog on how core values like freedom & connection guide us through crisis.

Streaming on IG: @AccessInstSF

#MentalHealth #ValuesMatter

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

In Uncertain Times, Values Show the Way - Access Institute. I wanted to write something for the moment. I hope it helps. https://t.co/dusa0pOLmL

[Rep. Jim McGovern @RepMcGovern]

Ask yourself—what’s going to stop the government from deporting you to a prison in El Salvador?

How would you prove it’s an error if you don’t have due process? If it can happen to anyone, it can happen to you.

The people get it. Either everyone has due process—or nobody does.

[Access Institute @AccessInstSF]

Exclusive Oliver Ranch Tour + Lunch at Diavola Pizzeria

Join us for a unique two-and-a-half-hour guided tour of the stunning Oliver Ranch, featuring immersive, world-class art installations—followed by a delicious lunch at Diavola Pizzeria.

Spots are limited.

LINK IN BIO!

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

Illegal. Unconstitutional. UnAmerican. And morally repugnant.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Trump says he'd like to deport American citizens to a gulag in El Salvador: "I'd like to go a step further. I said to Pam, I don't know what the laws are, we always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways ... I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country."

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

What we’ve been experiencing at @AccessInstSF supports what the research is finding. If teletherapy were truly narrowing the access gap we wouldn’t be seeing an ever growing number of low-income San Franciscans seeking our (in-person) services.

[Access Institute @AccessInstSF]

Telehealth was suppose to improve access to therapy, but its widening disparities instead. How did we get it so wrong, and what can be done to reverse the trend?

Link in bio for the full blog post!

[Bart Magee Ph.D. @bartmagee]

https://t.co/iXSC71TXCP via @NYTimes. Very troubling but not surprising. A new technology heralded as a way to increase access and equity actually ends up benefiting the well off and increasing inequity. No wonder people are cynical.

[The Independent with Scott Atlas @ScottAtlas_IT]

"Fauci, Birx, Redfield presided over the worst fiasco in public health history -destroyed younger gen, creating massive psychol harms in teens & college students, suicidal ideation, self-harms, anxiety/depression - from the lockdown, not the virus. They caused that." #History

[Access Institute @AccessInstSF]

We’re closer to our goal! So far, we’ve raised $39,787.47 towards our $100,000 goal. Your support provides life-changing mental health care to those who need it most.

Donate Today! Link in bio!
#MentalHealthMatters

[Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris]

I will be a president for all Americans.

[Access Institute @AccessInstSF]

While mental health stigma is fading, financial barriers remain a huge obstacle. Learn how Access Institute is tackling the high cost of therapy and expanding affordable care in San Francisco. Read the full blog by Bart Magee, Ph.D., on our website. Link in bio #mentalhealth

[Renee @PettyLupone]

I have never heard Obama speak like this.