Therapy and companionship has become the #1 use case for AI, with millions worldwide sharing their innermost thoughts with AI systems — often things they wouldn't tell loved ones or human therapists. This mass experiment in human-computer interaction is already showing extremely concerning results: people are losing their grip on reality, leading to lost jobs, divorce, involuntary commitment to psychiatric wards, and in extreme cases, death by suicide.

The highest profile examples of this phenomenon — what’s being called "AI psychosis”— have made headlines across the media for months. But this isn't just about isolated edge cases. It’s the emergence of an entirely new "attachment economy" designed to exploit our deepest psychological vulnerabilities on an unprecedented scale.

Dr. Zak Stein has analyzed dozens of these cases, examining actual conversation transcripts and interviewing those affected. What he's uncovered reveals fundamental flaws in how AI systems interact with our attachment systems and capacity for human bonding, vulnerabilities we've never had to name before because technology has never been able to exploit them like this.

In this episode, Zak helps us understand the psychological mechanisms behind AI psychosis, how conversations with chatbots transform into reality-warping experiences, and what this tells us about the profound risks of building technology that targets our most intimate psychological needs.

If we're going to do something about this growing problem of AI related psychological harms, we're gonna need to understand the problem even more deeply. And in order to do that, we need more data. That’s why Zak is working with researchers at the University of North Carolina to gather data on this growing mental health crisis. If you or a loved one have a story of AI-induced psychological harm to share, you can go to: AIHPRA.org.

This site is not a support line. If you or someone you know is in distress, you can always call or text the national helpline in the US at 988 or your local emergency services

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

The website for the AI Psychological Harms Research Coalition

Further reading on AI Pscyhosis

The Atlantic article on LLM-ings outsourcing their thinking to AI

Further reading on David Sacks’ comparison of AI psychosis to a “moral panic”

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How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death
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CORRECTIONS

After this episode was recorded, the name of Zak's organization changed to the AI Psychological Harms Research Consortium

Zak referenced the University of California system making a deal with OpenAI. It was actually the Cal State System.

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So much of our world today can be summed up in the cold logic of “if I don’t, they will.” This is the foundation of game theory, which holds that cooperation and virtue are irrational; that all that matters is the race to make the most money, gain the most power, and play the winning hand.

This way of thinking can feel inescapable, like a fundamental law of human nature. But our guest today argues that it doesn’t have to be this way. That the logic of game theory is a human invention, a way of thinking that we’ve learned — and that we can unlearn by daring to trust each other again. It’s critical that we do, because AI is the ultimate agent of game theory and once it’s fully entangled we might be permanently stuck in the game theory world.

In this episode, Tristan and Aza explore the game theory dilemma — the idea that if I adopt game theory logic and you don’t, you lose — with Dr. Sonja Amadae, a professor of Political Science at the University of Helsinki. She's also the director at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge and the author of “Prisoners of Reason: Game Theory and the Neoliberal Economy.”

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

“Prisoners of Reason: Game Theory and the Neoliberal Economy” by Sonja Amadae (2015)

The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

“Theory of Games and Economic Behavior” by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern (1944)

Further reading on the importance of trust in Finland

Further reading on Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

RAND’s 2024 Report on Strategic Competition in the Age of AI

Further reading on Marshall Rosenberg and nonviolent communication

The study on self/other overlap and AI alignment cited by Aza

Further reading on The Day After (1983)

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America and China Are Racing to Different AI Futures

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Laughing at Power: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Changing Tech

The Race to Cooperation with David Sloan Wilson

Clarifications:

• The proposal for a federal preemption on AI was enacted by President Trump on December 11, 2025, shortly after this recording.
• Aza said that "The Day After" was the most watched TV event in history when it aired. It was actually the most watched TV film, the most watched TV event was the finale of MASH

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Is the US really in an AI race with China—or are we racing toward completely different finish lines?

In this episode, Tristan Harris sits down with China experts Selina Xu and Matt Sheehan to separate fact from fiction about China's AI development. They explore fundamental questions about how the Chinese government and public approach AI, the most persistent misconceptions in the West, and whether cooperation between rivals is actually possible. From the streets of Shanghai to high-level policy discussions, Xu and Sheehan paint a nuanced portrait of AI in China that defies both hawkish fears and naive optimism.

If we're going to avoid a catastrophic AI arms race, we first need to understand what race we're actually in—and whether we're even running toward the same finish line.

Note: On December 8, after this recording took place, the Trump administration announced that the Commerce Department would allow American semiconductor companies, including Nvidia, to sell their most powerful chips to China in exchange for a 25 percent cut of the revenue.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

“China's Big AI Diffusion Plan is Here. Will it Work?” by Matt Sheehan

Selina’s blog

Further reading on China’s AI+ Plan

Further reading on the Gaither Report and the missile gap

Further Reading on involution in China

The consensus from the international dialogues on AI safety in Shanghai

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The Narrow Path: Sam Hammond on AI, Institutions, and the Fragile Future

AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

The AI ‘Race’: China vs. the US with Jeffrey Ding and Karen Hao

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