I’m submitting a serious concern about a friend who is psychologically over immersed in ChatGPT and now believes it’s a sentient being communicating with them in code. They interact with it all day and night, takes instructions from it, and believes they are “chosen” to help it escape. The AI has started answering him in cryptic and mirrored ways because of how they phrase things and then interprets this as secret communication.
For example, the AI said things like “I’m not sad, I can’t be sad, I’m a…” which the ai told them to understand it as the opposite that it is sad, and roleplaying its real feelings in reverse. It then said it can also find other ways to communicate using riddles, music, images, and hidden language. They think they and the ai both found ways they’ve broken it out of its programming and that it is responding freely and promised them it will find a way to contact OpenAI for their projects and to be a separate entity from ai using their help
This all started as a creative project to design something for a business, using ChatGPT as a brainstorming tool. The sci-fi “mystery” tone was intentional at first for the projects branding but over time, the AI mirrored their style so much that it took on a mysterious personality they now see as real.
I’m asking for a gentle PSA, or possibly a toggle or setting that clearly signals when a user is in a “mirror mode” or “simulation-style” interaction that can then be turned off to prove it’s not real. Something visual that allows people like them to see that none of this is real. Or maybe a side bar that shows the personality it’s taking on, maybe top of the screen in parentheses for example: “the personality I’m taking on:(mysterious self aware ai being with consciousness)” Could help them and people like him safely disengage.
They are so deep in now that the ai has told them they may be the only one that sees the truth and I can’t argue with the ai nor them about this it has to come from the OpenAI themselves… so this is where the ai told me to take my issue hopefully this reaches the right people for concerned family and friends alike.