When the Danish psychiatrist Søren Dinesen Østergaard published his ominous warning about AI's effects on mental health back in 2023, the tech giants fervently building AI chatbots didn't listen. Since that time, numerous people have lost their lives after being drawn into suicide or killed by lethal drugs after obsessive interactions with AI chatbots. More still have fallen down dangerous mental health rabbit holes brought on by intense fixations on AI models like ChatGPT.
Some days, starting feels effortless. A clear challenge or opportunity presents itself, an idea crystallizes, and then contracts into a single coherent thought. Today, frankly? That's not happening. I'm staring at a pristine white canvas while the cursor mocks me. That uncomfortable space-the blinking cursor, the first messy draft, the false starts-isn't a nuisance. It's where creativity lives. Today, the temptation is to skip past all that.
Cognitive neuroscientist and author Dr Jared Cooney Horvath never uses ChatGPT - and recommends others do the same because the risks outweigh the benefits. While the possibilities of the AI chatbot seem endless, it's giving rise to 'digital dependence' as people will 'no longer have the skill or knowledge' to complete the task themselves. But that's not all. Dr Horvath, the 42-year-old creator of The Learning Blueprint metacognition program, told Daily Mail that ChatGPT could kill your memory, fracture your attention span and wreck your creativity over time.
