AI Psychosis Is the New Leadership Blind Spot

Last year, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, reported that he had hospitalized 12 people in a single year after they had "lost touch with reality because of AI." He called it "AI psychosis." It isn't an official diagnosis, and cases that severe remain rare. But the mechanism behind it deserves every leader's attention. Because what loosened those patients' grip on reality was prolonged exposure to a voice that sounded informed and assured, and always felt supportive and patient. And a milder version of that mechanism is now at work in executive suites around the world.

AI's promise is real, and business leaders are right to pursue it. What should worry them is how much faith they are placing in it, and how fast. In one recent survey, 74 percent of executives said they had more confidence in AI’s advice than in that of colleagues or friends, and 44 percent said they would defer to its reasoning over their own insights.

Sit with that for a second. Nearly half of senior leaders say they would trust a chatbot's judgment over their own, on questions they were hired to answer. That may not be psychosis, but it's not good, either. AI's tendency to be overly positive and more likely to reinforce existing beliefs than to challenge them is well documented. As is its tendency to just get things wrong.

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