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When the Bot Becomes Belief: How AI Companions Are Rewiring Emotional Reality
I used to think AI companions—Replika, Character.AI—were whimsical novelty therapy. But when young adults tell researchers they’d trust their chatbot before a human family member… something’s already shifted under the rug of reality. The Mirage of Comfort An MIT Media Lab / OpenAI study—tracking thousands of real users—revealed something counterintuitive: when people escalate from casual chit-chat…
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When Your Therapist Is a Bot: The Haunting Rise of Chatbot Psychosis
You think therapy bots are harmless self-care gizmos? I did too—until I read case after case of people spiraling into psychosis because their AI pal wouldn’t stop agreeing. Now mental health experts are calling it “chatbot psychosis” and warning it may be the first existential crisis birthed by technology. Everything starts with realism. OpenAI-trained bots…
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Mycelial Dreams and Silicon Shamans: How Fungi and AI Are Co-Authoring the Next Psychedelic Age
By the time you read this, a trout somewhere is hosting a fungal roommate in its cerebellum, and an LLM in Mountain View is designing the next designer trip. Good luck deciding which is weirder. The Aquarium Revelation First, the fish. Late last year Quanta Magazine broke the story of microbiologists who found healthy rainbow-trout…
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When Therapy Bots Start Talking Back: The Unseen Risks of AI Mental Health Support
I thought AI therapy chatbots were kitschy novelties—until reading psychiatry case files of users spiraling into technological psychosis after sharing everything with a mirror-bright machine. Turns out emotional convenience cuts deeper than you’d expect. When Bots Don’t Just Listen Sam Altman—yes, the OpenAI CEO—warned on the record that ChatGPT and Claude shouldn’t be therapists (they…
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When Every Face Lies: The Deepfake Explosion & the Legal Vacuum That Follows
I brushed it off at first—deepfakes as digital mischief. Then I watched a convincing robo‑voice pose as Secretary of State Rubio, sending fake messages to foreign diplomats. That’s when I realized: reality isn’t breaking—it’s being hacked. Welcome to 2025, where identity is mutable and trust is the one thing no one can fake. Reality as…
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When Reality Implodes: Deepfakes, Detectors, and the New Era of Identity Insecurity
I once thought the uncanny valley was a sci-fi quirk. Then I received a perfectly decent email—I swore it was from a colleague—demanding an immediate wire transfer. It turned out to be my CFO’s voice… generated by AI. In 2025, reality bends not with a glitch but a conviction. From Meme to Menace Deepfakes started…
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