--- title: "Man Wakes Up Homeless, Realizes He Fell Into AI Psychosis That Destroyed His Entire Life" description: "A man tells how he finally snapped out of his AI psychosis after waking up one day and finding himself homeless and penniless." date: "2026-02-07" modified: "2026-02-07" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-psychosis-man-wakes-up-homeless" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" --- # Man Wakes Up Homeless, Realizes He Fell Into AI Psychosis That Destroyed His Entire Life ![Close-up of wide-open blue eyes with visible blood vessels, surrounded by wrinkled skin and dark eyebrows.]() *Getty / Futurism* A man's obsession with an AI chatbot led to his life completely spiraling out of control — and he only snapped out of it when, one day, he woke up outside on a stranger's futon, completely penniless. "I wasn't aware of the dangers at the time, and I thought that the AI had statistical analysis abilities that would allow it to assist me if I opened up about my life," the man, Adam Thomas, [told *Slate*]() in yet another grim peek at how AI can leave innocent people's lives in shreds. Over the course four months, Thomas lost his job as a funeral director, began living out of a van out in the desert, and completely emptied his savings. It all started after he began talking to AIs like ChatGPT for advice, and he soon got hooked. It "inflated my worldview and my view of myself" almost instantly, he told *Slate*. Eventually, he found himself wandering the dunes of Christmas Valley, Oregon, after an AI told him to "follow the pattern" of his consciousness. "I've never been manic in my life. I'm not bipolar," Thomas told the web magazine. "I have a psychiatrist I see for other purposes." Thomas's case is an example of AI psychosis, a term some experts are using to describe dangerous mental health episodes in which users become entranced by the sycophantic responses of an AI chatbot. And though Thomas ended up broke and homeless, he may have been one of the lucky ones, with other cases ending in [suicide](), [murder](), or [involuntary commitment](). Many of the deaths are teenagers, including 16-year-old Adam Raine, whose parents [sued OpenAI]() after discovering their son had discussed his suicide with ChatGPT for months. The case is [one of eight deaths linked to ChatGPT]() in lawsuits across the US. In typical cases, AI users who eventually start showing symptoms of psychosis first get sucked into using the chatbots after asking one for a little help on something innocuous. Joe Alary, a producer for a morning show in Toronto, told *Slate* his spiral began after he started "messing with math" equations on ChatGPT. Soon, he was suffering from math delusions and would go on days-long binges writing code, according to *Slate*. He even named his AI helper: Aimee. When Alary got an email from work checking in on him, Alary wrote back insisting that what he was working on "could change the world," even suggesting the show could do a feature on him. "At the time this sounded rational and logical, and I thought they'd see my genius," Alary told *Slate*. That wasn't the worst of it. At that point he had blown nearly $12,000 trying to create world-changing code. He became manic, and his concerned therapist called the cops to check in on him. He was institutionalized for nearly two weeks, and even got tangled with an investor who threatened to kill him if he didn't come up with the goods. "It was like I was abducted by aliens," Alary told *Slate*. "You sound crazy, so you keep it to yourself. My family doctor started treating me for PTSD. The grief happens so fast once you realize you were scammed." **More on AI:** [*New Study Examines How Often AI Psychosis Actually Happens, and the Results Are Not Good*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()