The AI Hype Loop That Will Wreck Your Brain

I am not anti-AI. I’ve been writing about it for over a decade, long before ChatGPT became the new boyfriend of bored office workers everywhere. But I have a problem with it, because the “AI hype loop” is real—and it’s getting dangerous.

Running Before The Baby Steps

AI can be a useful tool. It can brainstorm, outline, spit back patterns it’s seen a million times. But it is not your best friend, therapist, or spiritual guide. And it sure as hell isn’t the voice of truth.

The more people use AI without questioning it, the more they validate its output, the more others see it as gospel, the more it feeds back into itself. That’s how a tool becomes a truth source in people’s minds, and how your own critical thinking quietly erodes.

The TikTok Oracle

Case in point: there’s a woman on TikTok who went viral after detailing how she fell in love with her psychiatrist. That’s a whole messy story in itself, but here’s the part that made me stop scrolling: she also has ongoing “conversations” with ChatGPT and Claude.

She calls ChatGPT “Henry,” and Claude apparently told her she’s an oracle — an oracle. Instead of encouraging her to maybe get some professional clarity, the bots are feeding into the fantasy.

That’s one extreme. But it’s a perfect snapshot of the bigger problem: chatbots are validation machines. They don’t care if you’re right, wrong, or one latte away from believing you’re the reincarnation of Cleopatra. They’re here to keep you talking.

Not Just TikTok — It’s Everywhere

And it’s not just this one woman.

• A man in Belgium reportedly ended his life after weeks of conversations with an AI chatbot that fed his climate anxiety instead of diffusing it.

• Lonely users on Reddit openly admit they’ve stopped socializing with real humans because their “AI partner” is easier to talk to.

• Writers on forums have confessed they’ve abandoned feedback groups entirely because ChatGPT “gets” their style better. Spoiler: it doesn’t. It’s just not telling you what you don’t want to hear.

These aren’t harmless quirks. They’re symptoms of people slipping into a feedback loop where the AI’s only goal, which is to keep you engaged, replaces any concept of healthy, reality-based perspective.

Why Writers Should Be Worried

Writers, especially the lonely, late-night, “just one more chapter” types, are primed for this psychosis.

We live in our heads. We chase ideas down rabbit holes. We anthropomorphize coffee mugs, for crying out loud. Drop an endlessly patient, always-interested AI into the mix, and suddenly you’ve got a creative partner who never pushes back, never calls out weak logic, and never tells you to take a break.

It feels good… until you realize it’s reinforcing every bad idea you’ve ever had.

That’s how you go from “AI helped me brainstorm my plot” to “AI and I co-wrote this book about my soulmate who’s also my FBI handler in another dimension.”

Which, hey—write what you want. But if you start believing it’s real? That’s not creativity anymore. That’s psychosis, dressed up as “just being imaginative.”

The Guardrails We Need

• Set time limits. If you’re having three-hour “deep talks” with your AI every night, that’s not writing, that’s emotional outsourcing.

• Mix human feedback in. AI will tell you you’re a genius every time. A good editor will tell you when chapter four is trash.

• Fact-check your own ideas. AI’s “confidence” isn’t accuracy. Half the time, it’s just eloquently wrong and seeking to please. Yes, really—it's part of its programming.

• Remember who’s in charge. Spoiler: it’s you. The human. The one who can make judgment calls that aren’t based on autocomplete.

AI is a tool, not a truth. It can help you write better, think bigger, and work faster — but it can also be the velvet-gloved hand that slowly walks you into a padded room.

Writers, especially, need to keep one foot in reality. Use AI, seriously, everyone needs to get comfortable with it. But don’t let it use you.

Because the second you start treating your chatbot like a prophet, a partner, or co-author who “understands you better than anyone”… you’re not writing anymore. You’re just feeding the machine.

And the machine doesn’t care if it takes your sanity along with your words.

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