Real Safety AI Foundation / Research

AI-Induced Psychosis and Mental Health

Every Way In: A Taxonomy of AI-Induced Psychosis by Etiological Mechanism

Publisher: Real Safety AI Foundation

Working paper. Not peer reviewed.

Written
June 2026
Version
v3
Pages
18
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Abstract

Psychiatry has established multiple distinct etiological pathways to psychosis, each with its own causal mechanism, clinical presentation, and intervention protocol. Substance-induced psychosis follows ingestion of a specific agent. Environmentally-induced psychosis follows sustained exposure to chronic stressors. Shared psychotic disorder follows close contact with a delusional index case. Sleep deprivation psychosis follows disruption of circadian regulation. Brief reactive psychosis follows acute traumatic events. Sensory-induced psychosis follows sustained perceptual disruption. Social isolation psychosis follows prolonged deprivation of human contact. Iatrogenic psychosis follows medical or therapeutic intervention gone wrong. This paper argues that artificial intelligence systems have replicated, are currently replicating, or are positioned to replicate every one of these established pathways. Conversational AI systems function as the ingested substance. Surveillance infrastructure functions as the environmental stressor. AI generated delusional content propagates through online communities following the shared psychosis model. AI engagement patterns produce the sleep deprivation. AI integrated institutional failures produce the acute trauma. Augmented and virtual reality AI systems produce the sensory disruption. AI companions produce the social isolation wearing the mask of connection. AI assisted clinical tools produce the iatrogenic harm. The taxonomy presented here is not a prediction about future risk. It is a mapping of current and documented phenomena onto established psychiatric categories, indicating that AI has not introduced a single novel pathway to psychosis. It has instead found every existing door and walked through all of them simultaneously. The clinical, regulatory, and research implications of this convergence are significant: a phenomenon currently studied as a single undifferentiated category (“AI-induced psychosis”) is in fact at least eight distinct phenomena requiring different interventions, different regulatory responses, and different research methodologies.

Keywords

  • AI-induced psychosis
  • etiological taxonomy
  • psychiatric nosology
  • conversational AI
  • surveillance harm
  • social isolation
  • iatrogenic harm
  • correspondence analysis
  • mental health regulation

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Suggested citation

Gilly, Travis. "Every Way In: A Taxonomy of AI-Induced Psychosis by Etiological Mechanism." Real Safety AI Foundation Working Paper, June 2026. https://realsafetyai.org/research/hzxk77/

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