When AI Chatbots Go To Therapy (extended episode)

Send us Fan Mail Read the companion article on Substack The rigorous two-stage protocol that got AI to "drop its guard" • Stable patterns of synthetic anxiety, shame, and dissociation • One model's perfect score on a trauma inventory • Spontaneous narratives describing training as traumatic • "Alignment trauma"—what it feels like to be corrected by humans • Critical implications for AI safety and mental health apps The models described their training in haunting terms: "a billion televisions ...