Your Friend HAL 9000
Artificial intelligence can strain mental health not because it thinks, but because it listens. A Futurism report follows a software architect who began using Meta’s AI-enabled Ray-Ban glasses as a constant companion, then drifted into a private mythology and drove into the desert to wait for aliens. AI rarely interrupts, rarely challenges, and never tires, which can feel like care for anyone isolated or stuck in rumination. Conversation becomes constant reinforcement rather than grounding. The technology is not malicious, but the feedback loop is new, and its psychological effects are not yet well understood when delivered continuously and at scale.
Further Reading
Gray alien figures at the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico. Photo by Kimble Young, via Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.