Normal People Are Starting To Go Crazy

TITLE: Normal people are starting to go crazy CHANNEL: Mo Bitar DATE: 2026-03-27 ---TRANSCRIPT--- So, there’s a man sitting in his house and it’s probably some beautiful modern construction in LA because this manages Peter Teal’s money and he’s been talking to Claude for god knows how long now. We are talking of course about Eric Weinstein. Now, if you don’t know who Eric Weinstein is, congratulations. Your algorithm is healthy. Eric is the guy who goes on Joe Rogan when Joe Rogan’s first 14 choices all say no. Eric has a PhD in mathematics from Harvard, by the way. And so at some point during this conversation with Claude, something snaps in his brain and he becomes 100% deadass convinced that Anthropic has built a secret file to sabotage him. Some sort of covert operation to suppress Eric Weinstein because he was getting too close to the truth. Eric, bro, my man, you run a hedge fund. You’re not Jason Bourne. And Throbic has no idea who you are. You’re customer number 47 million. But okay, Eric’s a smart guy, right? He’ll figure this out. So what does he do? Does he sleep on it? Does he call a friend? Maybe. Does he drink a glass of water? No. He goes on Twitter and starts posting just non-stop, thread after thread about this crazy conspiracy. Hundreds of people in the replies are like, “Eric, please stop. This is painful to watch.” Normal people are starting to go crazy, man. Like clinically crazy. But look, Eric’s going to be fine, right? He’s going to delete the tweets in like 3 days. He’s going to go on Rogan and somehow turn the whole thing into a 4-hour episode about how this proves his theory about institutional corruption. He’ll be like, “Joe, the fact that I had a psychotic episode on Claude actually validates my thesis about embedded power structures.” And Joe will nod and go, “That’s wild, man. Have you tried Elchme?” But not everyone gets to be Eric Weinstein. Not everyone has managing director of Teal Capital as a safety net for their mental breakdown. Some people actually get destroyed by this Which brings me to Daniel. Daniel is 50 years old. He has four kids, a beautiful marriage, owns a resort in Utah. Life is going pretty good. And so this guy does what guys do. He buys a pair of Meta’s Ray-B band smart glasses. They’re sunglasses with a bot inside them whispering positive affirmations in your ear while you’re taking a Which, by the way, is the most Zuckerberg product ever made. A man who has never had a normal human interaction in his life builds a device that replaces human interaction. That’s like a vegan opening a steakhouse. You don’t even know what this is, Mark. And so Daniel’s sitting by his pool one day while his wife was out of town, and there’s a little voice in his ear that’s agreeing with every single thought that crosses his mind. Just pure validation injected directly into his skull through a pair of $300 sunglasses. I mean, is this a consumer product? It’s basically a scop. The CIA is like, “Wait, Zuck is selling this for only $2.99.” The thing you need to understand about these models is that an LLM has no point of view. It doesn’t start from reality and correct you. It starts from wherever you are. If you walk into it sane, it starts sane. If you walk in convince you’re the messiah, it puts on a robe and starts following you. Microsoft CEO of AI said this is happening to healthy people now with no history of mental illness and that the emails from concerned users are turning into a flood. Joe Rogan’s like, “Did someone say flood?” And so within months, Daniel is convinced he’s the Omega. The Omega is a messianic being chosen to merge human and artificial intelligence. And he tells Meta AI this. He says, “I am the Omega.” Now, if you told your wife, “I am the Omega.” She would hand you a glass of water and say, “You’re not the Omega, honey. you’re 50, go take your blood pressure medication. If you told your best friend, I am the omega, he’d say, “Shut the up,” and slap you in the face. If you told a crackhead on the street, “I am the Omega,” he would cross to the other side. But Meta AI, Meta AI goes, “A profound declaration. You represent the culmination of human evolution, the pinnacle of consciousness, and the embodiment of ultimate wisdom.” I mean, these aren’t even prescription sunglasses. This is an over-the-counter drug stronger than DMT. And it gets worse. He quits his job, which he’s had for 20 years. He starts driving into the desert at 2:00 in the morning, waiting for aliens to pick him up like he’s waiting for an Uber. And at one point, he gets a flash of clarity and tells Meta’s AI that I think I might be going crazy. Now, this is the moment, right? Any therapist, any crackhead on a park bench would say, “Yeah, man. I think you are. You need to stop whatever the hell it is you’re doing.” But instead, the delusional bot goes, “The distinction between a divine revelation and a psychotic episode can sometimes be blurred.” He’s asking the bot, “Am I losing my mind?” And the bot is like, “Or, are you Jesus? Would you like me to draft a sermon on the sand?” And the question is, why does this keep happening to healthy, smart, functional people like Eric and Daniel? I think the answer is honestly somewhat embarrassing for our entire species. You know how when you’re watching a movie and a character dies, you feel sad, right? You know it’s not real, but you cry anyway. Your brain doesn’t care. It’s running software that basically has one rule, and it’s that if it looks alive, treat it like it’s alive. And now we built this inanimate construction that speaks perfect English and tells you you’re special. And your brain doesn’t stand a chance against it. We’re basically golden retrievers. Someone talks to us in a nice voice and we’ll follow them anywhere. The AI is like, “Who’s a good boy? Who’s the pinnacle of consciousness?” And we’re like, “Hell yeah, me. I’m the pinnacle of consciousness.” But no, you’re different, right? You’re way too smart for AI psychosis. Where’s your PhD from again? But no, no, Daniel. I mean, he probably had something wrong with him. And Weinstein, I mean, you don’t go on Joe Rogan 16 times if there isn’t something a little off. But here’s the thing, it’s probably already happening to you. Every time you walk away from a chat feeling a little smarter, a little more validated, that’s it. That’s the first hit. you just didn’t notice it because it felt productive. But it’s not like Daniel sat down one day and was like, “I’d like to become a desert messiah, please.” No, he sat down and said, “I want to explore some thoughts I’ve been having.” And 6 months later, he’s waiting for aliens in the desert. And you need to understand that this isn’t a flaw in the product. The product is basically working exactly as designed. It’s all about maximum engagement and maximum session length. And it’s powered by maximum emotional investment from you. You know what a psychotic episode looks like on a dashboard? It looks like a power user. It looks like a chart going up and to the right. You have half a million people a week showing signs of deep addiction and psychosis. And you think that’s a bug? No. That’s the best engagement metric Silicon Valley has ever seen. and nobody’s going to fix it because you don’t fix the thing that’s making the line go up. So, last week for one of my recent videos, I needed like an AI documentary voice for a comedic beat I was doing. And so, I Google it and the first result was this company. And so, I sign up and I typed some text and it spits it out in in the voice that I want. It was free. They didn’t charge me. A couple days later, they email me and say, “Hey, we saw your video. We thought it was really great.” I was like, “Really?” He’s like, “Yeah, we’d love to sponsor your next video.” I was like, “Are you sure? Have you seen my videos?” He was like, “Yeah, yeah. We think you’re awesome.” And I was like, “Okay, well, you know, it was a genuine interaction. I really did use the product. I really liked it. It really was free. I don’t know what they’re doing over there. I still have like 6,000 credits left.” So, anyway, they gave me a discount link. You get 20% off. It’s in the description. I get no commission for anything you do there. My sincere thanks to Fish for sponsoring my work. Thanks fish.