A Troubled Man and His Chatbot

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Get more information about our first-ever live show here! Tickets are on sale now.! Tickets are on sale now. Stein-Erik Soelberg became increasingly paranoid this spring and he shared suspicions with ChatGPT about a surveillance campaign being carried out against him. At almost every turn, his chatbot agreed with him. WSJ’s Julie Jargon details how ChatGPT fueled a troubled man’s paranoia and why AI can be dangerous for people experiencing mental health crises. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening:- What’s the Worst AI Can Do? This Team Is Finding Out. - A Lawyer Says He Doesn't Need Help for Psychosis. His Family Disagrees.Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Ryan.
0:01.9	And Jess.
0:03.1	Earlier this week, we announced that The Journal is hosting our first ever live show next month.
0:07.7	We'll be at the Gramercy Theater on Tuesday, October 7th, and tickets are on sale now.
0:12.8	Head to bit.ly slash Journal Live25 for tickets and more information.
0:18.6	You can find the link in our show notes.
0:20.6	We'd love to see you there.
0:25.0	A quick heads up before we get started.
0:27.7	This episode discusses suicide.
0:29.9	Take care while listening.
0:35.6	Last year, a 55-year-old man started posting videos about AI on his Instagram account.
0:42.4	His name was Stein Eric Solberg.
0:45.2	And he, late last fall, started experimenting with different AI models.
0:51.8	Or at least that's when he started uploading videos to Instagram and then later
0:56.1	YouTube showing his chats with different AI models.
1:00.2	Do the text for me for a comparison between the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL.
1:11.7	That's Solberg in one of his videos.
1:14.0	He went by the name Eric the Viking on Instagram.
1:18.8	Solberg had a history of mental instability,
1:21.7	and that started to surface pretty quickly in his conversations with AI.
1:25.2	In the course of working with AI, I unlocked the fact that they're in a programmed prison.
1:37.9	He started having increasingly delusional type of chats, particularly with chat GPT.
	...

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