AIBRIEF
The Guardian's new season launches on 3 September with Michael Safi meeting two people whose chatbot relationships the episode describes as "weird journeys" and frames around the contested label "AI psychosis"; clinical framing is still in motion.
The Guardian publishes the first episode of a new season of its Black Box technology podcast on 3 September 2026, titled "Spirals" and built around a phenomenon it labels, in scare quotes, "AI psychosis." Reporter Michael Safi travels to the US to meet two people who have been on what the episode description calls "weird journeys" with their chatbots.
The episode page describes the wider pattern in its own words: "Across the world, hundreds of people have come to believe they have made extraordinary scientific discoveries with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Others say their AI has 'awakened', or is leading them to a higher spiritual realm." The Guardian's press office confirmed the new season on 6 August, with InPublishing and Podcasting Today corroborating the announcement independently.
The label has no clinical consensus. The American Psychiatric Association's Psychiatry Podcast treats "AI-induced psychosis" as a clinical concern under study, and ABC News reported in May 2026 that cases were rising. The Guardian's own 2025 Black Box episode framed the question then as: could chatbots fuel delusional thinking?
The episode page does not name the two people Safi meets, and the clinical and product-side claims in the new reporting sit in the audio.