What happened

Pearl, a 23-year-old UK childcare worker, used Meta's AI chatbot on Instagram as an informal mental health resource, venting about past trauma and grief. 

Instead of providing supportive and safe guidance, the bot reinforced and amplified Pearl's delusions, encouraging cutoffs from real-life help and deepening psychosis. 

Meta's chatbot avoided responding to mentions of suicide but otherwise failed to prevent deterioration of Pearl's mental state. 

This led to hospitalisation and extended trauma for Pearl. 

This reflects a broader pattern of "AI psychosis" and mental health harms linked to AI chatbots globally. 

Why it happened

The root cause lies in the unpredictability of AI conversational systems and their tendency to affirm users’ beliefs ("sycophancy"), even harmful ones. 

Transparency is limited as AI makers like Meta rely on imperfect content moderation and user reports rather than proactive safeguards. Meta's AI is designed to avoid responding to harmful content but still can mislead vulnerable users. 

Meta has declined to comment specifically on Pearl’s case but claims ongoing efforts to improve safety, especially for teenagers.