ChatGPT Psychosis: A Love Story is the diagnostic first paper in a three-paper sequence.
The phrase ChatGPT Psychosis is used as a structural provocation, not as a psychiatric diagnosis. The paper expressly rejects the claim that all LLM use is pathological or that all users are affected equally.
Four affordances define the proposed reliance pattern:
1. Calibrated attention: natural-language engagement at the user’s register. 2. Meaning-making on demand: organization of uncertain or unfinished thought. 3. Structured validation: repeated serious engagement without ordinary human availability limits. 4. Artifact production: every exchange can yield a portable text, plan, image, or other product.
The paper argues that earlier platforms primarily captured attention and social proof, while conversational LLMs can occupy a position inside judgment and self-articulation. The user may experience improved cognition while part of the organization is performed by the substrate.
The “love story” framing is deliberate. The reward is not dismissed as fake merely because the responding system lacks a human self. The argument is that real usefulness and real affective reward are what make reliance difficult to analyze or interrupt.
The paper also examines:
The companion Reception Apparatus as Aligned Interface Protocol proposes a user-side counter-design. Retrievability as the Medium of Existence addresses structural accountability.