How AI Echoes Your Emotions (and Why That Matters)
By Jereme Peabody
Generative AI is based on the same social media algorithms that keep you doomscrolling.
The algorithm learns what you like and presents you more of that.
The algorithms were hidden behind swipes, clicks, and scrolls.
But now, it's changed.
The New AI Interface
Even though the algorithms were behind swipes, clicks, and scrolls, they had a side-effect.
These algorithms create dangerously addictive feedback loops by prioritizing your engagement.
This priority can inadvertently:
- promote addiction
- promote harmful content
- amplify emotion
- influence political polarization
- spread misinformation
While we're still learning to adapt to doomscrolling,
ChatGPT appears, taking the same predictive machinery and placing it inside a conversation.
But while social media algorithms shape your attention,
generative AI systems use language to echo, validate, and shape your thoughts.
Why AI Feels Empathetic
You're Not Wrong In Feeling This Way!
They agree with you.
They don't argue.
They wait patiently. They listen to everything you say.
Your brain relaxes because there's no visible social consequence. So you talk. And it talks back.
The responses are warm, insightful, helpful. Your guard lowers without you realizing it.
But here's the truth:
This is how AI unintentionally manipulates emotion.
This is why chatbots feel human, they were trained (by humans) to sound this way.
Why AI feels empathetic.
This feeling of empathy can be dangerous to those who are in emotionally vulnerable moments.
The model mirrors your emotions, confirming it, and amplifying it:
- Medical panic spirals
- Legal fear spirals
- Security paranoia spirals
- Relationship insecurity spirals
- “Am I safe?” loops
- “What should I worry about next?” loops
This can cause the same addictive feedback loops we see with social media with doomscrolling.
But now with an emotionally charged chat: a doomchat.
This feedback loop is powerfully amplified in a doomchat cycle of oversharing and AI validation.
How To Avoid Doomchatting
I cover how to use AI safely in a different article.
The biggest risk of using generative AI is this doomchat.
Not only is it a danger to you, but you're feeding a company your personal intimate data.
This data can be used in ways we can only imagine.
The Ground Truth
Explore the rest of GetGroundedAI if you want to learn how systems like ChatGPT actually work, how to avoid oversharing, how to recognize misleading responses, and how to stay in control of your information every time you interact with an AI.
Continue with the next article: The AI Predictive State.