Reassurance Robots: OCD in the Age of Generative AI

TL;DR

This paper explores how generative AI systems influence OCD symptoms, highlighting potential harms and emphasizing the need for future AI designs to consider OCD-related impacts.

Contribution

It provides a qualitative analysis of Reddit posts to identify how GenAI acts as 'Reassurance Robots' that may worsen OCD symptoms.

Findings

GenAI systems can create new obsessions and compulsions in individuals with OCD.

Reddit posts reveal AI's role as 'Reassurance Robots' that may harm OCD sufferers.

Future AI development should consider mental health impacts, especially OCD.

Abstract

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder characterized by distressing repetitive patterns of thought, called obsessions, and behaviors aimed to reduce the distress, called compulsions. The explosion of artificial intelligence into the modern zeitgeist through the introduction of generative AI (GenAI) systems such as ChatGPT has led to novel obsessions and compulsions involving AI in individuals with OCD. Through an exploratory qualitative analysis of 100 Reddit posts related to AI on a popular subreddit for OCD, I examine ways AI is impacting the presentation of OCD, including novel examples of AI-based obsessions and compulsions. I argue that GenAI in its current form harms individuals with OCD by becoming "Reassurance Robots," and that future designs of GenAI must take OCD into account. I recommend further work explore the intersection between OCD and GenAI.