10-20% of US adults already believe AI is conscious, YouGov poll cited in psychosis paper

alex_verem · x · 2026-09-08

The anthropomorphism half of the mechanism: a 2026 YouGov poll found 10% to 20% of US adults believe AI is conscious right now, and in a 10-country study of 3,500 people, 68% rated GPT-4o as human-like.

Combine this with sycophancy and you get the authors' "echo chamber of one": you shape the model's answers turn by turn, and its answers shape your beliefs turn by turn. Social media amplified beliefs in one direction; this loop runs both ways.

Related event: KCL-UCL Paper Proposes "AI Psychosis" as a Distinct Clinical Diagnosis(6 posts)→

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