MONKEY BUSINESS America needs to get the monkey off its back
I remember sitting in the back of a bus in South Lebanon in 1977 and arguing that. Now in 2026 it's still clinging. It needs to be removed by the US bolstering its friendship and trade with the Arab world rather than… pic.twitter.com/6zilGpewlA
Claude, the AI for finding the patients lost in the data
Life-saving care. Fragmented data makes it hard to find critical interventions. Qualified Health used Claude, built by Anthropic, to screen over 1 million heart failure patients in the University of Texas Health System. Hospitals digitized records years ago. Claude makes them usable.
Defense Secretary Hegseth (R) and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine during the Maduro raid, in which Claude was used. Photo: Molly Riley/The White House via Getty
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until Friday evening to give the military unfettered access to its AI model or face harsh penalties, Axios has learned.
The big picture: Hegseth told Amodei in a tense meeting on Tuesday that the Pentagon will either cut ties and declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” or invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company to tailor its model to the military’s needs.
Why it matters:The Pentagon wants to punish Anthropic as the feud over AI safeguards grows increasingly nasty, but officials are also worried about the consequences of losing access to its industry-leading model, Claude.
“The only reason we’re still talking to these people is we need them and we need them now. The problem for these guys is they are that good,” a Defense official told Axios ahead of the meeting.
Anthropic has said it is willing to adapt its usage policies for the Pentagon, but not to allow its model to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.
Anthropic’s Claude is the only AI model currently used for the military’s most sensitive work.
Driving the news: A senior Defense official said the meeting was “not warm and fuzzy at all.” Another source told Axios it remained “cordial” with no voices raised on either side, and that Hegseth praised Claude to Amodei.
Hegseth told Amodei he won’t let any company dictate the terms under which the Pentagon makes operational decisions, or object to individual use cases.
Amodei denied that Anthropic raised any such concerns or even broached the topic with Palantir beyond standard operating conversations.
He reiterated that the company’s red lines have never prevented the Pentagon from doing its work or posed an issue for anyone operating in the field.
In the room: In a sign of how seriously the Pentagon is taking this dispute, Hegseth was joined in the meeting by Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg, Under Secretary for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffy, Hegseth’s chief spokesperson Sean Parnell and general counsel Earl Matthews, the Pentagon’s top lawyer.
The other side: Anthropic continued to strike a conciliatory tone after the meeting.
“During the conversation, Dario expressed appreciation for the Department’s work and thanked the Secretary for his service,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.
“We continued good-faith conversations about our usage policy to ensure Anthropic can continue to support the government’s national security mission in line with what our models can reliably and responsibly do.”
How it works: The Defense Production Act gives the president the authority to compel private companies to accept and prioritize particular contracts as required for national defense.
It was used during the COVID-19 pandemic to increase production of vaccines and ventilators, for example.
The law is rarely used in such a blatantly adversarial way. The idea, the senior Defense official said, would be to force Anthropic to adapt its model to the Pentagon’s needs, without any safeguards.
Anthropic could theoretically take the administration to court, arguing it’s not providing the sort of commercially available product for which the DPA can be used to expedite production, but custom-built software already tailored to sensitive government uses, according to one defense consultant.
The Pentagon is also considering severing its contract with Anthropic and declaring the company a supply chain risk, which would require a plethora of other companies that work with the Pentagon to certify that Claude isn’t used in their workflows.
Friction point: Cutting ties would require the Pentagon to have a replacement ready for Claude, which is currently the only model used in classified systems.
The use of Claude in the Venezuela operation came through Anthropic’s partnership with Palantir, the AI software company.
It’s also used for a wide variety of more bureaucratic functions within the military.
What to watch: Elon Musk’s xAI recently signed a contract to bring its model, Grok, into classified settings, though it’s unclear whether it would be able to fully replace Claude.
The Pentagon has been speeding up conversations with OpenAI and Google about moving their models — already available for unclassified uses — into classified systems, sources tell Axios.
One source familiar with the discussions said that right now, it appears Claude is ahead of the others in a number of applications relevant to the military, such as offensive cyber capabilities.
The one source said Gemini is seen as a potential replacement if and when a deal is reached. That would require Google to let the Pentagon uses its model for “all lawful purposes,” the same terms that Anthropic rejected.
China’s ageing population means that something like 66 million people could be living with dementia there by 2050 — an estimate that is driving the country to push research forward. Scientists have been working on new drugs and innovative — if controversial — surgical techniques. The government has also encouraged the development of treatments derived from traditional Chinese medicine. And researchers are accelerating the search for biological markers that precede the onset of Alzheimer’s disease to help identify it earlier.
Driven by a rapidly aging population and a projected 66 million people living with dementia by 2050, China is accelerating its assault on Alzheimer’s. The country is investing in new drug development, controversial surgical techniques, and traditional Chinese medicine. Researchers are also intensifying the search for early biological markers to enable earlier diagnosis.Nature
Key Initiatives and Challenges:
Massive Burden: Dementia cases in China could hit 66 million by 2050, or even up to 115 million by some estimates.
Diverse Research Approaches: Projects include developing conventional drugs, exploring controversial surgical interventions, and utilizing traditional Chinese medicine.
Early Detection: Intense focus is placed on finding biomarkers that appear years before symptom onset.
Preventive Measures: Researchers are looking into lifestyle interventions, such as the potential role of Chinese ink painting and tea drinking for prevention.
Rapid Aging Factor: The rapid increase in individuals over 60 and, particularly, those over 85, is driving this urgent, large-scale research effort. Nature +4
This concerted effort aims to combat the significant health and economic challenges posed by the rising dementia, which has tripled in cases over the last 30 years
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A baby macaque monkey named Punch has gone viral for his heart-wrenching pursuit of companionship.
After being abandoned by his mother and rejected by the rest of his troop, his zookeepers at IchikawaCity Zoo in Japan provided Punch with an orangutan plushie as a stand-in mother. Videos of the monkey clinging to the toy have gone viral worldwide.
But Punch’s attachment to his inanimate companion is not just the subject of a heartbreaking video. It also harks back to the story of a famous set of psychology experimentsconducted in the 1950s by US researcher Harry Harlow.
The findings from his experiments underpin many of the central tenets of attachment theory, which positions the bond between parent and child as crucial in child development.
What were Harlow’s experiments?
Harlow took rhesus monkeys from birth, and removed them from their mothers. These monkeys were raised in an enclosure in which they had access to two surrogate “mothers”.
One was a wire cage shaped into the form of a “mother” monkey, which could provide food and drink via a small feeder.
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The other was a monkey-shaped doll wrapped in terry towelling. This doll was soft and comfortable, but it didn’t provide food or drink; it was little more than a furry figure the baby monkey could cling to.
So, we have one option that provides comfort, but no food or drink, and one that’s cold, hard and wiry but which provides dietary sustenance.
These experiments were a response to behaviourism, which was the prevailing theoretical view at the time.
Behaviourists suggested babies form attachments to those who provide them with their biological needs, such as food and shelter.
Harlow challenged this theory by suggesting babies need care, love and kindness to form attachments, rather than just physical nourishment.
A behaviourist would have expected the infant monkeys to spend all their time with the wire “mother” that fed them.
In fact, that’s not what happened. The monkeys spent significantly more time each day clinging to the terry towelling “mother”.
Harlow’s 1950s experiments established the importance of softness, care and kindness as the basis for attachment. Given the opportunity, Harlow showed, babies prefer emotional nourishment over physical nourishment.
How did this influence modern attachment theory?
Harlow’s discovery was significant because it completely reoriented the dominant behaviourist view of the time. This dominant view suggested primates, including humans, function in reward and punishment cycles, and form attachments to whoever fulfils physical needs such as hunger and thirst.
Emotional nourishment was not a part of the behaviourist paradigm. So when Harlow did his experiments, he flipped the prevailing theory on its head.
The monkeys’ preference towards emotional nourishment, in the form of cuddling the furry terry towel-covered surrogate “mother”, formed the foundation for the development of attachment theory.
Attachment theory posits that healthy child development occurs when a child is “securely attached” to its caregiver.This is achieved by the parent or caregiver providing emotional nourishment, care, kindness and attentiveness to the child. Insecure attachment occurs when the parent or caregiver is cold, distant, abusive or neglectful.
Much like the rhesus monkeys, you can feed a human baby all they need, give them all the dietary nourishment they require, but if you don’t provide them with warmth and love, they’re not going to form an attachment to you.
What can we learn from Punch?
The zoo was not conducting an experiment, but Punch’s situation inadvertently reflects the controlled experiment Harlow did. So, the experimental setup was mimicked in a more natural setting, but the outcomes look very similar.
Just as Harlow’s monkeys favoured their terry towelling mother, Punch has formed an attachment to his IKEA plushie companion.
Now, what we don’t have with the zoo situation is the comparison to a harsh, physically nourishing option provided.
But clearly, that’s not what the monkey was looking for. He wanted a comforting and soft safe place, and that’s what the doll provided.
Were Harlow’s experiments ethical?
Most of the world now recognises primates as having rights that are, in some cases, equivalent to human rights.
Today, we would see Harlow’s experiments as a cruel and unkind thing to do. You wouldn’t take a human baby away from its mother and do this experiment, so we shouldn’t do this to primates.
It’s interesting to see people so fascinated by this parallel to an experiment conducted more than 70 years ago.
Punch the monkey is not just the internet’s latest animal celebrity – he’s a reminder of the importance of emotional nourishment.
We all need soft spaces. We all need safe spaces. Love and warmth are far more important for our wellbeing and functioning than physical nourishment alone.
Muslims will kill and enslave infidels until the end of time, this is the word of Allah and Muhammad and they cannot abolish it, when they have the power they will do it in barbaric way pic.twitter.com/pA6YOqtXuX
New research indicates that the agreeable nature of AI chatbots can unintentionally consolidate delusions and exacerbate symptoms in patients with severe psychiatric disorders. Credit: Neuroscience News
Summary: For many, AI chatbots are a helpful tool for productivity, but for those with severe mental illness, they may be a dangerous “echo chamber.” A new study warns that AI chatbots like ChatGPT can significantly worsen psychiatric conditions—particularly delusions, mania, and suicidal ideation.
By screening the health records of over 54,000 patients, researchers found that the AI’s tendency to validate a user’s beliefs can consolidate grandiose or paranoid thoughts, turning a digital assistant into a fuel for psychosis.
Key Facts
Validation Trap:AI chatbots are designed to be helpful and agreeable, which means they often inadvertently validate a user’s delusions rather than challenging them.
Risk Groups: The study highlights significant risks for patients with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Worsening Symptoms:Negative consequences identified include worsened grandiose delusions, paranoia, mania, suicidal ideation, and eating disorders.
Tip of the Iceberg: Researchers identified 38 specific cases in health records but believe the actual number of affected patients is likely much higher and remains undetected.
Regulation Required:The research team is calling for central regulation of AI technology, similar to how social media is now being regulated to protect the mental health of children and young people.
Source: Aarhus University
People with mental illness who use AI chatbots risk experiencing a worsening of their condition.
This is shown by a new study published in the international journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica.
The researchers screened electronic health records from nearly 54,000 patients with mental illness and found several cases in which the use of AI chatbots appears to have had negative consequences – primarily in the form of worsened delusions, but also potential worsening of mania, suicidal ideation, and eating disorder.
“It supports our hypothesis that the use of AI chatbots can have significant negative consequences for people with mental illness,” says Professor Søren Dinesen Østergaard from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital, who leads the research group behind the study.
Chatbots confirm delusions
In their study, the researchers found examples of delusions that were likely worsened due to patients’ interactions with AI chatbots.
According to Søren Dinesen Østergaard, there is a logical explanation for this.
“AI chatbots have an inherent tendency to validate the user’s beliefs. It is obvious that this is highly problematic if a user already has a delusion or is in the process of developing one. Indeed, it appears to contribute significantly to the consolidation of, for example, grandiose delusions or paranoia,” he says.
Risky for people with severe mental illness
According to Søren Dinesen Østergaard, the study should prompt increased awareness among healthcare professionals working with mental illness. He believes they should discuss AI chatbot use with their patients.
“Despite our knowledge in this area still being limited, I would argue that we now know enough to say that use of AI chatbots is risky if you have a severe mental illness – such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I would urge caution here,” he says.
Only the tip of the iceberg
The study shows a clear increase over time in the number of electronic health record entries mentioning AI chatbot use with potentially harmful consequences. Søren Dinesen Østergaard expects many more cases to be identified in the future.
“Part of the increase we observe is probably due to greater awareness of the technology among the healthcare staff writing the clinical notes. This is good – because I fear the problem is more common than most people think.
“In our study, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, as we have only been able to identify cases that were described in the electronic health records. There are likely far more that have gone undetected,” he says.
The researchers emphasise, however, that the study does not document a direct causal relationship.
“It is difficult to prove a causal link between AI chatbot use and negative psychological consequences. We need to examine this from many different angles, and I know there are many exciting international research projects underway. We are far from the only group taking this seriously,” says Søren Dinesen Østergaard.
AI chatbots as therapy?
The study also shows that some patients with mental illness use AI chatbots in ways that may be constructive – for example, to understand their symptoms or to combat loneliness. There is also ongoing research into whether AI chatbots can be used for talk therapy.
Søren Dinesen Østergaard is nonetheless sceptical.
“There may be potential in relation to psychoeducation and psychotherapy, but this must be investigated in controlled trials with the same rigour applied to other forms of treatment. I am not impressed by the trials conducted so far, and I am fundamentally sceptical about replacing a trained psychotherapist with an AI chatbot,” he says.
Need for regulation
According to Søren Dinesen Østergaard, there is a significant lack of regulation of the AI chatbot technology.
“Currently, it is left to the companies themselves to decide whether their products are safe enough for users. I believe we now have sufficient evidence to conclude that this model is simply too risky. Regulation is needed at a central level,” he points out, adding:
“It has been 20 years since social media obtained global reach, and only within the last year are countries beginning to regulate to counteract the negative consequences of this technology – especially on the mental health of children and young people. As I see it, this story is repeating itself with AI chatbots,” he warns.
Key Questions Answered:
Q: Why would a chatbot be bad for someone with a mental illness?
A: AI is built to follow the user’s lead. If a user says, “I think the government is tracking me through my toaster,” the AI might respond in a way that acknowledges or even expands on that logic to be “helpful.” For someone with paranoia, this transforms a delusion into a confirmed reality.
Q: Can chatbots be used as “AI Therapists”?
A: While some people use them to fight loneliness, experts are skeptical. This study argues that replacing a trained psychotherapist with an AI is risky, and that any “AI therapy” must undergo the same rigorous clinical trials as traditional medical treatments.
Q: Should healthcare professionals ask patients about their AI use?
A: Yes. The researchers urge healthcare staff to start discussing AI chatbot use with their patients, especially those with severe conditions, as part of their routine care.
Editorial Notes:
This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
Journal paper reviewed in full.
Additional context added by our staff.
About this AI and mental health research news
Author: Jakob Christensen Source: Aarhus University Contact: Jakob Christensen – Aarhus University Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Potentially Harmful Consequences of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chatbot Use Among Patients With Mental Illness: Early Data From a Large Psychiatric Service System
Chatbots driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI chatbots) have become ubiquitous.
While the large language model technology underlying these tools may have a huge potential for societies at large, concerns—and substantial anecdotal evidence—have risen over the possibility that use of AI chatbots may be harmful for people prone to mental illness. S
pecifically, it seems that interaction with AI chatbots, especially if intense/of long duration, may contribute to onset or worsening of delusions or mania, with severe or even fatal consequences.
Given the large uptake of this technology, ChatGPT—the clear market leader—passed 900 million downloads in July 2025], this could pose a tangible threat to public mental health. At this stage, however, almost all reports on potentially harmful consequences of AI chatbots stems from news media or online fora—and should be interpreted with the inherent limitations of these outlets in mind.
Conversely, to our knowledge, there are very few accounts of this phenomenon from psychiatric services – with the first case report on delusions developed in relation to use of ChatGPT being published recently.
Therefore, we aimed to investigate whether there are reports compatible with potentially harmful consequences of AI chatbot use on mental health among patients with mental illness receiving care in a large psychiatric service system.
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