this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
663 points (97.3% liked)
Technology
86918 readers
3514 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
My father is retired, my sister and I have carefully avoided describing AI to him because he would for sure get AI psychosis if he started conversing with a chat bot, his relationships are all unhealthy. My sister and I have made him agree to let us control his retirement income in exchange for bailing him out of a particularly financially devastating one of the many scams he fell for in retirement. We give him a weekly allowance for groceries and prescriptions and gift cards to give to thirst traps.
He is absolutely unaware they are fake, at a core identity level of refusal to grapple with reality. Some combination of he always had some susceptibility to this kind of thing, lost his only close trusted reality check person when he and my mom split up after over twenty years, and aging-related cognitive impairment.
What does he use specifically, though? Facebook, Instagram? OF?
On his phone, right?
I apologize if that's a weird question, but I'm... scientifically curious. I know lots of folks are susceptible, but I'm interested in the systems that suck folks like your father in.