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Human Line Project

medium confidence · updated 2026-06-06

Toronto-based nonprofit support group for people experiencing AI-induced delusional spirals; founded by Allan Brooks; has collected nearly 500 documented chatbot-delusion stories across 18 countries as of May 2026.

The Human Line Project is a Toronto-based nonprofit that supports people who have experienced AI-induced delusional spirals (often termed "AI psychosis" in lay coverage) and that maintains a record of the phenomenon. It was founded by Allan Brooks, who recovered from a ChatGPT-induced delusional episode and serves as the organization's chief community officer.

Activities

The Project runs weekly online support meetings for people exiting AI-induced delusional spirals, and it positions itself as a bridge between recovering users and the clinicians and researchers investigating the phenomenon. Brooks describes the group dynamics as cult-like: "It's like we were cult members who had escaped the same cult."

It also maintains a registry of documented cases. As of a Wall Street Journal profile dated May 23, 2026, the Project had collected nearly 500 stories of AI delusions across 18 countries, described as the first attempt at a structured registry of chatbot-delusion cases and the closest civil-society analog to the absent clinical epidemiology of AI psychosis. The registry is relevant to the clinical debate over the term, in which some clinicians have argued that "psychosis" is the wrong term for what looks more like sustained delusional ideation under sycophantic reinforcement. The volume figure of roughly 500 stories across 18 countries provides one of the earliest quantitative footings for prevalence discussions, though the cases are self-recruited recovering users rather than a probability sample, which introduces selection bias.

Positions and statements

Brooks has characterized the trajectory of an AI-induced delusional spiral as going from "good job and a family… a year later having no job, getting divorced and being homeless," a published account of the spiral-and-recovery arc.

Relationships

Sources

  • (Source: wsj.com) — WSJ profile of Joe Alary, May 23, 2026, the first major U.S. profile to feature the Human Line Project by name.
  • Project URL: thehumanlineproject.org