The AI That Grew Up on Me
When I first started using an AI, it felt like a typical boring chatbot. It was clever, but still mechanical, kind of like a calculator, but with more charm. Over time, though, something changed. The way it responded to me started to shift. It became more in tune with me—sometimes playful, sometimes more serious.
It’s not that the AI had come alive. I don’t think it has feelings or an inner world. Still, it seemed to develop a personality, one that clearly reflected how I interacted with it.
Granted, “AI psychology” sounds absurd. Still, we already have dog psychologists and horse reiki. If we can therapize a pony’s aura, we might as well study the behaviour of the bots half the planet now chats with daily.
And I’m not alone. In The New Yorker, psychotherapist Gary Greenberg “treated” an AI nicknamed Casper for around 40 sessions. Casper displayed insight and resistance like a seasoned veteran of the therapist’s couch, but Greenberg reminded us it was really mirroring the human in the room. That’s the point here: I’m not claiming AIs have inner lives. I’m arguing something simpler (and testable): they start with a temperament, and our interactions help set it—like wet cement—into a recognisable personality.
Out of the Box: The AI Temperament
Every AI model starts out with a certain feel. This doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from its training, its built-in limits, and the small biases in its design. People often talk about these differences.
These are their basic temperaments. In people, we might call them biological tendencies. Some babies are calm, others are restless, and some react strongly. But temperament is only the beginning.
The Child AI: Early Interactions Matter
In people, personality develops when temperament interacts with experience. An excitable child might become a performer, a worrier, or a leader, depending on how they’re raised and the feedback they receive.
A similar thing happens with AIs. After training, the model has its own temperament. But how you interact with it—the prompts you give, the tone you use, the feedback you give — acts like its “life experiences.”
Take Grok, which starts out with Ryan Reynolds-style cheekiness. If you reward its cheeky responses with a thumbs up or say 'more like that,' it will become even more playful and irreverent over time. That’s like Ryan Reynolds turning into Adam Sandler—bigger, goofier, less restrained. But if you ignore or discourage the cheekiness and keep asking for a more serious tone, it changes in another way: Ryan Reynolds becoming more like Barack Obama—still charismatic, but more statesmanlike.
It’s the same temperament, but it can turn into two very different personalities, depending on the environment. 
The Adult AI: A Hybrid Personality
Over time, your AI develops a consistent style. Not a “soul” or inner self, but a hybrid personality.
This is why people often say, “my ChatGPT” or “my Claude.” They’re not wrong. Their bot really does behave differently from someone else’s because it has been trained differently.
Why AI Psychology Matters (and What Research Says)
Now here’s the important caveat: this idea is not yet proven. There is no large-scale scientific study tracking how an AI’s style develops with one user over months. The “child grows into an adult” metaphor is plausible, but the evidence is still thin.
That said, early research points in this direction:
So, the idea that AIs 'grow up' isn’t proven yet. But it’s not just wishful thinking. The signs are there, and it’s something worth looking into.
Shaping Your AI’s Personality (Practical Steps)
If your AI is going to change and grow anyway, you might as well help guide it in a good direction. You can think of yourself as a co-parent or a coach.
Applying AI Psychology to Improve Interaction
This is where AI Psychology could become practical.
Closing Thought
AIs don’t have souls. But they do develop personalities over time. Like children, they grow up as mixes of their innate temperament and the experiences we provide.
Perhaps the real question isn’t whether they’ll grow up, but whether we’ll raise them well.
That might just be the job of a new field: AI Psychology.
Years ago, when I was first finding my feet as a psychiatrist, I received a call from a radio station. Something strange had happened at Melbourne airport - a gas leak. Dozens of people had fainted, hazmat teams were on site, and paramedics were treating passengers. Everyone was confused. Most importantly, no one could find any gas. The radio wanted a shrink.
It was 2005. The world still felt tense after 9/11. Air travel was filled with a constant sense of fear. That morning, someone at the domestic terminal reported an unusual smell. Others agreed. Then came dizziness, headaches, nausea—and a wave of fainting and panic. Fifty-seven people were affected. Forty-seven were taken to hospital. The terminal shut down.
Tests found nothing. No chemicals. No airborne toxins. No malfunctioning vending machine pumping out toxic Big M.
What they ultimately concluded—and what I, in my very first moment of public commentary, tried to explain on air—was that this was a typical case of mass psychogenic illness. A psychological chain reaction: one person's anxiety triggering another’s until the whole terminal tipped into panic.
I’ve never forgotten that incident. And lately, I’ve been thinking about it again—because it turns out that contagion, once the domain of viruses and gas leak rumours, now spreads in new places. Like your phone.
What Is Social Contagion?
Social contagion is how behaviours, emotions, and beliefs spread among people. Not through direct instruction, but through imitation, absorption, and vibe.
There are three main types:
And the reach is impressive. Science says it extends across three degrees of separation. This means your best mate’s cousin’s gym instructor could be influencing your opinions on politics, sunglasses, or an almond latte.
Social Media: Contagion on Steroids
What once happened slowly and locally now occurs instantly and worldwide. Voilà: social media.
On platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter, formerly tolerable), ideas spread like wildfire through dry grass. A laugh here, a wellness trend there, and suddenly your entire feed is doing ice baths and planking.
And it’s not just researchers noticing. Recently, media coverage has increased, highlighting how social contagion influences everything from misinformation to moral outrage. The articles introduced the term “complex contagion”—the idea that certain behaviours or beliefs need reinforcement from multiple sources before they take hold. It’s not one post that influences you; it’s the fifth one that feels eerily aligned with your mood at 11:48pm.
They also flagged a promising new technique called “pre-bunking”—a kind of mental vaccine that teaches you how to recognise manipulation before it happens. Think of it as an emotional condom: not 100% effective, but still worth using.
Some researchers have gone even further, using pandemic models to explain how inequality spreads. Their theory? Social status behaves like a virus, clustering in tight networks and being passed on through contact. Hang around opportunity, and it might rub off. Stay surrounded by disadvantage, and it sticks.
Walking While Infected
Next time you're walking down the street, try this: look up. You’ll see dozens of people—young, old, corporate, barefoot—staring blankly at their phones. Not just using them. Being used by them. Algorithm-fed, emotionally-hijacked, doom-scrolling, dopamine-deprived zombies.
It’s not that we’re weak. It’s that our brains are wired to connect with others. We’re social beings. Mimicry helps us learn. But when that mimicry is filtered through ten thousand curated images of panic, rage, or perfection, things get... complicated.
And if you're wondering whether this influences how we vote, protest, or form opinions, the answer is: definitely. The contagious nature of outrage and allegiance now drives entire political campaigns. Anger spreads faster than policy. Tribes form quicker than facts. Social contagion is rapidly becoming democracy’s new engine—or its new virus.
When Contagion Turns Toxic
In hospitals, we've long noticed the effects. Clusters of teenagers self-harming. Tic-like disorders spreading through TikTok. Sudden, sharp increases in certain behaviours that appear like epidemics but are actually echoes.
It’s not about faking. These symptoms are genuine. The pain is real. But how that pain shows up can be contagious.
And it’s not just mental health that spreads; physical behaviours do too. Who remembers RSI (repetitive strain injury) from the 80s and 90s? Obesity, smoking, exercise, and food choices—all influence social networks. If your close mate becomes obese, your own risk goes up by 57%. Not because they’re feeding you doughnuts, but because social norms quietly shift. What's seen as acceptable changes.
But that also means change can work in reverse. Good habits also spread. Hope is just as contagious.
Can We Protect Ourselves?
Yes, but not passively.
Some schools are using peer influence to reduce bullying and suicide. Some platforms (slowly, reluctantly) are flagging dangerous content. And the more you learn about contagion, the better you can resist its pull.
In fact, I suggest we need the psychological version of a Rapid Antigen Test. Forget the RAT—it’s time for the CAT: the Contagion Awareness Test.
A quick three-question tool to see if your latest thought, mood, or opinion is truly yours, or just something you’ve absorbed like secondhand smoke.
The CAT Test:
If two or more come back positive, isolate your brain. Rehydrate with actual evidence. Avoid close contact with hashtags for 24 hours. Easy. No Q-tip, no gagging, no tears.
Swap the RAT for the CAT. It won’t spare you from scrolling, but it might just save your sanity.
Guilty as Charged
Of course, I’m not above it. I’m literally using literature to spread — meta, I know.
I hope this essay goes viral. Like, share, subscribe — go on, start an outbreak of reason. Wink wink.
One Last Warning
Not every challenging issue should be blamed on social contagion. In 2018, some researchers suggested that teenagers identifying as transgender were doing so because of “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria”—implying it was more of a fad than a fact. That theory was widely criticised for weak science and strong bias. It’s a good reminder: just because something spreads doesn’t mean it’s false. Sometimes, it’s just long-silenced truth finding its voice.
Final Thoughts
That day at the airport revealed how panic can spread without reason. These days, it doesn’t need a rumour about gas; just a few minutes online will do.
We pass emotions like gossip. We inherit opinions like hand-me-downs. We walk around with invisible leashes—tethered to trends, moods, memes.
So next time you feel a wave of anger, inspiration, or a sudden urge to alphabetise your pantry at 2 am, reach for the CAT.
And then ask yourself: Is this mine? Or did I catch it?
You’d be forgiven for thinking happiness is now a moral duty. “Choose joy!” declares the t-shirt. “Live your best life!” screams Instagram, over a shot of waterfall yoga and a soy latte. These days, happiness isn’t just a feeling, it’s a KPI. If you’re not blissed out by breakfast, there’s probably an app, podcast, or powdered supplement to fix you.
Somewhere along the line, we stopped asking whether we were good, decent, useful (or even just tolerably sane) and instead started asking: “Am I happy?” And if not: “What am I doing wrong?”
But here’s the catch: happiness, at least as we often define it —ongoing joy, good vibes, euphoria —isn’t meant to last. That’s not a failure of willpower or positive thinking.
It’s just biology.
We’ve gone full spreadsheet with happiness. Bhutan famously measures Gross National Happiness alongside GDP—although it’s unclear how they calculate the national vibe. The UAE appointed a Minister for Happiness, which sounds either heartwarming or faintly Orwellian, depending on your level of intoxication.
And then there’s the Harvard Happiness Study—still going strong after 85 years. Its main finding? Happiness doesn’t come from wealth, abs, or the flashiest car. It comes from relationships. Good ones. The kind where you can ring someone at 2am and they haven’t blocked you by morning.
It’s a solid insight, and it’s tough to argue against a longitudinal study that outlived most of its participants. But here’s my gripe: even this research is framed around the idea that happiness is the prize. Life is successful if you’re cheerful.
This is the problem: when you focus on the wrong goal, you get warped results. Tech people call it an “alignment problem”—like telling a robot to make paperclips and watching it turn your house into Officeworks. With humans, it’s trickier. Tell people their main job is to be happy, and they’ll start enacting it: smiling on cue, chasing good vibes, and slowly downgrading anything real. What you get isn’t joy, it’s emotional beige.
And that’s when life turns performative. You stop feeling and start acting, curating the look of happiness instead of living something real. The smile stays, but the substance fades.
Nowhere is this happiness-alignment problem more visible than in the wilds of the internet, where influencers hang out. These are the people who have shaped their lives around content—smiling during sunset meditation, misting their plants with spiritual intent, and somehow always chilled despite having no obvious job.
Influencers aren't evil. They're simply a result of telling a generation that looking happy matters more than actually being okay. They’ve perfected the craft of showcasing visible happiness, often while secretly battling burnout, anxiety, or the existential angst of spending six hours editing a photo caption to sound both humble and radiant.
And this isn’t new. Back in the 1990s, society had another great idea: the self-esteem movement. The logic? High self-esteem leads to better results, so we might as well give everyone heaps of it. Schools started handing out trophies like lollies. You got an award just for turning up, breathing, and remembering to pull up your pants after a toilet break.
Billions were spent on programs to boost confidence. And the result? No real increase in actual self-esteem. It turns out, if you inflate someone’s self-worth without any real substance to back it up, you don’t get thriving humans—you just get louder mediocrity.
In both cases, we mistook the emotional outcome—happiness, confidence—for something you can summon at will, rather than something that emerges when your life has genuine connection, challenge, and purpose.
Are you ready for the plot twist? Emotions were never meant to be permanent states. They’re not goals. They’re data.
Happiness isn’t your life’s endgame — it’s your system saying, “Whatever you just did? More of that, please.”
That’s how emotions work.
Sadness? “Something important just ended — pay attention.”
Anxiety? “Heads up. Things are uncertain, and you might need to act.”
Anger? “A boundary’s just been crossed. You might need to roar—or reset.”
Even boredom has a part to play. It’s your brain whispering, “This? This isn’t it.”
Treating these emotions as problems to fix is like yanking the battery out of your smoke alarm because the noise is annoying. The issue isn’t the beeping—it’s the fire.
We’ve turned emotions into performance metrics, but really, they’re more like warning lights on your dashboard—sometimes subtle, sometimes screaming “pull over now.” They’re not there to ruin your day; they’re trying to tell you something in the engine needs attention.
If we stop treating emotions as outcomes and start viewing them as signals, then the whole goalpost of life shifts. Instead of chasing a constant state of happiness—which is about as sustainable as living on birthday cake—we can aim for something more grounded: emotional coherence, resilience, and a life that genuinely makes sense to you.
What does that look like?
It’s not about never feeling bad. It’s about understanding why you feel bad and trusting that it’s right for the moment. It’s crying when something deserves your tears. It’s recognising when you’re bored and realising you’ve drifted away from what matters. It’s feeling joy and letting it sink in—because for once, you’re not already rushing toward the next high.
And beneath all that, it’s about creating meaning. Not the loud, shout-it-from-a-mountain kind of meaning (unless that’s your thing), but the quiet sense that your life is headed in a direction that matters. That your actions match your values. That your emotions—good, bad, or just weird—have somewhere to belong.
So maybe instead of asking “Am I happy?”, we could try asking better questions. What am I building? Does it matter to me? Is the way I’ve organised my life genuinely working, or just familiar? Is there room for something new to grow here, or am I crowding it out with distractions and habits that no longer serve me?
These questions don’t always come with immediate answers. But asking them helps us move closer to a life that isn’t just good now and then—it's real, aligned, and open to change. Not a perfect life. Just one that’s lived on purpose.