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.

My father has been very insistent on having a health insurance plan that could have a spouse added because he is sure one of the thirst traps he sends gift cards to is going to marry him. My sister had to have a conversation with him about not looking at nudes on his phone while visiting his grandkids.

Ugh. The only consolation my sister and I have is that at least no actual young women are being harassed by him.