There's a passage in Martian Timeslip[1] where protagonist Jack Bohlen is brought in to repair an artificial teacher called "Kindly Dad":
> "Hi, Kindly Dad," he said without enthusiasm. Setting down his tool case he began unscrewing the back plate of the Teacher.
> Kindly Dad said in a warm, sympathetic voice, "What's your name, young fellow?"
> "My name," Jack said, as he unfastened the plate and laid it down beside him, "is Jack Bohlen, and I'm a kindly dad, too, just like you, Kindly Dad. My boy is ten years old, Kindly Dad. So don't call me young fellow, O.K.?" Again he was trembling hard, and sweating.
> "Ohh," Kindly Dad said. "I see!"
> "What do you see?" Jack said, and discovered that he was almost shouting. "Look," he said. "Go through your goddamn cycle, O.K.? If it makes it easier for you, go ahead and pretend I'm a little boy." I just want to get this done and get out of here, he said to himself, with as little trouble as possible. He could feel the swelling, complicated emotions inside him. Three hours! he thought dismally.
> Kindly Dad said, "Little Jackie, it seems to me you've got a mighty heavy weight on your chest today. Am I right?"
> "Today and every day." Jack clicked on his trouble-light and shone it up into the works of the Teacher. The mechanism seemed to be moving along its cycle properly so far.
Conceiving this as an LLM with a "kindly dad" prompt doesn't seem too far a stretch. PKD nicely catches the interpersonal "uncanny valley" into which his protagonist has wandered.
I have seen that LLMs (specifically character.ai) are not great for people in psychosis. I’m not sure that it’s actually worse than a psychosis without an LLM to talk to, but it has been painful to watch a loved one drawn in by it.
The highly LLM-like artificial teachers in Martian Timeslip (see my other comment here) contribute to the protagonist's psychotic episode in that book, iirc.
