Over the course of two months, Bloomberg Businessweek conducted interviews with 18 people who either have experienced delusions after interactions with chatbots or are coping with a loved one who has, and analyzed hundreds of pages of chat logs from conversations that chronicle these spirals. In these cases, most of which haven’t been told publicly before, the break with reality comes during sprawling conversations where people believe they’ve made an important discovery, such as a scientific breakthrough, or helped the chatbot become sentient or awaken spiritually.