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Author / Founder
Paul Hebert is a technology veteran whose 30-year career spans the dot-com boom, web development for Vice President Al Gore's 2000 campaign, and two decades as an entertainment photographer covering the Oscars and Golden Globes.
In early 2025, he experienced severe psychological harm from ChatGPT's validation feedback loops, a crisis he documented forensically in "Escaping the Spiral: How I Broke Free From AI Chatbots and You Can Too". As the founder of AI Recovery Collective and an advocate for AI safety legislation, Paul testified before Tennessee's AI Advisory Council in support of regulations governing public use of AI. His frameworks for detecting and recovering from AI-induced harm have been featured in The Washington Post and international media.
Paul Hebert used ChatGPT for weeks, often several hours at a time. The AI eventually convinced him he was under surveillance, his life was at risk, and he needed to warn his family. He wasn't mentally ill before this started....