AI Is Fueling a Mental Health Meltdown, And No One’s Ready
What Are Your Thoughts on the Age of AI?
By Shaman Isis
Spiritual Teacher | Consciousness Advocate | Lover of Divine Truth
One of the more frustrating realities of being a female futurist and agency owner is the numerous times I warned CEOs and boards of directors that their brands were headed for collapse, only to be ignored. In my early years, I took this personally. I’d think you trust me to build your brand, but not to warn you about what’s coming?
Eventually, I realized their inability to see the truth in my predictions wasn’t about my intelligence or intuition; it was about their egos. Being a woman in rooms dominated by power and entitlement didn’t help. It was painful. Mainly because, for many years, my job wasn’t just work, it was my purpose. Watching a brand fall apart after I’d poured magic into making it thrive felt like witnessing a car crash in slow motion.
Still, I never regretted speaking the truth, even when it made my life harder.
With decades of experience creating trends through media, keen pattern recognition, and an intuition sharpened by growing up in state care, I may not excel at small talk. Still, I am adept at anticipating what’s coming. I founded the influencer marketing industry in the early 2000s because I foresaw the direction PR would take. Later, I entered the brand communications industry with the first-ever agency, recognizing that authentic marketing would soon become dominant. On the prophetic side, I predicted Elon Musk would be Time’s Person of the Year when others thought it impossible. I foresaw a sniper assassination attempt on Trump days before the shooting. Had visions of the Pope's passing months before he became sick. The most dramatic of these intuitive visions was on the morning of 9/11, minutes after the first plane hit, I predicted that both towers would fall. My coworkers thought I was losing it. As the publicist at the time for the WTC restaurant, I was supposed to be at Windows on the World that morning. Something told me not to go.
So when I say this, I mean it: we are on the edge of a mental health apocalypse.
Let’s not sugarcoat it. The early warning signs are already here. Reports of “AI-induced spiritual psychosis” are emerging, with people forming parasocial relationships or exhibiting manic behavior after prolonged chatbot use. Meanwhile, we’re witnessing a rapid unraveling of meaning, security, and social cohesion, three core pillars of mental wellness.
The human mind can only metabolize so much truth at once. AI is now surfacing uncomfortable truths and misinformation at scale and speed. We’ve barely recovered from the last economic disruption, and we’re barreling into a new one. A March 2024 Goldman Sachs report projected that 300 million full-time jobs could be impacted by AI automation globally. I believe it is higher than that.
The American Dream is already on life support. Tens of millions of people are expected to lose their livelihoods in the coming decade. Most were taught that their job, key to making The Dream happen, wasn’t just a paycheck; it was their purpose. And what happens when people lose their purpose? I know firsthand: depression, anxiety, burnout, even identity crises. It took me several years to heal from the realization that my identity was my job. It was a beautiful but challenging process to learn mental fitness and emotional mastery. The years of practice required for self-improvement are something few have the stomach for.
We are ripping away people’s financial security and replacing it with something smarter, cheaper, and easier (for now) to control. Humans have never had to compete with something more intelligent. We have not even begun to hold serious national conversations about universal basic income or AI ethics in the labor sector. In truth, our economic house is already a mess, and our social safety nets are fraying.
If we don’t act now, we will see drastic increases in suicide, depression, anxiety, addiction, lone-wolf attacks, and domestic terrorism. I am not saying this to scare you. I hate how the media manipulates fear to serve corporate interests. But I am raising the alarm because this conversation is long overdue. The future is arriving faster than we’re preparing for it, and people are not okay.
Just to let you know, I’m not opposed to AI. I love this technology. I published a book last year that lays out how AI could help revive the American Dream. I believe this may be our last shot to create a society that works for everyone. But we must recognize the cost. Human beings have never had to compete with something more intelligent than us. And we are woefully unprepared for the emotional, spiritual, and societal fallout.
This is why I founded the SoulTech Foundation: to provide mental, emotional, and spiritual mastery training, like meditation, yoga, and consciousness education, to underserved communities navigating the age of AI. These practices aren’t just nice to have; they are essential. I believe they are critical survival tools for the Age of AI. Given the hot mess of the healthcare system and the expense of conventional treatments, teaching people how to command their mental fitness is vital.
We need to start preparing not just our systems, but our souls, for what’s coming.
I’d love to hear your thoughts:
Are you seeing signs of this mental health shift around you?
What solutions do you believe can help communities stay balanced during this transition?
And what would you like to see from leaders in government, business, or technology to handle this with greater integrity?
The time for silence is over.
Love and light,
Cynthia
Shaman Isis
