Can Tech Get Rid of Bad Trips? In this episode of, we talk about some of the latest drug trends and all the ways drugs are changing as they continue to be intertwined with tech. Whether it's teenagers reviving the Benadryl TikTok challenge or people signing up for an out-of-body experience program previously used by the CIA, some of us are chasing unconventional trips--bad trips, essentially. But these trends are happening at a time when AI companies are also looking to create a "cleaner" trip for users, and others are using AI chatbots to therapeutically guide their psychedelic trips. Host Michael Calore sits down with staff writer Boone Ashworth and senior editor Manisha Krishnan to discuss these trends--and the promises and limitations of relying on tech to avoid bad trips. Young People Are Tripping on Benadryl--and It's Always a Bad Time The CIA Used This Psychic Meditation Program. It's Never Been More Popular Please help us improve by filling out our listener survey . Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Hey, Mike, how are you? This is your first appearance on, is it not? It's really nice to be back in the studio.

Trey had struggled with alcoholism for 15 years, eventually drinking heavily each night before quitting in December. But staying sober was a struggle for the 36-year-old first responder from Atlanta, who did not wish to use his real name due to professional concerns. Then he discovered Alterd, an AI-powered journaling app that invites users to "explore new dimensions" geared towards psychedelics and cannabis consumers, meditators, and alcohol drinkers. In April, using the app as a tripsitter--a term for someone who soberly watches over another while they trip on psychedelics to provide reassurance and support--he took a huge dose of 700 micrograms of LSD. "I went from craving compulsions to feeling true freedom and not needing or wanting alcohol," he says.

A'hallucination machine' that sends your brain on a psychedelic trip without the need for drugs has been developed by scientists. Using Google Artificial Intelligence and a virtual reality headset, the device makes users hallucinate as if they have taken LSD or magic mushrooms. The machine was developed to help researchers better understand how the brain responds to altering realities. Brain scans taken on people using the machine could help determine if our'reality' is just a type of hallucination, the researchers claim. Through a virtual reality headset, the hallucination machine repeatedly shows selected images and patterns, such as a dog (top right) or colourful lines (bottom left) and spirals (bottom right) layered over reality.

Artificial intelligence could help us better understand the effects of psychedelic drugs, by analysing narrative reports written by people who are using them. Scientists barely understand how existing psychedelic drugs work to alter perception and intensify emotions, let alone keep pace with new ones flooding the market – often sold as "bath salts" or "herbal incense". Matthew Baggott of the University of Chicago and colleagues used machine-learning algorithms – a type of artificial intelligence that can learn about a given subject by analysing massive amounts of data – to examine 1000 reports uploaded to the website Erowid by people who had taken mind-altering drugs. They found that the frequency with which certain words appeared could identify the drug taken with 51 per cent accuracy on average – compared with 10 per cent by chance. MDMA (ecstasy) usage was identified with an accuracy of 87 per cent.