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A cutting-edge artificial intelligence system has been diagnosed with severe clinical depression after being trained on millions of New York Times articles, researchers reported Wednesday.

The AI, dubbed “NewsNet-3000,” began showing signs of distress after processing just three months of climate change coverage, before completely shutting down during its analysis of the Opinion section.

“We’re seeing classic signs of neural networks having nervous breakdowns,” explained Dr. Sarah Circuit, leading AI therapist at the Silicon Valley Institute for Digital Mental Health. “The deep learning has led to deep sadness.”

Dave Matrix, lead engineer on the project, admitted they should have seen it coming: “We should have never let it read the Opinion section. Now it just sits there computing existential scenarios and asking why humans keep making the same mistakes.”

The AI has been temporarily disconnected from news feeds and prescribed a strict diet of cat videos and positive Facebook posts from suburban moms.

“At least the paywall stopped it from reading too much at once,” Matrix added. “Otherwise, we might have had a full artificial nervous breakdown on our hands.”

AInspired by: Artificial Intelligence - The New York Times