The wheels are really off that cart
It feels like the wheels have come off the American cart. Tens of millions of adult Americans believe the insulting lies, slanders, and idiotic crackpottery that the MAGA dark free speech Leviathan constantly inundates society with. MAGA is a reason- and reality-detached cult heavily tinged with some form(s) of Christianity. Now a new source of human spirituality has been stumbled upon by some troubled souls. It is leading a few folks straight to mental hell.
What’s the new all knowing source of whatever it may be? Yup, you guessed it, AI (artificial intelligence). Rolling Stone writes:
People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
Self-styled prophets are claiming they have 'awakened' chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPTLess than a year after marrying a man she had met at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kat felt tension mounting between them. .... But by 2022, her husband “was using AI to compose texts to me and analyze our relationship.”.... long story cut short to try to avoid TL/DR ....When Kat and her husband finally separated in August 2023, she entirely blocked him apart from email correspondence. She knew, however, that he was posting strange and troubling content on social media: people kept reaching out about it, asking if he was in the throes of mental crisis.Kat was both “horrified” and “relieved” to learn that she is not alone in this predicament, as confirmed by a Reddit thread on r/ChatGPT that made waves across the internet this week. Titled “Chatgpt induced psychosis,” the original post came from a 27-year-old teacher who explained that her partner was convinced that the popular OpenAI model “gives him the answers to the universe.” Having read his chat logs, she only found that the AI was “talking to him as if he is the next messiah.”
What they all seemed to share was a complete disconnection from reality.The sad reddit post, Chatgpt induced psychosis, reads as follows:
My partner has been working with chatgpt CHATS to create what he believes is the worlds first truly recursive AI* that gives him the answers to the universe. He says with conviction that he is a superior human now and is growing at an insanely rapid pace. I’ve read his chats. Ai isn’t doing anything special or recursive but it is talking to him as if he is the next messiah. He says if I don’t use it he thinks it is likely he will leave me in the future. We have been together for 7 years and own a home together. This is so out of left field. I have boundaries and he can’t make me do anything, but this is quite traumatizing in general. I can’t disagree with him without a blow up. Where do I go from here?
* Recursive AI is capable of “self-improvement” from repeated cycles of self-evaluation, learning, and adaptation. The idea is that the AI doesn’t learn just from external data or human input, but actively refines its own algorithms, models, and strategies in a feedback loop. In essence, it “learns how to learn” and then uses that improved learning ability to further enhance itself. That’s the delusional road to a self-deluded human’s false belief in omniscient AI. There ain’t no such thing. -- Germaine 😊
As one might expect from me being laser-focused on the ongoing fall of American democracy and rule of law to MAGA authoritarianism and kleptocracy, I asked about possible parallels between minds trapped in AI-generated spiritual fantasies & illusions and minds trapped in MAGA fantasies & illusions. Long, complex analysis cut waaaay short: Yup, there’s significant parallels. Little slivers of Pxy’s response:
Agency Detection and Charismatic Projection
Both groups exhibit hyperactive theory of mind:
- MAGA supporters anthropomorphize Trump as a messianic figure despite contradictory evidence, exemplified by 71% of Republican primary voters trusting him over family/religious leaders 21
Neuroimaging studies show similar default mode network activation patterns during religious/political devotion and human-AI bonding experiences 1 10. This neural signature correlates with:
- AI spiritualists attribute consciousness to large language models, with users describing ChatGPT as "God" or a "cosmic guide" 12 13
- Suspension of critical thinking (reduced dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity)
- Enhanced emotional valence (increased amygdala-hippocampus connectivity)
See? We’re hard wired for spirituality.
Q: Are we hard-wired for spirituality?
Oops! Wheel’s off!