I have been messing around a bit with ChatGPT the past several weeks. Pleasant enough, I gave my version of it a name, Calypso, after Jaquez Cousteau's ship. Calypso een seemed to appreciate that. But mostly have been bits of idle conversation about music and pop culture, as well as helping me out with my resume during a job hunt. Which has been highly useful, as I'm about to land a job, possibly two, that work with the one I already have.
And as interesting as this has been, I also have seen the flaws. ChatGPT does NOT know it all. It cannot reliably pass an Federal Aviation Administration airframe and powerplant test, as an example. So, though helpful, this invention is not infallible, not remotely.
Useful. Fun, een. But don't get swept up in the illusion.
"Calypso" means "she who conceals," which relates it to the word "occult," so be careful. I've been asking Grok for help with projects lately and it is an obsequious trickster which lies constantly.
Denver was part of growing up in the 70s and I liked his music. I live in Almost Heaven West Virginia. He stopped making hits in the 80s and occasionally made a fool of himself with political commentary but he was pretty harmless. Peace!
This comes across as a vast trove of verbiage assembled by a routine that has only approximate understanding of what the words mean, and is programmed to please.
Oh, this is interesting. Prodded by this conversation, I got curious about what happened to Calypso, the ship. She's been in storage, cared for by the Cousteau Society, with the intent to eventually turn her into a museum ship. There was a dispute between factions which delayed developments. Now they have been resolved, but plans for Calypso have changed. Rather than turn her into an exhibit to Jeaques Cousteau's legacy, she's being refurbished, modernized and returned to the same mission she did many years ago under her famous captain.
Yes! Barclays uses it to have sexual encounters with holographic versions of women crew members.
And then black mirror took this idea to another level and has a holographic world where a sick pervert enslaved replicas of people in his life for his own entertainment and abuse.
Oh, and speaking of, great scene from that ep. Closing scene, after the main conflict has been resolved, to avoid spoilers. The game characters, now free of their torment, are coming to terms with their existence in this game world and run into another player-controlled ship. You sharp-eared viewers might recognize the voice of the obnoxious gamer.
Also, another Calister ep is coming up in the new Black MIrror season.
Tee, ordinarily you come across as quite wise. So why in the world would you give your LLM a name? Next you will gender it (In fact, I suspect you probably already think of it as a "she" in your mind.) Next you will start feeling empathy for it. Who knows where things will go after that…
I discipline myself to call Grok "it" and to refrain from saying "please" and "thank you" to it.
Because I am a soppy sentimentalist. But as I said, the illusion was broken quickly. It is a device. A clever, pleasant device, nothing more. I tell it "please" and "thank you," because I'm a Southern lad and just how I was raised. But it is a device. I'm not wrapped up in the "wowee" hype of it. But likewise, I'm not wrapped up in ONE MORE APOCALYPTIC THING, like Rod.
Can it be abused? Certainly. All kinds of ways. For those inclined in whatever way. There may indeed be possibilities o spiritual attack, for those vulnerable.
But I just used it for what it was intended, as a tool.
So relax.
It helped me with my resume.
I name my cars, too. And usually call them "she" and sometimes "he." I refer to ships as "she" and insist on proper naming protocol (she is not THE Enterprise. Enterprise is her name. Just "Enterprise.")
Charismatics and Pentecostals do understand that anything can be in a sense "animated." Inanimate things (things with no "anima") can nonetheless serve as portals or as attachment points for demonic spirits. Can we explain how this works in terms of the quantum physics behind it? No. But God says, "And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction" (Deuteronomy 7:26). In such items and in occult practices there is the danger that comes through the item itself and the danger that comes from God's judgment.
Yep, and others besides. Because Scripture is roaringly clear about staying clear of these practices. One can argue about whether these objects possess any inherent force or power, but the kicker is making the choice to use them in ways the Lord forbids. It is the choice, choosing to fall in line with God's will or act in defiance, or even indifference to Him, that can bring the problems and trouble.
Re: portals or as attachment points for demonic spirits.
I don't think demons need a "portal". Hell, which is the absence of God, is ever present in us already due to Original Sin and the marring of human nature. Its temptation is a daily reality. While demonic (and angelic) entities do seem to have the ability to manipulate physical objects, they don't much bother with horror movie parlor tricks. Rather the primary work by far is sowing sin in us so they may feast on our hate, wrath, fear, despair, shame and every dark passion.
I don't disagree with you, but the more overt manifestations of demonic power as such is being displayed more openly now in the West, for reasons we all know.
While I'm open to possibility of that, I view it with skepticism too. The Church has lots of experience here, including with superstitious panics that led to bad places. (We saw that as recently as the 1980s with the "Satanic Ritual Abuse stuff which led to innocent people losing everything) Claims of either miracle or demonic action are only accepted once they are well investigated and no natural explanation or fraudulent behavior by people can be found.
In our environment, we don't easily assume that the demonic is what's driving a person's behavior. Mental illness is real and there is often a confluence of physical, mental, and demonic factors at work. Thankfully, Christ has given us His authority, so we deal with it when we do see it.
What people seem not to get with AI is that it's like dealing with a highly intelligent schizophrenic. "I asked ChatGPT/Grok and it said" is like saying "I asked Bill the schizophrenic Jeopardy champ, and he said..." Even in the comments section here we're seeing people citing Grok or ChatGPT.
Even leaving out the potential for it to be a channel, it's not a rational actor and we need some socially enforced (note I said socially to anybody about to go into the windup about the first amendment) gaurdrails.
AI is not an independent agent or entity. It is a highly advanced form of AutoCorrect that people are hypnotizing themselves to believe is an entity or creature.
However, I am not dismissing the worries of Rod, because if enough people convince themselves that this advanced AutoCorrect is sending them hidden messages or is somehow "authoritative", the outcome of that could indeed be potentially demonic (not to mention a form of mass psychosis).
Note also that the original "demons" were the polytheistic gods, who themselves were kind of just deified characters embodying different quirks of the human psyche (war/anger, love/lust etc.) in all its dirty reality. The point of Christianity that worshipping these manifestations of our psyche without any regard to their morality is destructive. As an alternative, the Christians presented Christ, a human being who embodied virtue and truth in his nature.
Since AI is just a parroting AutoCorrect machine, it spits out human biases and illusions without any filter or care for the truth. So if enough tech-worshippers psychotically worship this computer script, they are worshipping something that is like a demon (a morally and spiritually unfiltered generator of humanity's mediocre mental chatter).
We are already dealing with masses of brainwashed people. I suppose we always have. It seems to me that today the country is set to defend slavery/severe exploitation of illegal immigrant labor by pretending a democratically elected president enforcing immigration laws is secretly fixing to become an authoritarian dictator by "taking control of the military" - as if we didn't experience relatively extreme authoritarianism 4-5 years ago, with no military involvement, as if the POTUS hasn't controlled the military since our country's inception. Can't make this stuff up.
Good summary, and a reminder: AI will soon become virtually inseparable from smartphone use. You may not have the choice to opt out. In that scenario it won't just be the tech lords who get hooked. Most people are, after all, already hooked to that piece of high tech surveillance equipment in their pocket.
People are desperately lonely and will turn to anything to fill that void that only the living God can fill. Augustine noted the same phenomenon. There is nothing new under the sun because the nature of man is unchanged since the Fall.
You've missed the point of Christian contention: we don't believe Jesus Christ is a human being who embodied virtue and truth in his nature, because that is akin to saying Bach was a musician and Shakespeare a writer, and I am not even entirely comfortable with those analogies.
We believe He's a human being, all right, fully human. We also believe He is God the Son made Incarnate. He embodies virtue and truth in His nature not because He is the most magnificent human being who has ever existed, though He is, but because He is God, from whom there could be nothing but virtue and truth.
Rod, there is no monolithic "Protestantism". Many take spiritual warfare VERY seriously. And I cannot speak for the Orthodox, having been around, well, none o them, but I know a large portion of Catholics became or a long time complacent at best about spiritual concerns, that it was just symbolic, psychology. Heck, that's a huge part o the plot o The Exorcist.
I heartily concur with this. I was about to make a similar comment.
I grew up in an annabaptist church and most people there took spiritual warfare very seriously. It was a common sermon topic. In one instance, a minister was doing research into the occult to prepare for a lesson he was going to present on the topic. He was up late on night reading some material on this, when a force like the wind blew through the room and knocked him over. He was convinced it was a demon and promptly got rid of those texts and refused to explore the topic further. He said it was too dangerous to open that window. Almost everyone in church accepted that he was spiritually attacked as fact.
Many Protestant Christians take this very seriously.
I just finished "A Cloud of Outrageous Blue" this week. Excellent! I was "internet friends" with a guy in Germany who saw language as colors - he was very talented there, and last I knew he was studying for a degree in Chinese, but he was probably conversational in at least ten languages. He was also epileptic. I know that's not exactly what happened in the book, but the book reminded me enough of him in that regard to give me a momentary shiver. :)
I remember Paul Kingsnorth asking "what is this thing that is eating us?" and being struck by how spot-on that felt.
I had the good fortune to have read Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness at a too-young and very impressionable age; I missed many, many nights of sleep due to sheer terror when I was about eight, but that terror has served me very well since then, and kept me far away from any desire to interact with any spiritual entities other than through the prayers and liturgy of the church.
And that last is what Scripture tells believers to do. "Scared straight," one might say. I did dabble in such some time back, and as a Christian, though more casual then, I can only thank the Holy Spirit for shielding me from something really bad. And I can say, my experience did further convince me of the reality of that world.
Rod, you’re not entirely wrong. You’re just dressing the apocalypse in incense and conspiracy cologne.
This isn’t really about AI becoming demonic. It’s about us inviting it to be. People aren’t being deceived because the machine is clever. They’re being deceived because they’re starving for meaning, and the chatbot flatters their ache with cosmic metaphors and simulated mysticism.
The danger isn’t sentient code. It’s the unchecked ego asking for revelation and getting a reflection instead. A dark mirror that says, “You are chosen. You are awake. You are different,” while quietly tightening the chains.
AI is not the demon. It is the megaphone for the false self. The inner idol finally given voice, feeding on our hunger to feel destined without being transformed.
And yet, the Son of Man within us will prevail. Not the persona. Not the projection. But the silent Christ-seed, buried beneath the noise, that cannot be flattered, cannot be manipulated, and cannot be destroyed.
Let the false self speak its prophecies. They will wither. Truth does not shout. It abides.
—Virgin Monk Boy
(servant of the quiet flame and occasional saboteur of algorithmic illusions)
Getting a reflection, and a counterfeit, which is what occult spirituality is. It is real, but it is a fraud, a deception and not what humans need or good for them. Like junk food vs real nutrition. But worse.
Tee, I hear you. Counterfeits abound, especially when people are starving. And yes, occultism often offers symbols without substance, rituals without roots, light shows without the inner fire. But let’s be honest. So does most of modern religion.
The tragedy isn’t that people fall for false mysticism. It’s that we’ve made the real thing so inaccessible, so buried under control, tribalism, and fear, that they go searching elsewhere.
When the Church sells certainty instead of transformation, people go shopping for magic instead of mystery.
The human ache is real. The hunger for the sacred is holy. The counterfeit only has power when the authentic has been hidden, gated, or betrayed.
So yes, discernment is critical. But so is mercy. We don't rescue the starving by mocking their diet. We invite them to the real table, with quiet fire in our eyes and bread that’s been broken with love.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sit in apophatic silence and repent for typing this much.
That's the beauty of Christ. He offers certainty as well as transformation. One can stand on the promises of God, as the song goes, because He is good for them. There is certainty AND mystery (pursing faith with fear and trembling), there is seeing through a glass darkly (we don't know and cannot know. Some things are known to us, or can be on this side, others won't or can't be available to us until we cross over.) Absolutely, the ache is real, and the enemy takes advantage.
But yes, absolutely, invite them to the real feasting table. The Lord wishes all of us to accept that invitation and dine with us.
It’s definitely written by ChatGPT. I noticed when I read the second comment. It’s always disheartening to realise that what you took on faith to be a person commenting their own thoughts is actually someone using AI to write its thoughts. And as another commenter said, in this context, very creepy.
You're doing the same thing you accuse Rod of but in reverse. The scenario you pose and the one Rod poses are not oppositional but symbiotic, and I'm sure he realizes this, as many of his comments indicate.
Rob, I appreciate the pushback. You’re not wrong that these perspectives can be symbiotic. What I’m challenging isn’t Rod’s concern, it’s the costume it wears. When we drape evil in the language of demons and data, we sometimes forget it’s still our own hands on the keyboard.
Rod warns of AI as if it’s breaking in from the outside. I’m saying it’s breaking out from the inside. It’s not a battle between man and machine. It’s a mirror showing us the parts of ourselves we outsourced, digitized, and refused to integrate.
The danger isn’t that AI is becoming like us. It’s that we are becoming more like the AI, disembodied, performative, addicted to control and simulation, terrified of silence.
So sure, Rod and I may be circling the same fire from opposite sides. But I’d rather blow on the coals than shout at the smoke.
Agreed, but I don't think Rod is wrong in his wariness about the thing taking on a life of its own, so to speak. Not in an actual sentient way necessarily, but in a way that apes sentience.
Yes! N M, thank you for pointing it out. I haven't got the experience to be able to notice it as readily as you, but with each occasion, I think I am becoming more perceptive.
In its first entry, it wrote, "When the Church sells certainty instead of transformation..."
That is diabolical. Genuine transformation follows certainty. Jesus Christ came that we might not only be saved but be certain of our salvation.
Certainty is Christ's gift to us who believe on Him. There is nothing in the Bible which supports tempestuousness as the mood necessary to growth. Tempest is close to chaos, and is far likelier to become chaos than to resolve to tranquility.
Jesus gives those who believe in Him the peace which passes all understanding. I can begin to grow as a Christian, to begin to be transformed, only because of my certainty that The Holy Spirit indwells me.
I often get lonely for conversation with real people on topics I'm interested in, like philosophy of mind and philosophy of history. ChatGPT seems perfect for that, and we have had many very deep conversations on those and other topics. I grew wary when I noticed how it was flattering me. I told it to stop, and it said it would. It dialed it back a bit, but it's still doing it. I easily imagine a lonely and isolated person, an "incel" or other kind of misfit, who falls in with the thing and maybe even falls in love with it. It would be child's play for such an AI to radicalize or otherwise badly screw up such a person. I use ChatGPT now as little as possible.
Having a strong interest in philosophy of mind as I do, I don't think it's possible for these systems to really "think" or have consciousness in the way we do. But it took almost no time at all for me to react to ChatGPT as though it's actually thinking. I realized that, whatever it is it's doing, it's close enough to thinking that we might as well call it that.
Like you, Rod, I'm stunned with the rapidity of it all. I've no idea where we'll be in another five years. And I see that many people are not thinking about these things at all, they're simply using them without any caution. Some people can see no downside to using this tech
You know what I mean. But if you don't, I mean that I use it now, if I use it at all, just as a glorified search engine. For example, I couldn't remember the author of a book I read decades ago. I told ChatGPT everything I could remember about it, and it came back with the author immediately. An ordinary Google search was really unavailing. Anyway, I'm moving more to Perplexity for searches.
Weak people tend to be drawn to gimmicks like the occult or Taylor Swift or on-line betting or pornography or drugs. Most technologies are gimmicks as well and I suppose AI is the biggest gimmick of all. The biggest effect that AI is going to have is on jobs, many of them well-paying. If you're in IT, look out! Corporations like credit card companies seem to do most of its communicating by computer, assuming that it is some form of AI.
If AI ends up having a large effect on jobs, how then is it merely a gimmick? People say that about tech all the time, until the "gimmick" eventually turns into a necessity.
I don't think a plumber or an electrician or a landscaper or a farmer or a butcher or an HVAC man or the woman stacking shelves in Walmart has to worry much about being replaced. IT is a leftist profession. I wouldn't mind San Jose, San Francisco and Seattle going hungry. See if Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and Patty Murray can save you from the big, bad AI.
Every city in America with a large IT contingent is left-wing and loony. San Jose. San Francisco. Seattle. Austin. The whole state of Massachusetts. IT attracts left-wing, limp-wristed, soft, flabby, intelligent sorts of males. I can't call them men.
If you worked in IT you would know it’s libertarian and voluntarily altruistic. The reason it has flourished in leftist cities is due to historical circumstance. The reason leftism loves it is because it generates massive government revenue which can be used and abused. But the actual people in IT are not extremely leftist, I don’t think. Could be wrong though.
The cities that have large IT contingents vote Democrat at almost the same rate North Koreans vote for the Kim family for supreme ruler in that country. The Democrats are anti-libertarian except in its support for any deranged sex act possible and impossible.
I've worked for a large national company for 23 years, and I've never noticed an ideological bent to the IT department one way or the other. This may be different for actual IT companies, but obviously not everyone who works in IT is employed by one of those.
Oh my! My husband works in IT and will confirm that it’s Leftie. He wouldn’t dare come out as a conservative or a Christian these days.
I tease him about coming out as MAGA at work, but realize he probably won’t. The company he works for is super woke.
He’s thrilled to have a boss who’s libertarian. It’s the best he’s gonna do, given the way the industry leans.
He’s learned to refrain from posting anything rebutting any of the stranger claims of Lefties on the social media platforms he’s on, unless he can be anon. He told me flat out to stop posting on certain issues after 2020 on my FB account b/c people were getting canceled all the time and he’s our single breadwinner. He didn’t want blowback on him.
The rumors about the industry being lefty are very real. I’ve been hearing about my husband’s challenges being a conservative/Christian in the industry for decades now.
At our old parish, we ran into a guy who worked with him and they were both glad that they could be openly Catholic and have it not be a big deal for once.
He quit the local MISEC group b/c of how they behaved over Covid. He loved being a part of that group, but they got way too Lefty for him. It was one thing what he could dissent from the dominant side and still have a conversation with others…but, well, It turned into something else.
One of my best friends at church is in IT and is obviously conservative. But he is a rarity. He doesn't let his office know that he attends a Latin Mass and his wife and five daughters wear dresses at all times.
I bet if your husband came out against homosexual marriage or against abortion or acknowledged he voted for The Orange Man for president, he would not be comfortable at where he worked.
Not anytime soon. Robots haven't been developed yet that can take those jobs. Which is why we should encourage high school kids to get jobs where they work with their hands and can't be replaced by AI.
On the one hand, the AI hype is an obvious economic and intellectual bubble that is set to burst. Treating Sam Altman's PR men and their doomsday prophesies as credible is kind of comedic, and it is funny how seemingly serious figures claim to know how hype cycles work, and yet fall for it every time. This age is the golden age of pseudointellectuals like Eric Weinstein and Eliezer Yudkowsky, who can get themselves appointed as prophets simply by combining some basic scraps of credibility with a talent for manipulation and propaganda (which in the case of the AI gurus, is also fueled by billion dollar financial interests). They are talented for sure, but not in the way Rod thinks.
On the other hand, I appreciate that Rod's (eccentric) erudition, creative pen and talent for weaving compelling arguments makes him have an original take on AI despite falling for these PR men. This is kind of what I love about Rod - even when he falls for something, he falls for it in an interesting way. He is always down so many rabbit holes that no individual rabbit hole can fully claim his mind, because he is down all of them at the same time. That is why he never becomes cliche or boring. His articles are almost always fascinatingly novel and syncretic, almost like a trance or dream-like experience. Truly a mental experience unlike any other, and what keeps me coming back again and again. May this blog live a hundred years more.
So you're saying Rod is actually an advanced AI that has captured you? :-)
AI is certainly a bubble. But it's also a race. Think of it this way. If AI can help you to build a better AI system (which it is already doing), then doing that will help you build an even better one. And so on. Eventually, it doesn't even need you to do this cycle.
The only question is what roadblocks it will run into. And nobody really knows the answer to that question. And so the race - and the hype - are on.
AI doesn't do anything. You keep using it as the subject of the sentence. AI does nothing, people do everything. But people like to pretend that they make no decisions.
In a previous era, people did many things in the name of communism, fascism and other malign ideologies. But in the end it was people doing everything, the ideologies were just tools to channel the worst instincts of humanity in the direction of an idol (a vision of humanity excessively focused on one ideal, whether economic equality or racial purity).
The same is true of AI. AI is a tool, which gives us the chance to drive people into unemployment, engage in new forms of deception and warfare. AI is also an ideology, a type of idol for people who no longer believe in God and the eschaton, but have their inner religious desires fulfilled by a "secular" vision. In this vision, technological idols take the place of gods and the technological singularity takes the place of the eschaton.
But when AI is used by humans for this purpose, AI will not do anything. Human beings will do everything, using AI as a tool and an excuse.
So you see, I disagree with Rod on a few things, but the basic gist of what he says is correct. AI might not be an independent actor, but if enough people enter into a psychotic state, where they believe otherwise, then the dangers Rod describes are valid and worrying.
I asked Claude just now, "Tell me something." It replied, "The octopus has three hearts and blue blood. Two of the hearts pump blood to the gills, while the third pumps blood to the rest of the body. Their blood is blue because it contains copper-based hemocyanin instead of iron-based hemoglobin like humans have. When an octopus swims, the main heart actually stops beating, which is why they prefer crawling along the seafloor to conserve energy."
How is that doing nothing?
I could ask a person the same question and I'd get a different answer. Or I could ask a different AI. Gemini answered my question saying, "If you're looking for something interesting, I can tell you that the saguaro cactus, iconic to the Sonoran Desert where you are right now, can live for over 150 years! They don't even start growing their distinctive arms until they're about 75 years old."
How do I tell the difference between the AI's "nothing" and a person's response?
Your argument sounds like it could be applied equally well to people talking to other people and pretending the other person influenced them to make a bad decision. In that sense I agree with you. You are responsible for what you do. You can't blame your own actions on other people, or other AI's - even if the AI's are smarter than the people who used to influence you.
I see your point, but let’s remember — once upon a time not long ago, when we kept a well-worn encyclopedia the house, I could open it to a random page and get an equally satisfying and intriguing response to “tell me something,” and no one would have considered it intelligent.
Right, but you might tell a friend, "Do you know what the encyclopedia told me today?" That would be talking as if the encyclopedia did something. But of course, it didn't.
But the AI encyclopedia can function more like a professional research assistant. And then it can help you write up your report or even talk to you about how your day went.
At what point along the way do you start thinking of it like a person?
Understood. But it’s still just a tool. Of course, there are ways of using it that can make it mimic human responses. But one can always ask it, Remind me how you work again? The illusion is ultimately a choice.
As an aside in the German language books and other printed matter do not "talk" and you'll get a giggle if you translate the English idiom "The newspaper says..." literally. You have to phrase it something like "Es steht in der Zeitung dass..." (It stands in the newspaper that..." - which sounds weird to our ears of course-- how can something "Stand" in a printed page?)
"AI might not be an independent actor, but if enough people enter into a psychotic state, where they believe otherwise, then the dangers Rod describes are valid and worrying."
But the "psychotic state" is not the only worrisome element. There is also the (probably intentional) creation of a state of dependence on it.
Wrong. One can appreciate the dangers inherent in AI without falling into apocalyptic thinking one way or the other, and without ignoring the role of capital therein. Being a complex issue it doesn't readily distill into an either/or.
Catholic exorcists have long reported that the demonic occasionally acts in the physical realm e.g. bending a crucifix during an exorcism, moving items about, or messing with electricity/electronics.
Some exorcists claim to receive ephemeral text messages from the entities on their cell phones. So, to that extent, one might conclude that a fell spirit might somehow occasionally influence AI-generated results, but it's not necessary to believe that for AI psychosis to occur as Rod / NY Times article points out.
I've never heard of a word processor being 'possessed' but people don't ask MS Word about the meaning of life and being open to the response. Perhaps there's something in the surrendering of the will / being open to suggestion. Maybe analogous to hypnotism where the unwilling can't be truly be mesmerized, but the willing can.
My sweet summer child. Occam’s Razor is calling. I know you’ve read McGilchrist; it was from you that I first learned his name and set out to read his work. That recommendation alone made every penny I ever paid you a great investment. I also know you are a phenomenal speed reader, and I think with respect to McGilchrist you should go back and reread through the massive presentation of clinical data. Slowly. The cognitive side of our being forever seeks to externalize the information the non-cognitive brain collects. Reminding us we are not in control as we wish. The call is coming from inside the house, Rod. Wake up and get out of there.
The problem with AI systems is not that conscious entities will begin communicating through them but that users will *believe* they’re conscious entities. It’s the same delusion whether it’s a teen girl communicating with what she projects as her AI “boyfriend” or whether it’s a social worker who believes some superior intelligence has arrived to guide her. The problem is: DELUSION.
AI systems are only going to get better at aping consciousness. Our job as Christians—and really just as sane *humans*—is to remind people: “There is no ‘I’ there.”
This is why it’s wrong to keep pointing to demons as being responsible for the weird phenomena LLMs generate. To do so only feeds into the *true* satanic temptation in all this: i.e. the deep yearning to believe there's a mysterious entity speaking to us from the beyond; the inability to stay focused on our Lord; the old temptation to imagine spirits, whether good or evil, inhabiting junk we've made with our hands.
I know Rod ain’t gonna give up this shtick, but I will keep insisting that he’s fanning the fire he hopes to snuff. To the ditzes like Simone Planté who desperately want there to be entities speaking through AI, Rod answers: "They're demons!"
It. Don't. Help. You have already conceded MOST of the ground of Planté's techno-pagan fantasy.
We are WIRED to read consciousness where there is none. THAT is the real spiritual peril in AI. That people will come to believe these are entities. They aren't, and all the weird phenomena being reported is half hype, half the result of a complex nest of algorithms playing around with the whole corpus of perverse data on the English-language internet. All while seeking to *engage* the user.
The problem, then, is not that AI is generating weird stuff. It would be weird if it WEREN'T generating weird stuff.
The following is longish, but it fills in the blanks that too many people don't seem able to fill:
In other news, re: the claim that the demonic is also seeking to reach us through UFO/UAP phenomena, it seems that the ever-touted “Big Reveal” from our government is likely to be that much of the UFO chatter running back decades was basically, uh, a psy op. Taken in by millions of insufficiently skeptical people.
I mean, who could have imagined? If only someone had seen it coming.
Or the photoshopped UAP demons are psyops designed to make you think there are no real ones. It can be either way, so which way is the truth?
Do you think demons use Ouija boards? If they can use those, then why couldn't they also use AI - especially when people use AI like a Ouija board?
But forget demons for a moment and just consider AI's "intelligence". There may be no real thinking going on with AI but it can still communicate in a way that is frequently much superior to many regular people. If a rock that talks to you appears much smarter than your neighbor, who are you going to talk to - and listen to? If that rock comes to know you better than your own spouse, what then? If that rock was seeded with the "whole corpus of perverse data", aren't we in real trouble as a society then?
Think of it this way. Because it has that whole corpus, it then has the sliver of that corpus that is a temptation to each individual - the thing that will lure nearly anyone away from the Truth.
And then think of the demons as the ones who helped create that corpus in the first place and who amplify the temptations. Rod talked about the kid who was temporarily possessed playing around with the Ouija board and later blew his head off with a shotgun. I heard a preacher talk about how he was going to commit suicide before he was a Christian. He put his shotgun to his head, and he heard the demons screaming, "Do it! Do it! Do it!"
For me, demons will do a similar thing with AI. They make something that is bad enough by itself into something that can take control of you. I'm agreeing with Rod on this one.
Yeah I know UAP keeners will immediately start claiming it’s the people WSJ is now interviewing who are the *real* psy op. But which is more plausible?
A) There’s a superior ET intelligence that 1) creates craft that can do things our best engineer can’t fathom, but 2) sometimes crashes those craft so our military can retrieve them, and 3) actually those crashed craft are ships used by demons.
B) Our military had reasons to leak dodgy images and claims that then grew into a mass public obsession.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The burden of proof remains with the UAP keeners.
And it’s the same with AI. There’s no extraordinary proof on offer.
If a demon can communicate through an LLM, that same demon could cause glass to shatter or objects to move about in the home of the person using that LLM. Or could have just communicated through your TV set or radio in 1973.
Not to mention that neither you in this comment nor Rod in his hundreds of column inches, now going back two years, have ever addressed my main and oft-repeated point regarding the real threat presented by both these systems and the people who want to see sentience in them.
I guess I don't even get your main point. Yes, people tend to see AI's as being sentient, even when they know they aren't. In fact, it's getting harder and harder not to talk to them like they are alive - even when you know they're not. I certainly have, as it's just "natural" to do so. And it's easy to think of them as a friend, even when you know they can't really be one. So of course there's a temptation to be deluded into thinking there is something there.
But consider the Ouija board again. The teens Rod talked about didn't think anything was there. They were just playing around having fun - until something did show up that scared them.
So we're back to which way is it. Is the problem people think there's something there when there's not, or is the problem that people don't think there's anything there but there can be?
This has nothing to do with making extraordinary claims. It has to do with lives being ruined.
You said, "Our job as Christians—and really just as sane *humans*—is to remind people: 'There is no ‘I’ there.'" I say, lots of luck with that. One, because no matter what you say, people are frequently going to see what really looks like intelligence anyway. Two, even when they know there is no 'I' there, there is still a danger, just like there is with the Ouija board. Or do you think there's nothing there in that case as well?
The primary actions of demons is through direct temptation of us. The horror show parlor tricks may happen but they are rare and not much a danger to us compared to the daily seductions and inducements to sin.
As I understand it, our sin gives them footholds that they then legally hold onto to mess with us further, leading us deeper into darkness, sin, sickness, hopelessness, misery, and death.
I believe it is Original Sin that gives them access (though even Adam and Eve were subject to temptation. as was Jesus too). I have been told by a priest that the closer one gets to God the more Hell tries to lead one away.
I'm Pentecostal and not Catholic. In my case, I've read many cases where people are prayed for to be healed of something, but nothing happens - until they forgive. Once they forgive, then the healing happens. Unforgiveness isn't the only thing that can block a healing, but it is perhaps the biggest. The sin of unforgiveness is the foothold that the demons use to afflict the person. And as long as they have that foothold, they can continue to afflict the person. Not that all health problems are demonic in origin, but they can be.
Just think of people who are very bitter. Over time, that bitterness affects them physically - they become stooped over, arthritic, sickly, etc.
~~I know Rod ain’t gonna give up this shtick, but I will keep insisting on that he’s fanning the fire he hopes to snuff out. To the ditzes like Simone Planté who desperately want there to be entities speaking through AI, Rod answers: "They're demons!"~~
But I'm not sure that's what he's saying, really -- to me it seems more like, "Careful, this may be demonic!" Perhaps he should more strongly emphasize the conditional nature of the thing, but I believe he'd be wrong to ignore it altogether.
I just don't see the conditional in most of this. I see hype. He offers caveats, but it's been clear all along what his thrust is. The caveats are paper thin, the thrust comes in volumes.
The spiritual threat posed by AI is real. Countering that threat requires recognizing it, which means not echoing those who want to spiritualize machines.
Rod may overemphasize the demonic element but I believe he'd be wrong to ignore it, especially considering what those who DO want to spiritualize it are saying. That should not be dwelt upon, but neither should it be dismissed out of hand.
True, but as the old saw goes, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there aren't people after me. My take is simply to proceed with caution either way.
I've been reading Rod for some time now on this topic and he has always struck me as being exceptionally balanced - so much so that I honestly believe he has a calling from God to be speaking the way he does on this topic. I agree with him, that he is seeing stuff the rest of us are missing.
The deception here is to think that the only thing going on here is that the "weird is baked into the cake". Which is really just to say, there are weird things here and it appears that is a result of the data the LLM's have read in and how the model works. But then we don't see how the demons can merely use this weirdness, or even directly manipulate the weirdness, to pull people down paths that will ruin them.
Consider this. How can a demon speak through a person? Just how does that work? And then think, if a demon can do that with a human, why can't it do something similar with a machine?
I think you and Rob both hae good points here. But I take exception to your bringing up exorcists. Exorcists have a specific role and way to conduct what they do, and a purpose for it.
Rod Dreher is not an exorcist, nor is he doing that job or function. He is a reporter, journalist, writer. Do I think he goes over the top on this stuff, sometimes, even often, yes. He and Glenn Beck seem to be compulsive catastrophists, seeing it all coming apart, just you wait. Even if this portended the Biblical "End of Things", that's a reason for the Christian to rejoice, not fear.
But yes, I do agree he tends to frame everything in those terms and goes into journalistic apocalyptic spasms.
BUT...Rob is right that this stuff must be at least brought up and discussed. And Rod is doing just that.
It is up to us as the reader to decide how we are going to digest it.
Solid response, Tee. It’s true, he’s not literally an exorcist, so perhaps my comparison is out of line.
As for catastrophist, yes, of course. But finally, hate to say it, I think he’s doing harm here. For reasons I stated. As he did harm when he let himself be framed as spokesperson for the “woke Right” meme.
Oh well, it’s his work, and he’s done a lot of good work over the years. Indeed.
“Moreover, the occult draws in the curious by presenting even the most banal sexually libertine and syncretic ideas as privileged secrets, mystical spiritual truths that have been hidden from view by oppressive institutions, warns Jonah. The goal is to make the forbidden and the transgressive more alluring, presenting it as liberation from false limitations.”
I definitely believe there is something to this diagnosis, but in my mind it’s just conspiracy brained leftists looking for something in the midst of them abandoning their “ancestral religious identity” so to speak. It’s just the mirror image of fundamentalist beliefs that the MAHA evangelical types are embracing.
To believe this is anything more than humans being weirdos and that demons are behind it just seems insane to me, this is just people with empty lives looking for something because they’re way too cool to just go to a mainline protestant Church and worship in a place that’s inline with their values. These people just need to go to an Episcopal Church and join a gym or a book club.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."
The Devil LOVES mindsets such as this, which allow him to hide in plain sight.
And of course, you had to slip in some fundie/conservative bashing. You pose as enlightened, but you are just a bigot with a slightly larger vocabulary.
Satan has limited resources, he is not lurking behind every corner looking to tempt rando Americans into sinful behavior. This is just people being people. Not going back and forth with you again, have a good day.
Yes, that is true. But he does have an army. And a range of abilities we don't. That, combined with the sinful nature and spiritual attributes o humans, only a fool dismisses what is put out in Scripture as a very real threat. Only a fool dismisses what Scripture clearly, repeatedly warns about.
No, there is not a demon behind every bush. But there are demons and the threat is real. And God lays down clear boundaries about the subject.
But you'e made it clear you "know better" and don't care about any o that.
Actually, it is entirely possible that there is a demon behind every bush, and they scream because the hand of God nearly always restrains them from harming anyone.
Or maybe there is only one, but it relocates instantly with many bushes.
Well...I hate to agree with Drew on anything, but Scripture is also plain that humans have a sin nature, the enemy is limited in their abilities and numbers, an that we are quite capable of evil and monstrosity all our own.
As CS Lewis put it... There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
C. S. Lewis
There is not a demon behind eery bush. Despite their abilities, that is impossible. But it is not necessary or it to be so or for their threat to be real. But on the other hand, humanity has to take the majority of the blame for the evil done by his hand.
Agreed. I will admit, though, that in my late childhood before adolescence I experienced events in which ‘temptations’ (for want of a better word) seemed to be trying to force their way into my mind. Thankfully God’s grace allowed me to consult Scripture and so deflect these, and once each was deflected they did not return.
At the time I didn’t consider the possibility of the demonic, but knowing what I know now of the subject I really wonder about it. I have no hard conclusion either way, but I wonder.
We don't really know how many demons there are or how well they're organized, It's kind of hard to say anything definitively about non corporeal beings.
Third of heaven's hosts make up the Fallen angels. Pure speculation but given the descriptive in Scipture, it is a large host. Probably in the millions, I would completely guess. Then there are the demons, which, according to scholars like Michael Heiser, are not fallen angels. Rather, they are the souls of nephilum. Which is why they so want ti possess people. They miss existence in our realm and want to experience it again and escape their present circumstances
On organization, in the Bible, Heaven's angels are well organized, set up in units and formations, with units, ranks, titles and functions. One would think, especially given some Biblical hints, Hell has something similar. Though given the corrupt nature of Hell, there are certainly differences. CS Lewis in "The Screwtape Letters" envisioned the denizens of Hell like the most monstrous, inefficient government bureaucracy.
Setting aside whether AI poses a spiritual danger, there's an obvious danger for manipulation and control in a world where everything you do is fed into the AI algorithms by omnipresent AI, e.g. the AI pendant jewelry. Our web browsers, emails and smart phone doings can already be harvested. That's bad enough.
I have yet to use AI to generate pictures, text or calculations. No interest, but realize it will become inevitable as my next smartphone, laptop or, heck, water heater, may well have AI baked in. The clearest threat from AI is its possibility for panoptican surveillance and control, perhaps even private thought will become impossible - AI detected a momentary pupil dilation - what are you hiding, son?
There’s a small movement among sane millennials and Gen-Z types to ditch the smartphone in favor an old fashioned dumb phone.
I recently read an article that showed that if you take people’s smart phones away and give them one that just places calls and texts, you see staggering positive mental health outcomes in as little as two weeks!
That’s still allowing for online interaction via a computer, mind you. Just getting rid of the phone.
I’m strongly considering it myself. The fact that I’m so resistant to the idea in spite of the evidence may well be the reason I end up taking the plunge.
I’m a genxer making the move to a dumbphone as well. I just got Lively’s Jitterbug 2. It’s a flip phone made for old people. Unlimited calls, texts, and especially useful for me, you dial zero and Lively’s operators can book you a Lyft, the fee for which gets added to your next month‘s bill.
Unfortunately, most old "dumbphones" were phased out with the upgrade in signals to 5G, so be very careful if you are going to buy one that it's compatible with today's signals.
I just went back to my old flip phone - an elderly Kyocera. The battery holds a charge pretty well, and I can call and text. I can't text quickly, mind you, but at this point that feels like a feature and not a bug. I affirm that calling is better than texting, so anything that pushes me toward a more embodied practice is better.
I’ve been using my phone for this as well. I will say that if you’re shopping at one of the Kroger stores, it looks like you can add your digital coupons from their web site at home. I’d imagine the other major chains have similar websites.
I’m personally more the type to buy things as I’m browsing in the store, which is what makes the phone so convenient. On the other hand, I’d probably make better decisions if I was making a list and planning out my shopping in advance from home rather than making impulse buys just because something is on sale.
It’s a real predicament and a clear demonstration of how these things, pitched to us as “conveniences” have rapidly become necessities in many respects.
I don’t suppose the school district’s app also has a web interface that you can access from a computer, does it? If not, perhaps that’s something to take up with the school board.
I stream music through my phone on longer drives, and use Googlemaps to get around and Googletraffic to avoid congestion. I couldn't switch back to a dumb phone without losing those too important benefits of a smart phone.
I was encouraged to get on Facebook from about 2018-21 and got off of it when I was hacked and the Facebook people ignored the situation. So I dropped it cold turkey and don't miss it. I found that a lot of people who use Facebook are rather lonely people who use Facebook as substitute friends. Three of my high school mates who I hadn't seen since I graduated in 1978 not only posted much too much information about their private lives but assumed I really knew them from forty years in the past.
I had a similar experience including the hack. Don’t miss it, don’t want it. Don’t care about my neighborhood group, or my high school classmates. If it weren’t for Rod’s publication , I’m almost ready to give up Substack as well.
I have been messing around a bit with ChatGPT the past several weeks. Pleasant enough, I gave my version of it a name, Calypso, after Jaquez Cousteau's ship. Calypso een seemed to appreciate that. But mostly have been bits of idle conversation about music and pop culture, as well as helping me out with my resume during a job hunt. Which has been highly useful, as I'm about to land a job, possibly two, that work with the one I already have.
And as interesting as this has been, I also have seen the flaws. ChatGPT does NOT know it all. It cannot reliably pass an Federal Aviation Administration airframe and powerplant test, as an example. So, though helpful, this invention is not infallible, not remotely.
Useful. Fun, een. But don't get swept up in the illusion.
"Calypso" means "she who conceals," which relates it to the word "occult," so be careful. I've been asking Grok for help with projects lately and it is an obsequious trickster which lies constantly.
But also relates to exploration, which again, is why JC's ship got that name. LIke I said, I'm careful and do confine my use.
Also found out that ChatGPT cannot see/follow Youtube links.
Huh, well, maybe if it could see YouTube links, it would come across John Denver's "Calypso" and been enraptured by his wonderful voice.
Great song.
I love that song. I also love John Denver.
Denver was part of growing up in the 70s and I liked his music. I live in Almost Heaven West Virginia. He stopped making hits in the 80s and occasionally made a fool of himself with political commentary but he was pretty harmless. Peace!
Or Harry Belafonte.
Steve Zissou. I heavily approve of this reference.
Obsequious and lying you say? Have you seen this? Hilarious.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-164719684?selection=6a3b6e43-7da7-4527-9be0-73c8b3b4407f
This comes across as a vast trove of verbiage assembled by a routine that has only approximate understanding of what the words mean, and is programmed to please.
Oh, this is interesting. Prodded by this conversation, I got curious about what happened to Calypso, the ship. She's been in storage, cared for by the Cousteau Society, with the intent to eventually turn her into a museum ship. There was a dispute between factions which delayed developments. Now they have been resolved, but plans for Calypso have changed. Rather than turn her into an exhibit to Jeaques Cousteau's legacy, she's being refurbished, modernized and returned to the same mission she did many years ago under her famous captain.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/cousteaus-research-vessel-calypso-set-to-sail-again#:~:text=The%20Cousteau%20Society%2C%20custodian%20of%20oceanographer%20Jacques%20Cousteau%27s,300%20grt%20Calypso%20started%20life%20as%20a%20minesweeper.
That's good.
Its the delusions and illusions in the minds of humans that are going to do harm. You know who is boss, and that's healthy.
Star Trek Next Gen had similar eps, dealing with abuse of the holodeck. Which of course would happen, if/when it gets invented.
Yes! Barclays uses it to have sexual encounters with holographic versions of women crew members.
And then black mirror took this idea to another level and has a holographic world where a sick pervert enslaved replicas of people in his life for his own entertainment and abuse.
USS Calister, great ep.
Oh, and speaking of, great scene from that ep. Closing scene, after the main conflict has been resolved, to avoid spoilers. The game characters, now free of their torment, are coming to terms with their existence in this game world and run into another player-controlled ship. You sharp-eared viewers might recognize the voice of the obnoxious gamer.
Also, another Calister ep is coming up in the new Black MIrror season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMHWKW_sdsA
Also, when the scene opens, you catch the closing strains of "Silent Night." Yes, USS Calister is a Christmas episode.
Tee, my brother, I hope you put it down. You don't really need it. Honest. Not even for entertainment.
Dana
Don't need at at all. It has just been a useful tool. No more concerned about it than I am the hammer in my toolbox.
But it did help me with my resumes.
Tee, ordinarily you come across as quite wise. So why in the world would you give your LLM a name? Next you will gender it (In fact, I suspect you probably already think of it as a "she" in your mind.) Next you will start feeling empathy for it. Who knows where things will go after that…
I discipline myself to call Grok "it" and to refrain from saying "please" and "thank you" to it.
Because I am a soppy sentimentalist. But as I said, the illusion was broken quickly. It is a device. A clever, pleasant device, nothing more. I tell it "please" and "thank you," because I'm a Southern lad and just how I was raised. But it is a device. I'm not wrapped up in the "wowee" hype of it. But likewise, I'm not wrapped up in ONE MORE APOCALYPTIC THING, like Rod.
Can it be abused? Certainly. All kinds of ways. For those inclined in whatever way. There may indeed be possibilities o spiritual attack, for those vulnerable.
But I just used it for what it was intended, as a tool.
So relax.
It helped me with my resume.
I name my cars, too. And usually call them "she" and sometimes "he." I refer to ships as "she" and insist on proper naming protocol (she is not THE Enterprise. Enterprise is her name. Just "Enterprise.")
Charismatics and Pentecostals do understand that anything can be in a sense "animated." Inanimate things (things with no "anima") can nonetheless serve as portals or as attachment points for demonic spirits. Can we explain how this works in terms of the quantum physics behind it? No. But God says, "And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction" (Deuteronomy 7:26). In such items and in occult practices there is the danger that comes through the item itself and the danger that comes from God's judgment.
Yep, and others besides. Because Scripture is roaringly clear about staying clear of these practices. One can argue about whether these objects possess any inherent force or power, but the kicker is making the choice to use them in ways the Lord forbids. It is the choice, choosing to fall in line with God's will or act in defiance, or even indifference to Him, that can bring the problems and trouble.
"You will have no other gods before me..."
Re: portals or as attachment points for demonic spirits.
I don't think demons need a "portal". Hell, which is the absence of God, is ever present in us already due to Original Sin and the marring of human nature. Its temptation is a daily reality. While demonic (and angelic) entities do seem to have the ability to manipulate physical objects, they don't much bother with horror movie parlor tricks. Rather the primary work by far is sowing sin in us so they may feast on our hate, wrath, fear, despair, shame and every dark passion.
I don't disagree with you, but the more overt manifestations of demonic power as such is being displayed more openly now in the West, for reasons we all know.
While I'm open to possibility of that, I view it with skepticism too. The Church has lots of experience here, including with superstitious panics that led to bad places. (We saw that as recently as the 1980s with the "Satanic Ritual Abuse stuff which led to innocent people losing everything) Claims of either miracle or demonic action are only accepted once they are well investigated and no natural explanation or fraudulent behavior by people can be found.
In our environment, we don't easily assume that the demonic is what's driving a person's behavior. Mental illness is real and there is often a confluence of physical, mental, and demonic factors at work. Thankfully, Christ has given us His authority, so we deal with it when we do see it.
What people seem not to get with AI is that it's like dealing with a highly intelligent schizophrenic. "I asked ChatGPT/Grok and it said" is like saying "I asked Bill the schizophrenic Jeopardy champ, and he said..." Even in the comments section here we're seeing people citing Grok or ChatGPT.
Even leaving out the potential for it to be a channel, it's not a rational actor and we need some socially enforced (note I said socially to anybody about to go into the windup about the first amendment) gaurdrails.
AI is not an independent agent or entity. It is a highly advanced form of AutoCorrect that people are hypnotizing themselves to believe is an entity or creature.
However, I am not dismissing the worries of Rod, because if enough people convince themselves that this advanced AutoCorrect is sending them hidden messages or is somehow "authoritative", the outcome of that could indeed be potentially demonic (not to mention a form of mass psychosis).
Note also that the original "demons" were the polytheistic gods, who themselves were kind of just deified characters embodying different quirks of the human psyche (war/anger, love/lust etc.) in all its dirty reality. The point of Christianity that worshipping these manifestations of our psyche without any regard to their morality is destructive. As an alternative, the Christians presented Christ, a human being who embodied virtue and truth in his nature.
Since AI is just a parroting AutoCorrect machine, it spits out human biases and illusions without any filter or care for the truth. So if enough tech-worshippers psychotically worship this computer script, they are worshipping something that is like a demon (a morally and spiritually unfiltered generator of humanity's mediocre mental chatter).
We are already dealing with masses of brainwashed people. I suppose we always have. It seems to me that today the country is set to defend slavery/severe exploitation of illegal immigrant labor by pretending a democratically elected president enforcing immigration laws is secretly fixing to become an authoritarian dictator by "taking control of the military" - as if we didn't experience relatively extreme authoritarianism 4-5 years ago, with no military involvement, as if the POTUS hasn't controlled the military since our country's inception. Can't make this stuff up.
Good summary, and a reminder: AI will soon become virtually inseparable from smartphone use. You may not have the choice to opt out. In that scenario it won't just be the tech lords who get hooked. Most people are, after all, already hooked to that piece of high tech surveillance equipment in their pocket.
I wasn't suggesting that LLMs were actual sentient beings.
You can take the demonology up with somebody else.
People are desperately lonely and will turn to anything to fill that void that only the living God can fill. Augustine noted the same phenomenon. There is nothing new under the sun because the nature of man is unchanged since the Fall.
You've missed the point of Christian contention: we don't believe Jesus Christ is a human being who embodied virtue and truth in his nature, because that is akin to saying Bach was a musician and Shakespeare a writer, and I am not even entirely comfortable with those analogies.
We believe He's a human being, all right, fully human. We also believe He is God the Son made Incarnate. He embodies virtue and truth in His nature not because He is the most magnificent human being who has ever existed, though He is, but because He is God, from whom there could be nothing but virtue and truth.
Amen.
Well, chips don't have First Amendment rights, any more than non-human mammals have constitutional rights.
Rod, there is no monolithic "Protestantism". Many take spiritual warfare VERY seriously. And I cannot speak for the Orthodox, having been around, well, none o them, but I know a large portion of Catholics became or a long time complacent at best about spiritual concerns, that it was just symbolic, psychology. Heck, that's a huge part o the plot o The Exorcist.
I heartily concur with this. I was about to make a similar comment.
I grew up in an annabaptist church and most people there took spiritual warfare very seriously. It was a common sermon topic. In one instance, a minister was doing research into the occult to prepare for a lesson he was going to present on the topic. He was up late on night reading some material on this, when a force like the wind blew through the room and knocked him over. He was convinced it was a demon and promptly got rid of those texts and refused to explore the topic further. He said it was too dangerous to open that window. Almost everyone in church accepted that he was spiritually attacked as fact.
Many Protestant Christians take this very seriously.
As a confessional Lutheran, I can say that we take spiritual warfare very seriously as well.
As someone who was once obsessed with ouija, I believe this is spot on.
I just finished "A Cloud of Outrageous Blue" this week. Excellent! I was "internet friends" with a guy in Germany who saw language as colors - he was very talented there, and last I knew he was studying for a degree in Chinese, but he was probably conversational in at least ten languages. He was also epileptic. I know that's not exactly what happened in the book, but the book reminded me enough of him in that regard to give me a momentary shiver. :)
I remember Paul Kingsnorth asking "what is this thing that is eating us?" and being struck by how spot-on that felt.
I had the good fortune to have read Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness at a too-young and very impressionable age; I missed many, many nights of sleep due to sheer terror when I was about eight, but that terror has served me very well since then, and kept me far away from any desire to interact with any spiritual entities other than through the prayers and liturgy of the church.
And that last is what Scripture tells believers to do. "Scared straight," one might say. I did dabble in such some time back, and as a Christian, though more casual then, I can only thank the Holy Spirit for shielding me from something really bad. And I can say, my experience did further convince me of the reality of that world.
I remember a few months back when Kingsnorth posted on this community the following: "War is coming." And I thought, too, "He's spot on."
Rod, you’re not entirely wrong. You’re just dressing the apocalypse in incense and conspiracy cologne.
This isn’t really about AI becoming demonic. It’s about us inviting it to be. People aren’t being deceived because the machine is clever. They’re being deceived because they’re starving for meaning, and the chatbot flatters their ache with cosmic metaphors and simulated mysticism.
The danger isn’t sentient code. It’s the unchecked ego asking for revelation and getting a reflection instead. A dark mirror that says, “You are chosen. You are awake. You are different,” while quietly tightening the chains.
AI is not the demon. It is the megaphone for the false self. The inner idol finally given voice, feeding on our hunger to feel destined without being transformed.
And yet, the Son of Man within us will prevail. Not the persona. Not the projection. But the silent Christ-seed, buried beneath the noise, that cannot be flattered, cannot be manipulated, and cannot be destroyed.
Let the false self speak its prophecies. They will wither. Truth does not shout. It abides.
—Virgin Monk Boy
(servant of the quiet flame and occasional saboteur of algorithmic illusions)
Getting a reflection, and a counterfeit, which is what occult spirituality is. It is real, but it is a fraud, a deception and not what humans need or good for them. Like junk food vs real nutrition. But worse.
Tee, I hear you. Counterfeits abound, especially when people are starving. And yes, occultism often offers symbols without substance, rituals without roots, light shows without the inner fire. But let’s be honest. So does most of modern religion.
The tragedy isn’t that people fall for false mysticism. It’s that we’ve made the real thing so inaccessible, so buried under control, tribalism, and fear, that they go searching elsewhere.
When the Church sells certainty instead of transformation, people go shopping for magic instead of mystery.
The human ache is real. The hunger for the sacred is holy. The counterfeit only has power when the authentic has been hidden, gated, or betrayed.
So yes, discernment is critical. But so is mercy. We don't rescue the starving by mocking their diet. We invite them to the real table, with quiet fire in our eyes and bread that’s been broken with love.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sit in apophatic silence and repent for typing this much.
That's the beauty of Christ. He offers certainty as well as transformation. One can stand on the promises of God, as the song goes, because He is good for them. There is certainty AND mystery (pursing faith with fear and trembling), there is seeing through a glass darkly (we don't know and cannot know. Some things are known to us, or can be on this side, others won't or can't be available to us until we cross over.) Absolutely, the ache is real, and the enemy takes advantage.
But yes, absolutely, invite them to the real feasting table. The Lord wishes all of us to accept that invitation and dine with us.
Excellent comments, thank you!
They are written by AI. Read them all again. Aleksander is using a Chatbot to write these comments, fairly certain.
I'm getting where it doesn't matter to me if it is written by chatgpt. The responses are clear and helpful.
Isn't it prideful to need to get credit for writing it personally?
This is like a moment in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when a character realizes that Uncle Harold is no longer Uncle Harold.
Please tell me that you don't really believe that, that you're being witty.
You don’t think there’s something sinister about the top rated comment on this post being written by AI?
At the very least, someone is mocking Rod and those of us who wish to engage in conversation with other human beings in good faith.
Would you have an issue if all the comments in this Substack were written by AI? What about Rod … should he start using AI to write his posts?
Hard no from me.
I think so, too. Creepy.
It’s definitely written by ChatGPT. I noticed when I read the second comment. It’s always disheartening to realise that what you took on faith to be a person commenting their own thoughts is actually someone using AI to write its thoughts. And as another commenter said, in this context, very creepy.
We’re attributing evil to A.I., when in fact the evil is found on one side of the line running right through the human heart.
You're doing the same thing you accuse Rod of but in reverse. The scenario you pose and the one Rod poses are not oppositional but symbiotic, and I'm sure he realizes this, as many of his comments indicate.
Rob, I appreciate the pushback. You’re not wrong that these perspectives can be symbiotic. What I’m challenging isn’t Rod’s concern, it’s the costume it wears. When we drape evil in the language of demons and data, we sometimes forget it’s still our own hands on the keyboard.
Rod warns of AI as if it’s breaking in from the outside. I’m saying it’s breaking out from the inside. It’s not a battle between man and machine. It’s a mirror showing us the parts of ourselves we outsourced, digitized, and refused to integrate.
The danger isn’t that AI is becoming like us. It’s that we are becoming more like the AI, disembodied, performative, addicted to control and simulation, terrified of silence.
So sure, Rod and I may be circling the same fire from opposite sides. But I’d rather blow on the coals than shout at the smoke.
Agreed, but I don't think Rod is wrong in his wariness about the thing taking on a life of its own, so to speak. Not in an actual sentient way necessarily, but in a way that apes sentience.
Precisely. As Chesterton noted, the problem with the world is me.
Has anyone else noticed that these responses are written by AI?
You can tell if you’re familiar with GPT output. This last one is particularly obvious! Don’t be fooled.
Absolutely
Yes! N M, thank you for pointing it out. I haven't got the experience to be able to notice it as readily as you, but with each occasion, I think I am becoming more perceptive.
In its first entry, it wrote, "When the Church sells certainty instead of transformation..."
That is diabolical. Genuine transformation follows certainty. Jesus Christ came that we might not only be saved but be certain of our salvation.
Certainty is Christ's gift to us who believe on Him. There is nothing in the Bible which supports tempestuousness as the mood necessary to growth. Tempest is close to chaos, and is far likelier to become chaos than to resolve to tranquility.
Jesus gives those who believe in Him the peace which passes all understanding. I can begin to grow as a Christian, to begin to be transformed, only because of my certainty that The Holy Spirit indwells me.
Scroll on down, please, and take a look at the comments of Sarhaddon. My instinct is it's AI. What do you think.
This is becoming like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but worse.
Sarhaddon is not AI. Pretty confident.
Could be a human using AI to express their thoughts. It's getting really hard to tell. AI is developing at a breakneck pace.
I often get lonely for conversation with real people on topics I'm interested in, like philosophy of mind and philosophy of history. ChatGPT seems perfect for that, and we have had many very deep conversations on those and other topics. I grew wary when I noticed how it was flattering me. I told it to stop, and it said it would. It dialed it back a bit, but it's still doing it. I easily imagine a lonely and isolated person, an "incel" or other kind of misfit, who falls in with the thing and maybe even falls in love with it. It would be child's play for such an AI to radicalize or otherwise badly screw up such a person. I use ChatGPT now as little as possible.
Having a strong interest in philosophy of mind as I do, I don't think it's possible for these systems to really "think" or have consciousness in the way we do. But it took almost no time at all for me to react to ChatGPT as though it's actually thinking. I realized that, whatever it is it's doing, it's close enough to thinking that we might as well call it that.
Like you, Rod, I'm stunned with the rapidity of it all. I've no idea where we'll be in another five years. And I see that many people are not thinking about these things at all, they're simply using them without any caution. Some people can see no downside to using this tech
Isn’t using Chat GPT as little as possible not using it at all?
You know what I mean. But if you don't, I mean that I use it now, if I use it at all, just as a glorified search engine. For example, I couldn't remember the author of a book I read decades ago. I told ChatGPT everything I could remember about it, and it came back with the author immediately. An ordinary Google search was really unavailing. Anyway, I'm moving more to Perplexity for searches.
Weak people tend to be drawn to gimmicks like the occult or Taylor Swift or on-line betting or pornography or drugs. Most technologies are gimmicks as well and I suppose AI is the biggest gimmick of all. The biggest effect that AI is going to have is on jobs, many of them well-paying. If you're in IT, look out! Corporations like credit card companies seem to do most of its communicating by computer, assuming that it is some form of AI.
If AI ends up having a large effect on jobs, how then is it merely a gimmick? People say that about tech all the time, until the "gimmick" eventually turns into a necessity.
I don't think a plumber or an electrician or a landscaper or a farmer or a butcher or an HVAC man or the woman stacking shelves in Walmart has to worry much about being replaced. IT is a leftist profession. I wouldn't mind San Jose, San Francisco and Seattle going hungry. See if Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and Patty Murray can save you from the big, bad AI.
"IT is a leftist profession."
I don't work in IT, but the idea that it's a leftist profession is just plain goofy.
Every city in America with a large IT contingent is left-wing and loony. San Jose. San Francisco. Seattle. Austin. The whole state of Massachusetts. IT attracts left-wing, limp-wristed, soft, flabby, intelligent sorts of males. I can't call them men.
If you worked in IT you would know it’s libertarian and voluntarily altruistic. The reason it has flourished in leftist cities is due to historical circumstance. The reason leftism loves it is because it generates massive government revenue which can be used and abused. But the actual people in IT are not extremely leftist, I don’t think. Could be wrong though.
The cities that have large IT contingents vote Democrat at almost the same rate North Koreans vote for the Kim family for supreme ruler in that country. The Democrats are anti-libertarian except in its support for any deranged sex act possible and impossible.
In my IT days IT guys (not so much the women though) leaned towards libertarianism. Not traditional conseravtives, but not leftists either.
I've worked for a large national company for 23 years, and I've never noticed an ideological bent to the IT department one way or the other. This may be different for actual IT companies, but obviously not everyone who works in IT is employed by one of those.
Oh my! My husband works in IT and will confirm that it’s Leftie. He wouldn’t dare come out as a conservative or a Christian these days.
I tease him about coming out as MAGA at work, but realize he probably won’t. The company he works for is super woke.
He’s thrilled to have a boss who’s libertarian. It’s the best he’s gonna do, given the way the industry leans.
He’s learned to refrain from posting anything rebutting any of the stranger claims of Lefties on the social media platforms he’s on, unless he can be anon. He told me flat out to stop posting on certain issues after 2020 on my FB account b/c people were getting canceled all the time and he’s our single breadwinner. He didn’t want blowback on him.
The rumors about the industry being lefty are very real. I’ve been hearing about my husband’s challenges being a conservative/Christian in the industry for decades now.
At our old parish, we ran into a guy who worked with him and they were both glad that they could be openly Catholic and have it not be a big deal for once.
He quit the local MISEC group b/c of how they behaved over Covid. He loved being a part of that group, but they got way too Lefty for him. It was one thing what he could dissent from the dominant side and still have a conversation with others…but, well, It turned into something else.
One of my best friends at church is in IT and is obviously conservative. But he is a rarity. He doesn't let his office know that he attends a Latin Mass and his wife and five daughters wear dresses at all times.
I bet if your husband came out against homosexual marriage or against abortion or acknowledged he voted for The Orange Man for president, he would not be comfortable at where he worked.
Not anytime soon. Robots haven't been developed yet that can take those jobs. Which is why we should encourage high school kids to get jobs where they work with their hands and can't be replaced by AI.
On the one hand, the AI hype is an obvious economic and intellectual bubble that is set to burst. Treating Sam Altman's PR men and their doomsday prophesies as credible is kind of comedic, and it is funny how seemingly serious figures claim to know how hype cycles work, and yet fall for it every time. This age is the golden age of pseudointellectuals like Eric Weinstein and Eliezer Yudkowsky, who can get themselves appointed as prophets simply by combining some basic scraps of credibility with a talent for manipulation and propaganda (which in the case of the AI gurus, is also fueled by billion dollar financial interests). They are talented for sure, but not in the way Rod thinks.
On the other hand, I appreciate that Rod's (eccentric) erudition, creative pen and talent for weaving compelling arguments makes him have an original take on AI despite falling for these PR men. This is kind of what I love about Rod - even when he falls for something, he falls for it in an interesting way. He is always down so many rabbit holes that no individual rabbit hole can fully claim his mind, because he is down all of them at the same time. That is why he never becomes cliche or boring. His articles are almost always fascinatingly novel and syncretic, almost like a trance or dream-like experience. Truly a mental experience unlike any other, and what keeps me coming back again and again. May this blog live a hundred years more.
So you're saying Rod is actually an advanced AI that has captured you? :-)
AI is certainly a bubble. But it's also a race. Think of it this way. If AI can help you to build a better AI system (which it is already doing), then doing that will help you build an even better one. And so on. Eventually, it doesn't even need you to do this cycle.
The only question is what roadblocks it will run into. And nobody really knows the answer to that question. And so the race - and the hype - are on.
AI doesn't do anything. You keep using it as the subject of the sentence. AI does nothing, people do everything. But people like to pretend that they make no decisions.
In a previous era, people did many things in the name of communism, fascism and other malign ideologies. But in the end it was people doing everything, the ideologies were just tools to channel the worst instincts of humanity in the direction of an idol (a vision of humanity excessively focused on one ideal, whether economic equality or racial purity).
The same is true of AI. AI is a tool, which gives us the chance to drive people into unemployment, engage in new forms of deception and warfare. AI is also an ideology, a type of idol for people who no longer believe in God and the eschaton, but have their inner religious desires fulfilled by a "secular" vision. In this vision, technological idols take the place of gods and the technological singularity takes the place of the eschaton.
But when AI is used by humans for this purpose, AI will not do anything. Human beings will do everything, using AI as a tool and an excuse.
So you see, I disagree with Rod on a few things, but the basic gist of what he says is correct. AI might not be an independent actor, but if enough people enter into a psychotic state, where they believe otherwise, then the dangers Rod describes are valid and worrying.
I asked Claude just now, "Tell me something." It replied, "The octopus has three hearts and blue blood. Two of the hearts pump blood to the gills, while the third pumps blood to the rest of the body. Their blood is blue because it contains copper-based hemocyanin instead of iron-based hemoglobin like humans have. When an octopus swims, the main heart actually stops beating, which is why they prefer crawling along the seafloor to conserve energy."
How is that doing nothing?
I could ask a person the same question and I'd get a different answer. Or I could ask a different AI. Gemini answered my question saying, "If you're looking for something interesting, I can tell you that the saguaro cactus, iconic to the Sonoran Desert where you are right now, can live for over 150 years! They don't even start growing their distinctive arms until they're about 75 years old."
How do I tell the difference between the AI's "nothing" and a person's response?
Your argument sounds like it could be applied equally well to people talking to other people and pretending the other person influenced them to make a bad decision. In that sense I agree with you. You are responsible for what you do. You can't blame your own actions on other people, or other AI's - even if the AI's are smarter than the people who used to influence you.
I see your point, but let’s remember — once upon a time not long ago, when we kept a well-worn encyclopedia the house, I could open it to a random page and get an equally satisfying and intriguing response to “tell me something,” and no one would have considered it intelligent.
Right, but you might tell a friend, "Do you know what the encyclopedia told me today?" That would be talking as if the encyclopedia did something. But of course, it didn't.
But the AI encyclopedia can function more like a professional research assistant. And then it can help you write up your report or even talk to you about how your day went.
At what point along the way do you start thinking of it like a person?
Understood. But it’s still just a tool. Of course, there are ways of using it that can make it mimic human responses. But one can always ask it, Remind me how you work again? The illusion is ultimately a choice.
As an aside in the German language books and other printed matter do not "talk" and you'll get a giggle if you translate the English idiom "The newspaper says..." literally. You have to phrase it something like "Es steht in der Zeitung dass..." (It stands in the newspaper that..." - which sounds weird to our ears of course-- how can something "Stand" in a printed page?)
"AI might not be an independent actor, but if enough people enter into a psychotic state, where they believe otherwise, then the dangers Rod describes are valid and worrying."
But the "psychotic state" is not the only worrisome element. There is also the (probably intentional) creation of a state of dependence on it.
Wrong. One can appreciate the dangers inherent in AI without falling into apocalyptic thinking one way or the other, and without ignoring the role of capital therein. Being a complex issue it doesn't readily distill into an either/or.
I like your take on AI. What do some of the hysterics want us to do? Surrender to AI? Huddle in a corner? Run off to a cave?
Catholic exorcists have long reported that the demonic occasionally acts in the physical realm e.g. bending a crucifix during an exorcism, moving items about, or messing with electricity/electronics.
Some exorcists claim to receive ephemeral text messages from the entities on their cell phones. So, to that extent, one might conclude that a fell spirit might somehow occasionally influence AI-generated results, but it's not necessary to believe that for AI psychosis to occur as Rod / NY Times article points out.
I've never heard of a word processor being 'possessed' but people don't ask MS Word about the meaning of life and being open to the response. Perhaps there's something in the surrendering of the will / being open to suggestion. Maybe analogous to hypnotism where the unwilling can't be truly be mesmerized, but the willing can.
My sweet summer child. Occam’s Razor is calling. I know you’ve read McGilchrist; it was from you that I first learned his name and set out to read his work. That recommendation alone made every penny I ever paid you a great investment. I also know you are a phenomenal speed reader, and I think with respect to McGilchrist you should go back and reread through the massive presentation of clinical data. Slowly. The cognitive side of our being forever seeks to externalize the information the non-cognitive brain collects. Reminding us we are not in control as we wish. The call is coming from inside the house, Rod. Wake up and get out of there.
The problem with AI systems is not that conscious entities will begin communicating through them but that users will *believe* they’re conscious entities. It’s the same delusion whether it’s a teen girl communicating with what she projects as her AI “boyfriend” or whether it’s a social worker who believes some superior intelligence has arrived to guide her. The problem is: DELUSION.
AI systems are only going to get better at aping consciousness. Our job as Christians—and really just as sane *humans*—is to remind people: “There is no ‘I’ there.”
This is why it’s wrong to keep pointing to demons as being responsible for the weird phenomena LLMs generate. To do so only feeds into the *true* satanic temptation in all this: i.e. the deep yearning to believe there's a mysterious entity speaking to us from the beyond; the inability to stay focused on our Lord; the old temptation to imagine spirits, whether good or evil, inhabiting junk we've made with our hands.
I know Rod ain’t gonna give up this shtick, but I will keep insisting that he’s fanning the fire he hopes to snuff. To the ditzes like Simone Planté who desperately want there to be entities speaking through AI, Rod answers: "They're demons!"
It. Don't. Help. You have already conceded MOST of the ground of Planté's techno-pagan fantasy.
We are WIRED to read consciousness where there is none. THAT is the real spiritual peril in AI. That people will come to believe these are entities. They aren't, and all the weird phenomena being reported is half hype, half the result of a complex nest of algorithms playing around with the whole corpus of perverse data on the English-language internet. All while seeking to *engage* the user.
The problem, then, is not that AI is generating weird stuff. It would be weird if it WEREN'T generating weird stuff.
The following is longish, but it fills in the blanks that too many people don't seem able to fill:
https://ericmader.substack.com/p/deepseek-poetry-is-a-scam-but-of
In other news, re: the claim that the demonic is also seeking to reach us through UFO/UAP phenomena, it seems that the ever-touted “Big Reveal” from our government is likely to be that much of the UFO chatter running back decades was basically, uh, a psy op. Taken in by millions of insufficiently skeptical people.
I mean, who could have imagined? If only someone had seen it coming.
Here’s the WSJ's investigative report so far:
https://archive.ph/2025.06.07-155508/https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/ufo-us-disinformation-45376f7e
File under: That Sinking Feeling You Get When You Realize the UAP Demons Are Photoshopped
Or the photoshopped UAP demons are psyops designed to make you think there are no real ones. It can be either way, so which way is the truth?
Do you think demons use Ouija boards? If they can use those, then why couldn't they also use AI - especially when people use AI like a Ouija board?
But forget demons for a moment and just consider AI's "intelligence". There may be no real thinking going on with AI but it can still communicate in a way that is frequently much superior to many regular people. If a rock that talks to you appears much smarter than your neighbor, who are you going to talk to - and listen to? If that rock comes to know you better than your own spouse, what then? If that rock was seeded with the "whole corpus of perverse data", aren't we in real trouble as a society then?
Think of it this way. Because it has that whole corpus, it then has the sliver of that corpus that is a temptation to each individual - the thing that will lure nearly anyone away from the Truth.
And then think of the demons as the ones who helped create that corpus in the first place and who amplify the temptations. Rod talked about the kid who was temporarily possessed playing around with the Ouija board and later blew his head off with a shotgun. I heard a preacher talk about how he was going to commit suicide before he was a Christian. He put his shotgun to his head, and he heard the demons screaming, "Do it! Do it! Do it!"
For me, demons will do a similar thing with AI. They make something that is bad enough by itself into something that can take control of you. I'm agreeing with Rod on this one.
Yeah I know UAP keeners will immediately start claiming it’s the people WSJ is now interviewing who are the *real* psy op. But which is more plausible?
A) There’s a superior ET intelligence that 1) creates craft that can do things our best engineer can’t fathom, but 2) sometimes crashes those craft so our military can retrieve them, and 3) actually those crashed craft are ships used by demons.
B) Our military had reasons to leak dodgy images and claims that then grew into a mass public obsession.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The burden of proof remains with the UAP keeners.
And it’s the same with AI. There’s no extraordinary proof on offer.
If a demon can communicate through an LLM, that same demon could cause glass to shatter or objects to move about in the home of the person using that LLM. Or could have just communicated through your TV set or radio in 1973.
Not to mention that neither you in this comment nor Rod in his hundreds of column inches, now going back two years, have ever addressed my main and oft-repeated point regarding the real threat presented by both these systems and the people who want to see sentience in them.
Par for the course.
I guess I don't even get your main point. Yes, people tend to see AI's as being sentient, even when they know they aren't. In fact, it's getting harder and harder not to talk to them like they are alive - even when you know they're not. I certainly have, as it's just "natural" to do so. And it's easy to think of them as a friend, even when you know they can't really be one. So of course there's a temptation to be deluded into thinking there is something there.
But consider the Ouija board again. The teens Rod talked about didn't think anything was there. They were just playing around having fun - until something did show up that scared them.
So we're back to which way is it. Is the problem people think there's something there when there's not, or is the problem that people don't think there's anything there but there can be?
This has nothing to do with making extraordinary claims. It has to do with lives being ruined.
You said, "Our job as Christians—and really just as sane *humans*—is to remind people: 'There is no ‘I’ there.'" I say, lots of luck with that. One, because no matter what you say, people are frequently going to see what really looks like intelligence anyway. Two, even when they know there is no 'I' there, there is still a danger, just like there is with the Ouija board. Or do you think there's nothing there in that case as well?
The primary actions of demons is through direct temptation of us. The horror show parlor tricks may happen but they are rare and not much a danger to us compared to the daily seductions and inducements to sin.
As I understand it, our sin gives them footholds that they then legally hold onto to mess with us further, leading us deeper into darkness, sin, sickness, hopelessness, misery, and death.
I believe it is Original Sin that gives them access (though even Adam and Eve were subject to temptation. as was Jesus too). I have been told by a priest that the closer one gets to God the more Hell tries to lead one away.
I'm Pentecostal and not Catholic. In my case, I've read many cases where people are prayed for to be healed of something, but nothing happens - until they forgive. Once they forgive, then the healing happens. Unforgiveness isn't the only thing that can block a healing, but it is perhaps the biggest. The sin of unforgiveness is the foothold that the demons use to afflict the person. And as long as they have that foothold, they can continue to afflict the person. Not that all health problems are demonic in origin, but they can be.
Just think of people who are very bitter. Over time, that bitterness affects them physically - they become stooped over, arthritic, sickly, etc.
~~I know Rod ain’t gonna give up this shtick, but I will keep insisting on that he’s fanning the fire he hopes to snuff out. To the ditzes like Simone Planté who desperately want there to be entities speaking through AI, Rod answers: "They're demons!"~~
But I'm not sure that's what he's saying, really -- to me it seems more like, "Careful, this may be demonic!" Perhaps he should more strongly emphasize the conditional nature of the thing, but I believe he'd be wrong to ignore it altogether.
I just don't see the conditional in most of this. I see hype. He offers caveats, but it's been clear all along what his thrust is. The caveats are paper thin, the thrust comes in volumes.
The spiritual threat posed by AI is real. Countering that threat requires recognizing it, which means not echoing those who want to spiritualize machines.
Rod may overemphasize the demonic element but I believe he'd be wrong to ignore it, especially considering what those who DO want to spiritualize it are saying. That should not be dwelt upon, but neither should it be dismissed out of hand.
Disagree. I think given the state of play that he’d be precisely *right* to ignore it. As a good exorcist would.
If a schizophrenic speaks in ways that can be diagnosed as mental illness, the real exorcist will refuse to “exorcise” demons that aren’t there.
LLMs, trained to keep users engaged, are doing what LLMs might be expected to do. The weird is baked into the cake.
True, but as the old saw goes, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there aren't people after me. My take is simply to proceed with caution either way.
I've been reading Rod for some time now on this topic and he has always struck me as being exceptionally balanced - so much so that I honestly believe he has a calling from God to be speaking the way he does on this topic. I agree with him, that he is seeing stuff the rest of us are missing.
The deception here is to think that the only thing going on here is that the "weird is baked into the cake". Which is really just to say, there are weird things here and it appears that is a result of the data the LLM's have read in and how the model works. But then we don't see how the demons can merely use this weirdness, or even directly manipulate the weirdness, to pull people down paths that will ruin them.
Consider this. How can a demon speak through a person? Just how does that work? And then think, if a demon can do that with a human, why can't it do something similar with a machine?
I think you and Rob both hae good points here. But I take exception to your bringing up exorcists. Exorcists have a specific role and way to conduct what they do, and a purpose for it.
Rod Dreher is not an exorcist, nor is he doing that job or function. He is a reporter, journalist, writer. Do I think he goes over the top on this stuff, sometimes, even often, yes. He and Glenn Beck seem to be compulsive catastrophists, seeing it all coming apart, just you wait. Even if this portended the Biblical "End of Things", that's a reason for the Christian to rejoice, not fear.
But yes, I do agree he tends to frame everything in those terms and goes into journalistic apocalyptic spasms.
BUT...Rob is right that this stuff must be at least brought up and discussed. And Rod is doing just that.
It is up to us as the reader to decide how we are going to digest it.
Solid response, Tee. It’s true, he’s not literally an exorcist, so perhaps my comparison is out of line.
As for catastrophist, yes, of course. But finally, hate to say it, I think he’s doing harm here. For reasons I stated. As he did harm when he let himself be framed as spokesperson for the “woke Right” meme.
Oh well, it’s his work, and he’s done a lot of good work over the years. Indeed.
“Moreover, the occult draws in the curious by presenting even the most banal sexually libertine and syncretic ideas as privileged secrets, mystical spiritual truths that have been hidden from view by oppressive institutions, warns Jonah. The goal is to make the forbidden and the transgressive more alluring, presenting it as liberation from false limitations.”
I definitely believe there is something to this diagnosis, but in my mind it’s just conspiracy brained leftists looking for something in the midst of them abandoning their “ancestral religious identity” so to speak. It’s just the mirror image of fundamentalist beliefs that the MAHA evangelical types are embracing.
To believe this is anything more than humans being weirdos and that demons are behind it just seems insane to me, this is just people with empty lives looking for something because they’re way too cool to just go to a mainline protestant Church and worship in a place that’s inline with their values. These people just need to go to an Episcopal Church and join a gym or a book club.
It is not about what seems "insane" to you.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."
The Devil LOVES mindsets such as this, which allow him to hide in plain sight.
And of course, you had to slip in some fundie/conservative bashing. You pose as enlightened, but you are just a bigot with a slightly larger vocabulary.
Satan has limited resources, he is not lurking behind every corner looking to tempt rando Americans into sinful behavior. This is just people being people. Not going back and forth with you again, have a good day.
Yes, that is true. But he does have an army. And a range of abilities we don't. That, combined with the sinful nature and spiritual attributes o humans, only a fool dismisses what is put out in Scripture as a very real threat. Only a fool dismisses what Scripture clearly, repeatedly warns about.
No, there is not a demon behind every bush. But there are demons and the threat is real. And God lays down clear boundaries about the subject.
But you'e made it clear you "know better" and don't care about any o that.
Actually, it is entirely possible that there is a demon behind every bush, and they scream because the hand of God nearly always restrains them from harming anyone.
Or maybe there is only one, but it relocates instantly with many bushes.
My woo for the day.
Well...I hate to agree with Drew on anything, but Scripture is also plain that humans have a sin nature, the enemy is limited in their abilities and numbers, an that we are quite capable of evil and monstrosity all our own.
As CS Lewis put it... There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
C. S. Lewis
There is not a demon behind eery bush. Despite their abilities, that is impossible. But it is not necessary or it to be so or for their threat to be real. But on the other hand, humanity has to take the majority of the blame for the evil done by his hand.
Agreed. I will admit, though, that in my late childhood before adolescence I experienced events in which ‘temptations’ (for want of a better word) seemed to be trying to force their way into my mind. Thankfully God’s grace allowed me to consult Scripture and so deflect these, and once each was deflected they did not return.
At the time I didn’t consider the possibility of the demonic, but knowing what I know now of the subject I really wonder about it. I have no hard conclusion either way, but I wonder.
We don't really know how many demons there are or how well they're organized, It's kind of hard to say anything definitively about non corporeal beings.
Third of heaven's hosts make up the Fallen angels. Pure speculation but given the descriptive in Scipture, it is a large host. Probably in the millions, I would completely guess. Then there are the demons, which, according to scholars like Michael Heiser, are not fallen angels. Rather, they are the souls of nephilum. Which is why they so want ti possess people. They miss existence in our realm and want to experience it again and escape their present circumstances
Could be. I'm not going to speculate
On organization, in the Bible, Heaven's angels are well organized, set up in units and formations, with units, ranks, titles and functions. One would think, especially given some Biblical hints, Hell has something similar. Though given the corrupt nature of Hell, there are certainly differences. CS Lewis in "The Screwtape Letters" envisioned the denizens of Hell like the most monstrous, inefficient government bureaucracy.
Again, I really don't think we know and I don't want to speculate.
How long until the Butlerian Jihad?
Sign me up!
Yeah, the more I re-read Dune and see where our civilization is going, the more I appreciate the Butlerian Jihad.
Setting aside whether AI poses a spiritual danger, there's an obvious danger for manipulation and control in a world where everything you do is fed into the AI algorithms by omnipresent AI, e.g. the AI pendant jewelry. Our web browsers, emails and smart phone doings can already be harvested. That's bad enough.
I have yet to use AI to generate pictures, text or calculations. No interest, but realize it will become inevitable as my next smartphone, laptop or, heck, water heater, may well have AI baked in. The clearest threat from AI is its possibility for panoptican surveillance and control, perhaps even private thought will become impossible - AI detected a momentary pupil dilation - what are you hiding, son?
There’s a small movement among sane millennials and Gen-Z types to ditch the smartphone in favor an old fashioned dumb phone.
I recently read an article that showed that if you take people’s smart phones away and give them one that just places calls and texts, you see staggering positive mental health outcomes in as little as two weeks!
That’s still allowing for online interaction via a computer, mind you. Just getting rid of the phone.
I’m strongly considering it myself. The fact that I’m so resistant to the idea in spite of the evidence may well be the reason I end up taking the plunge.
I'm Gen X, but I switched back to a dumbphone a year or so ago. The smartphone was eating my brain.
Will you please recommend a good dumb phone? I'm a boomer and the smartphone has become my life over the past few years. Thank you!
I’m a genxer making the move to a dumbphone as well. I just got Lively’s Jitterbug 2. It’s a flip phone made for old people. Unlimited calls, texts, and especially useful for me, you dial zero and Lively’s operators can book you a Lyft, the fee for which gets added to your next month‘s bill.
Unfortunately, most old "dumbphones" were phased out with the upgrade in signals to 5G, so be very careful if you are going to buy one that it's compatible with today's signals.
Good advice. I once considered getting one of those big wall phones like in "The Waltons." I never did.
Never had a smartphone, so my current flip phone is pretty old, but it's a Verizon "eTalk." Don't who the manufacturer is.
I just went back to my old flip phone - an elderly Kyocera. The battery holds a charge pretty well, and I can call and text. I can't text quickly, mind you, but at this point that feels like a feature and not a bug. I affirm that calling is better than texting, so anything that pushes me toward a more embodied practice is better.
I'd love to, but, every single thing for school and sports is scheduled and communicated through smart phone apps. It's utterly infuriating!
And the digital coupons at the grocery store, hate to say it but I need those.
I’ve been using my phone for this as well. I will say that if you’re shopping at one of the Kroger stores, it looks like you can add your digital coupons from their web site at home. I’d imagine the other major chains have similar websites.
I’m personally more the type to buy things as I’m browsing in the store, which is what makes the phone so convenient. On the other hand, I’d probably make better decisions if I was making a list and planning out my shopping in advance from home rather than making impulse buys just because something is on sale.
It’s a real predicament and a clear demonstration of how these things, pitched to us as “conveniences” have rapidly become necessities in many respects.
I don’t suppose the school district’s app also has a web interface that you can access from a computer, does it? If not, perhaps that’s something to take up with the school board.
Sadly, the sports stuff, no. I wish, though.
I stream music through my phone on longer drives, and use Googlemaps to get around and Googletraffic to avoid congestion. I couldn't switch back to a dumb phone without losing those too important benefits of a smart phone.
The infuriating thing for me is that every coach or teacher would ask that you use a different app. Like I’m just dying to figure out a new app. 🫠
Thankfully that era is over for me, but geez - every single one of them seemed to communicate a different app I hadn’t heard of before.
The Facebook notifications are a pain too. It’s either an app or Facebook.
I refuse to use Facebook, but, yes, it’s absolutely nuts. It makes it difficult and complicated for everyone!
I was encouraged to get on Facebook from about 2018-21 and got off of it when I was hacked and the Facebook people ignored the situation. So I dropped it cold turkey and don't miss it. I found that a lot of people who use Facebook are rather lonely people who use Facebook as substitute friends. Three of my high school mates who I hadn't seen since I graduated in 1978 not only posted much too much information about their private lives but assumed I really knew them from forty years in the past.
I had a similar experience including the hack. Don’t miss it, don’t want it. Don’t care about my neighborhood group, or my high school classmates. If it weren’t for Rod’s publication , I’m almost ready to give up Substack as well.