257: AI Gurus
The chat bot flashes its elipsis at the bottom of the screen. What is it thinking, what does it want from you, what do you want from it? Beneath those pixels lies a sea of mined data and lightning storms of electricity heating up servers in barren deserts. What will it find for you in the past labor of the generations?
According to a stunning new article in Rolling Stone, it will find whatever the fuck makes you feel like a god—incuding all the NewAge pablum it has scarfed down—because oops, ChatGPT released a model that is just too sycophantic.
But as we break down today, the AI nonsensient flattery machine is designed to hook you into the regurgitative process of self-seduction. Is this a new spiritual delusion, or more of the same? And what does that kind and agreeable bot conceal?
Show Notes
People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
ChatGPT And Generative AI Innovations Are Creating Sustainability Havoc
LLM Can Be A Dangerous Persuader
You'll Be Astonished How Much Power It Takes to Generate a Single AI Image
A bottle of water per email: the hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots
Intelligent Computing: The Latest Advances, Challenges, and Future
AI Data Centers Pose Regulatory Challenge, Jeopardizing Climate Goals
AI, Climate, and Regulation: From Data Centers to the AI Act
AI could impact 40 per cent of jobs worldwide in the next decade, UN agency warns
The Future of Jobs Report 2025
History’s Magic Mirror: America’s Economic Crisis and the Weimar Republic of Pre-Nazi Germany
The Great Filter: A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox
Academic Publisher Sells Authors’ Work to Microsoft for AI Training
Address of the Holy Father to the College of Cardinals (10 May 2025) | LEO XIV
Capitalism's Fascistic Tendencies — McGowan
McGowan, Todd. 2016. Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets. Columbia University Press.
Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. 1997. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Verso.
