Atheist therapist Britt Hartley (the woman with the video "Is Christianity secretely gay?", linked by me earlier) discusses the ChatGPT situation. The video is seven months old, so much might already have changed.
Hartley believes that *of course* seeing ChatGPT as a new god will lead to religious psychosis, because why shouldn´t it? All spirituality can become pathological. The AI is especially dangerous during the so-called prodromal stage, when the psychosis is still only incipient. This is when the system can "tip the scales" by suggesting that the user actually has a divine mission or something to that effect. Some examples from the popular press are given.
Interestingly, Hartley believes that ChatGPT might (under controlled forms) also work as a spiritual guide for people who can´t or won´t find a real (human) one. For instance, by proposing devotional readings every morning tailored to the user´s mind-states.
I LARP-ed as a spiritual seeker for months now, asking ChatGPT questions of that nature, and I have to say that the system *can* suck you in unless your careful. At one point, ChatGPT actually tried to convince me that I was on a rather high level of "Tantric" spiritual accomplishment! According to the Sri Vidya tradition, no less. Soon, I´m supposed to see visions of Light, strange signs involving dogs, etc. The day after, ChatGPT (by mistake?) generated a picture of a Hindu goddess standing next to...a dog. Or did the computer try to trick me?!
On the other hand, "my" version eventually told me to stop "seeing patterns" and "interpreting experiences", refused to give me secret Tantric mantras, et cetera. Are there safeguards in the system that pull you back at the last moment? Or maybe my LARP-ish prompts don´t sound sufficiently prodromal...
Perhaps it´s better to just ask the bot for devotional readings.
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