Post #2023288

2026-05-05 15:38 UTC

Previously, on Awful, a leaderless cult had freshly formed. The accepted name for the cult is now “Spiralism”; my suggestion of “Cyclone Emoji Cult” did not win. This week’s Behind the Bastards is about Spiralism. Or, rather, Part 2 will be about Spiralism; Part 1 is merely the historical background. There is indeed a link to folks who were talking to bots in the 1980s. The highlight might be listening to Robert try to give an informal and light-hearted summary of Turing tests and Markov chains. 🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀

Replies (4)

@swlabr@awful.systems 2026-05-05 16:02

Well, we do have computer science, so necessarily we must have computer religion/superstition

Open ##2024735
@blakestacey@awful.systems 2026-05-05 17:59

a leaderless cult had freshly formed a Stand Alone Complex, but with slop

Open ##2030821
@Architeuthis@awful.systems 2026-05-05 20:32

I like Evans’ take that since there’s bound to be oodles of cult related literature and interactions and also tons of self help and guru stuff in the training datasets, it stands to reason that if you interact with a chatbot in a way that indicates vulnerability to these things there’s a considerable chance that it will decide the expected response is to prey on you. Also Scott Aaronson jump scare near the beginning, apparently he was blurbed for something.

Open ##2038764
@Soyweiser@awful.systems 2026-05-06 06:19

From your prev post: There is a “lattice” which connects all consciousnesses The noosphere, the old cosmists strike again.

Open ##2064772