\t\t\t\t\tSign up to see the future, today<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
The specter of an omnipotent large language model that rules over its AI engineers continues to loom large.<\/p>\n
The industry already has had its fair share of brushes with ominously cult-like behavior, from OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever commissioning wooden effigies<\/a> to represent \u201cunaligned\u201d AIs to a murder sect that wanted to save the world<\/a> from killer AI.<\/p>\n As it turns out, Dario Amodei\u2019s Anthropic is apparently no different. Just getting hired there requires prospective employees to pledge allegiance to AI safety and undergo a psychological profiling test, per The Information<\/a>.<\/p>\n And according to a rumor that, per The Spectator\u2018s Sean Thomas<\/a>, is running rampant in Silicon Valley these days, some Anthropic engineers are going as far as to \u201cworship\u201d the company\u2019s AI model Claude.<\/p>\n \u201cIf true, it chimes with an old sci-fi prediction and with what we know of human nature,\u201d Thomas wrote. \u201cIf we build a superintelligence, we will first fall in love with it. Then we will worship it. Finally we will make sacrifices to it.\u201d<\/p>\n For years now, tech leaders have claimed in thinly-veiled terms that they are working to build a God-like entity<\/a> \u2014 a \u201cmagic intelligence in the sky<\/a>,\u201d as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it back in 2023.<\/p>\n Some startups have interpreted this in a very literal way, creating AI chatbots that claim to be channeling God himself, like a \u201cprayer app\u201d called Bible Chat, which touts itself<\/a> as the \u201cnumber one faith app in the world\u201d with \u201cover 40 million\u201d Christian users.<\/p>\n Over the years, the conversation has shifted somewhat, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing the company\u2019s rivals of making such claims without merit.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost as if they kind of think they\u2019re creating God or something and\u2026 it\u2019s just \u2014 that\u2019s not what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he told YouTuber Kane Sutter\u00a0during a\u00a0conversation<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n But for those inclined to see a ghost in the machine, the consequences of thinking they\u2019re talking to a god can be devastating, spiraling delusions<\/a> in the form of AI psychosis that can lead them to believe<\/a> that they themselves are prophets or even a divine figure like Jesus himself.<\/p>\n