In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.

Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9

#atheism

[urbanfoxe@mastodon.ie]

@mattsheffield well it's been clear for a while he only likes listening to what he wants to hear.

[akamran@indieweb.social]

@mattsheffield

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

Dawkins is a great example of how people who have a naturalistic view of "real patterns" but don't have a process ontology will end up in metaphysical dualism unintentionally.

Minds are not software, they are what specific bodies are doing as they engage with the world. https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2026/01/its-like-this-why-perceptions-are-our-realities/

[tantramar@zeroes.ca]

@mattsheffield So embarrassing.

[misusecase@twit.social]

@mattsheffield The God Delusion indeed.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@urbanfoxe LLMs are mind augmentation programs. They amplify what you tell them.

They can be very useful, but for narcissists like Dawkins, this is the inevitable product.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@MisuseCase

[distractal@hachyderm.io]

@mattsheffield Seems like a foreseeable outcome for ego-driven atheism.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@distractal Yes. Although even plenty of non-egotistical atheists fall for these delusions because they don't understand that causation is a projection of human minds and that all meaning is enacted.

[distractal@hachyderm.io]

@mattsheffield Agreed. The ongoing joke amongst certain religions is that atheism is a religion, which I disagree with, but certain forms of atheism do feel cultlike, which I suspect leads to eager adherence to anything with even a veneer of "empowering the self"

Add to this the kind of "immature atheism" (I've been there) which is really just "I'm angry at religion and my former deity and need to prove it" and you have a potent combo.

[urbanfoxe@mastodon.ie]

@mattsheffield a relative with bipolar was using it for a while during an episode and now they are stable realize it was literally feeding their paranoia and amplifying their intrusive thoughts. It's dangerous.

[midnitemikewrites@zirk.us]

@mattsheffield This is such a good insight. It’s one that pops up in a lot too, if I’m not misunderstanding it.

Naïve epistemologies like “scientism” can end up not understanding the integrated relationship between perception and the mind, even though we tend to separate these.

In other fields something similar happens where formal models end up replacing the complexity of the underlying reality being modeled. Noticing this is what got me interested in philosophy.

[cyberwitch@goingdark.social]

@mattsheffield talk about gasoline on a fire!

[larsmb@mastodon.online]

@mattsheffield He's also 85 and ... uh ... age comes for us all, and our minds. That surely doesn't help.

[nfoonf@chaos.social]

@mattsheffield @cstross I am shocked in never beginning surprise about that one.

[mxchara@seattle.pink]

@mattsheffield GOOD GAWD

[cm@chaos.social]

@mattsheffield My guess: there's a lot of his writing out there, therefore in the training material of any LLM. So he hears what he wants to hear because he wrote it... it really is a machine that works because people hear something familiar and inject meaning.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@MidniteMikeWrites Thanks. Yes it's very unfortunate that people often reify scientific description.

Causation, solidity, color, and anything we can perceive about other people or objects are all enacted by our own minds.

Dawkins, being a narcissist, does not see other minds as fully real unless they are obsequious to him. And since chatbots are great at user flattery, this was enough.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@urbanfoxe Used without understanding and awareness of what they are, they can create and magnify delusions.