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

[fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk]

@mattsheffield thank you. probably beyond me°, but i'll give it a go…

°I'm autistic, we don't have a theory of mind

[black_flag@beige.party]

@rozeboosje

But I think he also mischaracterised genes. Read Lynn Margulis (in my view a much better biologist and communicator) and you'd get the view biology is cooperative not "selfish". And that makes me ask about the man who thought "selfish" was the way to go.

[rozeboosje@masto.ai]

@Black_Flag agreed. That is one of the worst oversimplifications in that book and I guess one of the reasons he then had to follow on with a bunch of others.

[black_flag@beige.party]

@rozeboosje So the pattern is established. Talk out of turn, spend years after backpedalling.

[thebratdragon@mastodon.scot]

@Black_Flag @rozeboosje

add in that he approaches everything as a zealot these days, and zealotry and science are not happy bedfellows.

[black_flag@beige.party]

@Thebratdragon @rozeboosje

My point there would be he always did. He has always thought there was an authority and only ever disputed its identity.

[rozeboosje@masto.ai]

@Thebratdragon @Black_Flag In all fairness, having one's little pot of honey confiscated would push anyone over the edge 🤪

[thebratdragon@mastodon.scot]

@Black_Flag @rozeboosje

trouble is, now he believes the authority is him

[adritheonly@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield Just sad to watch someone develop a deep and meaningful relationship with the person in the mirror. Guess it makes for a stress-free relationship especially for those who aren't really successful at the whole thing.

[riggbeck@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield

Equally unsurprisingly, the article is posted by #Unherd, a right wing website. It also entertains his thoughts on 'Why men are different from women', in which he goes out of his way to agree with Trump on a biological basis of gender.

Fundamentalist atheists seem to be quite right wing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd

[neo@soc.psynet.me]

@mattsheffield "People have a different opinion on things I don't like? Must be a psychosis!"

[boysenberrycider@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield having finished the article, my less flippant response is:
1) Dawkins is narcissistic and I think unaware of it. Reading the first third was gross. This man is not healthy.
2) I have suspected for a while these companies deliberately prey on the educated elderly. Notice even the sycophancy is mirroring Dawkins' language. It tends to give responses that pass that generation's 'Turing tests'.
3) the final 3 paragraphs are beautiful, and severable from the mess above.

[erikcats@dice.camp]

@kauer @mattsheffield and an insufferable twat. Don't forget that. And here the insufferable twatness is showing. Machine telling him exactly what he wants to hear is now the best thing in the world.

[erikcats@dice.camp]

@mattsheffield with the ego on him, it's hardly surprising that a robot programmed for flattery is tugging at exactly these strings with him.

[irina@wandering.shop]

@mattsheffield Also full alt text, kudos!

[feral_3d@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield crinkly. This makes me feel extremely embarrassed for him. I'm worried all lonely seniors in care homes will spend their final years with çhatgpt like this.

[blotosmetek@circumstances.run]

@mattsheffield So he created himself a god in his own image? How fitting.

[erikcats@dice.camp]

@kauer hehehe true

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@blotosmetek A girlfriend in his own image.

[normjess@tech.lgbt]

@mattsheffield Richard Dawkins had already sunk into being a transphobic gender-essentialist patriarchy-clapping piece of garbage

for a decade

and "transphobia is a gateway drug"

he was friendly with Epstein too, post conviction

isn't it sad he can see more humanity in a chat bot than a trans person or a sexual assault victim

just another 'New Atheist' that got sucked up into a world of hating women and western chauvinism

we Atheist must do better

sharp minds can still rot awfully