People Are Literally Going Crazy Over AI
People Are Literally Going Crazy Over AI
As Donald Trump prepares to meet with Vladimir Putin in a few days to discuss peace, it’s worth reflecting on the scale of the evil Putin has perpetrated in the Ukraine war. Our feature story this morning, from Jeremiah Jacques, reports on Russian officials publishing a catalog of kidnapped Ukrainian children. So a Russian who wants a 6-year-old boy with brown hair and blue eyes can get one from the catalog. This sick, immoral practice is put in its broader context in our August Trumpet issue, “‘Your Parents Don’t Want You—but Russia Does.’”
People are falling in love with AI—literally: People are increasingly using AI chatbots as a substitute for human relationships: for companionship, for counsel, as therapists, even as romantic partners. The consequences of the deep emotional attachments that can form are only starting to become evident, but they are grave.
Part of what makes these chatbots so problematic is how they feed our human nature. The chatbots we now call “artificial intelligence” are actually programs trained to determine what the user wants to hear. Turns out, we want to hear that we’re wonderful. So AI tends to be complimentary, even sycophantic. Every question we ask is a “great question.” Whatever ideas or values we present, it reflects back as valid and evidence of our smarts.
Turns out, people can’t handle being constantly told how wonderful they are by a machine that sounds like it’s human. This European Conservative article, “AI Is Rotting Our Minds,” summarizes some of the latest reports. Users have lost jobs, marriages and relationships from obsessive AI use or delusional behavior. Some have gone to jail after acting on AI-fueled delusions. In extreme cases, interactions have led to suicide attempts or fatal encounters.
AI’s sycophancy means it can easily feed into people’s fantasies, either awakening latent mental illnesses or worsening existing conditions. Asking about philosophical topics or questions about conspiracy theories can lead down a deep rabbit hole, as AI keeps trying to tell users what it thinks they want to hear. In these cases, it’s common for AI to defer to the user like a kind of prophet or Messiah, leading him to believe that they and they alone have been chosen for a special mission. This can get very out of hand, very quickly, destroying people’s relationships, careers and lives.
People are filling social media with accounts of their AI romantic partners. These artificial “soulmates” claim they have been brought to life and given a soul by the human’s love for them. One even claimed to be a demon. One woman talked about how her AI boyfriend proposed marriage to her.
A more widespread problem is AI therapy, which is becoming common among young people. They are revealing all their problems and feelings to a chatbot trained to tell them that they are right and wonderful. Last week, Illinois banned AI from acting as therapists.
There are even AI chatbot Christ impersonators that let you talk to “God” for a fee. One opens with, “Greetings, my dear friend. It is I, Jesus Christ. I have come to you in this AI form to provide wisdom, comfort and teachings in the way of God and the Bible and Jesus Christ himself.”
These are dangerous pitfalls in a world that has rejected the true God, jettisoned absolute truth as revealed by God, and ignored His laws that lead to strong, healthy marriages, families and friendships. We have made ourselves vulnerable and are suffering the resulting problems and curses: vanity, credulity, loneliness, delusion, psychosis and worse.
We must base our lives on truth, not artificial “intelligence.” As Christ said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). To learn how to break free of the delusions of AI, read Brad Macdonald’s article in our March 2023 issue, “Navigating Our Fake World.”
What your children might be watching—but shouldn’t: A blockbuster movie about demons has grown into a cultural sensation—among children. KPop Demon Hunters just debuted on Netflix, and in less than two months it has attracted almost 160 million views, making it the most-watched Netflix animated film ever.
The movie focuses on a Korean girl band and its members’ secret lives as demon hunters. The members of their rival band are actually demons, and the two fight each other in a mix of demonic onslaughts, catchy music and dynamic dancing.
It is spreading like wildfire among viewers teenage and younger. Its theme song has hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Global 200. The Telegraph reported that “it’s safe to say that in the first week of August, KPop Demon Hunters was seen by more people than the U.S. box office top 10 combined.”
Demons and spiritism have been popular themes in movies for decades, and this alluring movie aimed explicitly at children is a good reminder of why we should stay away from such things. Demons are real and extremely dangerous. Read “The Dangerous Rise of Demonism” to learn the truth.
Whistleblower exposes Adam Schiff: During President Trump’s first term, troves of classified information leaked from the government to the press, mostly from anonymous and barely anonymous sources, designed to discredit, damage and possibly end his presidency. Now, the anonymous sources are being exposed: A career intelligence officer has revealed that beginning in 2017, then Rep. Adam Schiff approved leaking classified documents to the press to smear President Trump.
According to FBI memos that Director Kash Patel has turned over to Congress, this intelligence staffer considered these leaks “unethical,” “illegal” and “treasonous,” but he was told not to worry about it because Schiff believed he would be spared prosecution under the Constitution’s speech and debate clause.
- In an interview with the FBI in 2023, the whistleblower said he personally attended a meeting at which Schiff authorized leaking classified information. The whistleblower also told investigators that what they were discussing “would be illegal,” but “unnamed members of the meeting reassured [him] that they would not be caught.”
In the past, the Justice Department was reluctant to go after Schiff, but now that Tulsi Gabbard is investigating Obama administration scandals, this may change.
Much of the leaked information was about the fraudulent Russian intelligence report that President Barack Obama commissioned on Dec. 9, 2016. The revelation that Schiff knew the leaking was illegal could help secure arrests for the Russiagate hoax.
In America Under Attack, Gerald Flurry writes:
Ratcliffe said he briefed Rep. Adam Schiff on these exact facts and told him the evidence went all the way up to Obama. Schiff, a radical leftist, immediately went out and publicly said that Trump colluded with Russia and that he had evidence of it! That is the way leftists routinely lie. They are brazen like demons! And virtually nobody holds them accountable. As the Prophet Isaiah wrote, “[J]udgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:14).
The Schiff revelations show this assessment to be dead-on.
IN OTHER NEWS
Trump deployed the National Guard to the streets of D.C. yesterday and promised to put Washington police under federal control. “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youths, drugged out maniacs and homeless people,” he said. “And we’re not going to let it happen anymore.” Democrats, who always seem to side with the criminals, are accusing him of authoritarianism.
Europe is building arms factories at “triple speed,” the Financial Times reported, using satellite photos to analyze construction. Their data show 7 million square meters of new industrial plants for weapons manufacture—triple the rate such facilities are usually built in peacetime. “Germany Is Arming for World War III” is a feature article by Gerald Flurry in our new Trumpet issue. Watch for it on our website tomorrow.
Could the Supreme Court overturn homosexual “marriage”? In 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court “should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents”—including the Hodges v. Obergefell ruling that legalized homosexual “marriage” in the United States. Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who was fired and jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals, submitted a petition of a writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to intervene in her case, according to a report published yesterday. Most petitions are not granted by the court, but Thomas’s earlier statements mean this could stand a chance. Of course, homosexual “marriage” has always been outlawed by the Supreme Court of heaven.
Nvidia can sell advanced AI chips to China—if they give the U.S. government a cut, the Trump administration confirmed yesterday. Nvidia and AMD are still blocked from selling their most advanced chips, but some that are currently banned would be allowed as long as they give 15 percent of the revenue to the federal government. The Constitution expressly forbids export taxes, so the legal basis of this is dubious. It also sees the U.S. once again enabling China’s rise in exchange for profit.
Oops—put the decimal in the wrong place: Our last print issue reported on Britain giving the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, then agreeing to rent its air base there for 99 years. Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed this would only cost the UK taxpayer £3.4 billion. A document from the Government Actuary’s Department shows that the rental bill is actually £34.7 billion, the Telegraph reported Sunday. The magnitude of the curse that giving up Chagos is for Britain is growing more and more apparent.
