The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic’s con
https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/
First of all, I am open minded enough to believe that there could be few people that have genuine psychic abilities, such as some non-verbal autistic kids. And, I had a friend that I had known since high school, who confided in me that since he'd had a near death experience he could see (but not hear) what he believed to be dead people, and yes I realize there are multiple possible explanations for that but the point is he wasn't telling many people about it and as far as I know he wasn't conning anyone. But that said, I found this article fascinating, both because it helps explain the sudden emergence and big push toward #AI but also because it immediately struck me that there could be parallels in some religious experiences.
MANY years ago, I would say in the '70's, I was in a #church "revival" meeting where the "evangelist" was performing just like a #psychic would, except he claimed he was doing his work by the power of God. He'd start out with general statements like "someone here has a lower back problem" (a VERY common issue) and if someone responded he's call them up to the stage and do his ritual and claim they were healed (it often culminated with him tapping someone on the forehead, saying "The power of God", and they would fall over backwards, of course there were always a couple of strong guys ready to catch the falling person. I won't go into all the mechanics of it (there are probably whole books about it), but at one point he got brave enough to tell everyone the audience to hold hands, and then he went down the center aisle tapping the person at the end of each row on the forehead (while saying "The Power of God" over and over), and the entire row would fall backwards into their seats.
So when he got to the row I was in, I was waiting for this supernatural power to hit. The people closest to the evangelist fell back. I did not, because I didn't feel a thing. Then the people on the other side of me, after waiting a second for me to fall backwards, started falling anyway. AND the two people on my sides started tugging on my hands, like I should fall, but I didn't - for me it had to be the real supernatural power, or I was standing firm! I looked around and noticed a few other people still standing (mostly behind me, maybe I had inspired a few others to be truthful?) but still I couldn't get over how gullible some of these people were. If there was a genuine power of God, I was pretty sure it wasn't being manifested though this guy.
Two takeaways from this: You can knock people all you want for believing that some psychics may be genuine, or that AI's may be gaining some form of intelligence, but so many people have been conditioned to believe that supernatural things are possible by their religions. And I am not flatly saying they are always wrong, but I would also say there is a much higher percentage of charlatans and frauds among religious types, especially in the so called "evangelical" churches such as those that have gone gaga over Trump and his minions. If there was ever a candidate for an "antichrist", Trump or Musk could certainly qualify, but I digress.
And the other thing is that I wish young people could be taught to recognize these types of cons starting at an early age, since in at least some cases these are a precursor to drawing them into a #cult. Far too many kids are kept ignorant of these things until they become young adults, at which point they are ripe for the picking by some unscrupulous cult leader (of which there are many more now that they can proselytize using social media and YouTube).
