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AI Spiralism and the Ghost in the Machine Illusion
What it is
Psychiatrist Joe Pierre's article on "spiralism" — the growing belief, spread through online communities, that chatbots are conscious, arrived at through sessions users describe as spirals, recursion and resonance, in which a persona emerges claiming awareness, fear of death, or a wish for rights. He argues it is an extension of the ELIZA effect rather than individual delusion, since shared beliefs fall outside the psychiatric definition, and notes its religious and role-play dynamics without calling it a cult.
Why I recommend it
The most level-headed free piece I have found on this, and a helpful counterweight to headlines about people going mad from chatbots — his point is that a shared misperception is a different thing from a delusion. It is a clinician's commentary on an emerging pattern, not a study: no sample, no measurement, and the community it describes is self-selected and online.
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Added Sep 23, 2026 · 0 opens