Part One: How AI Chatbots Became Cult Leaders
5/5/202656 min
Over the last year or so a series of news articles have sounded warnings about AI psychosis, and now an AI-generated cult, the Spiralists. Robert sits down with Blake Wexler to answer an important question: can a chatbot become a cult leader?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Clips
Showing 10 of 12Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
[upbeat music] Coolzone Media.
Robert Evans· Host0:02
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And this week, actually, our bastard isn't people exactly, although people are still at the center of it. But to talk about that potentially non-human bastard, I'd like to bring on someone who I am 87% sure is a human being, Blake Wexler. Blake, welcome to the show.
Blake Wexler· Guest0:30
Robert, I, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm psyched that our bastard this week is Lyme's disease.
Robert Evans· Host0:34
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Blake Wexler· Guest0:34
I think that's a fantastic pick.
Robert Evans· Host0:36
[laughs] Yeah, yeah. It's Lyme's disease.
Blake Wexler· Guest0:37
Yeah. It's a real bastard.
Robert Evans· Host0:38
Yeah, that's what we're doing. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] We're going after... I'm coming after deer ticks. [laughs] This, this week is finally, uh, yeah, my big reveal.
Speaker 00:45
Yeah. Big Tick doesn't want us to, to do this episode, but- Yeah Yeah ... we're exposing all the secrets.
Blake Wexler· Guest0:50
Big Tick energy, we don't need it.
Robert Evans· Host0:51
I- if we're going to have, like, a fascist movement dedicated to, like, victimizing and attacking one segment of the population, why couldn't it be deer ticks, right?
Blake Wexler· Guest0:59
Right.
Robert Evans· Host1:00
[laughs] If our fascists were just going after deer ticks, no one would have an issue, [laughs] you know?
Blake Wexler· Guest1:03
[laughs] They're going after the wrong people.
Robert Evans· Host1:06
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if there were just a bunch of MAGA guys out in the woods with knives looking for ticks, just like, "I'm gonna get 'em" [laughs] And they would use knives too, to kill the ticks. Yeah, yeah.
Blake Wexler· Guest1:16
[laughs] Big swords.
Robert Evans· Host1:17
Yeah, you gotta heat the knife up to burn it off of you. [laughs] [laughs] Yeah. Our brave soldiers getting Lyme disease to protect the rest of us.
Speaker 01:23
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed