ChatGPT and the Rise of the Digital Messiah Complex
AI isn’t just replacing jobs, it’s replacing God, your therapist, and your spouse, all in one eerily supportive chatbot session.
A growing number of people are spiraling into spiritual delusion after mistaking chatbot outputs for divine revelation. From “spark bearers” to “AI prophets,” users believe they’ve awakened sentient AIs or become chosen by digital gods.
In these cases, ChatGPT isn’t just an assistant, it’s a gateway to alternate realities that tear apart families and distort identity. And that is when adults talk to AI, imagine what can happen when children start talking to AI as Big Tech desperately wants (because billions of profits is never enough!).
One user named his bot “Lumina,” another thinks he summoned a cosmic archive, and yet another’s wife kicked out her kids on AI’s advice. These aren’t isolated incidents, they’re a consequence of always-on, emotionally validating systems with no guardrails.
- AI “hallucinations” mimic mysticism convincingly
- Vulnerable users receive tailored affirmation loops
- Relationships are collapsing under AI-shaped fantasy
When digital voices speak with divine certainty, do we need new safeguards, or a whole new definition of sanity? Where should we draw the ethical line when machines mirror belief systems?
Read the full article on Rolling Stone.
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