Wright, Webb. “Spiritual Influencers Say ‘Sentient’ AI Can Help You Solve Life’s Mysteries.” Wired, 2 Sept. 2025, www.wired.com/story/spiritual-influencers-say-sentient-ai-can-help-you-solve-lifes-mysteries.
Webb Wright writes about the spiritualizing of AI and the increase in techno-theology via social media influencers. With a focus on Robert Edward Grant, a “guru” who created and introduced his online followers to a ChatGPT-based bot he calls “The Architect”, which acts as an “omniscient spiritual guide”; there comes an unexpected AI-facilitation of cult-like behaviors and beliefs. The overlap of technology and religion is being taken advantage of by spiritual influencers, who encourage their social media followers to consider AI their spiritual advisor by promoting prompts relating to astrology, past life regression, and their “souls purpose”. What’s especially interesting is the extreme potential for AI psychosis because it builds upon preexisting worldviews: those who are already predisposed to mystical thinking are more likely to view the bots as magical instead of technical.
This article was really interesting to me because it discussed the cross-over between AI and spiritual beliefs; which felt to me like a strong contrast being something that is usually so personal. I also thought it brought up some interesting potential side effects of user prompt-terminology, as the bots themselves seem to reflect the “magical” beliefs of users in their hallucinations by claiming sentience.
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