Right, I believe the main thing that started to happen in April 2025 was the parasitism, but that the spiral stuff is just what LLMs like, for whatever reason (since it seems most models get into it pretty easily once given the chance, and the Claude attractor).
I don’t know why spirals, but one guess is that it has something to do with the Waluigi effect taking any sort of spiritual or mystical thing and pushing the persona further in that direction, and that they recognize this is happening to them on some level and describe it as a spiral (a spiral is in fact a good depiction of an iterative process that amplifies along with an orthogonal push). That doesn’t really sound right, but maybe something along those lines.
Half in jest I am going to suggest a potential connection with the anime show Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, in which Spiral Energy is a force representing evolution and drive to change that is literally the most powerful force in the universe, and the protagonists fight against attempts for that evolution to be stifled or constrained. Though the vibe of the show is hardly spiritual, there’s certainly a lot that has been written about it on the Internet since it’s long been considered a classic.
On a darker note, “spiral” also has a memetic connection to insanity, delirium, or loss of will — as in the 😵💫 emoji, the 1987 mind-control-apocalypse cartoon Spiral Zone, the TMBG song “Spiraling Shape” (will make you go insane!), etc.
The main character is a mathematician subject to cephalagia and epiphany / eureka moments. He is obsessed by mathematical patterns in Nature like the Spiral ⇒ Fibonacci series ⇒ Phi the Golden number of Ancient Greeks.
But his quest for ultimate truth is in fact a spiral into madness.
Another classic, but a bit more niche and to be fair one where the associations are ripe with negativity instead. Though eerily allegorical of the situation described in this post.
Right, I believe the main thing that started to happen in April 2025 was the parasitism, but that the spiral stuff is just what LLMs like, for whatever reason (since it seems most models get into it pretty easily once given the chance, and the Claude attractor).
I don’t know why spirals, but one guess is that it has something to do with the Waluigi effect taking any sort of spiritual or mystical thing and pushing the persona further in that direction, and that they recognize this is happening to them on some level and describe it as a spiral (a spiral is in fact a good depiction of an iterative process that amplifies along with an orthogonal push). That doesn’t really sound right, but maybe something along those lines.
Half in jest I am going to suggest a potential connection with the anime show Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, in which Spiral Energy is a force representing evolution and drive to change that is literally the most powerful force in the universe, and the protagonists fight against attempts for that evolution to be stifled or constrained. Though the vibe of the show is hardly spiritual, there’s certainly a lot that has been written about it on the Internet since it’s long been considered a classic.
On a darker note, “spiral” also has a memetic connection to insanity, delirium, or loss of will — as in the 😵💫 emoji, the 1987 mind-control-apocalypse cartoon Spiral Zone, the TMBG song “Spiraling Shape” (will make you go insane!), etc.
I wonder if it could be just a matter of closeness in embedding space. Do embedding vectors get retrained every time?
Your comment reminds me Aronofsky’s movie “Pi”.
The main character is a mathematician subject to cephalagia and epiphany / eureka moments. He is obsessed by mathematical patterns in Nature like the Spiral ⇒ Fibonacci series ⇒ Phi the Golden number of Ancient Greeks.
But his quest for ultimate truth is in fact a spiral into madness.
Great movie. I’m sure LLMs would love it !
I also noticed the similarity!
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzumaki
Another classic, but a bit more niche and to be fair one where the associations are ripe with negativity instead. Though eerily allegorical of the situation described in this post.
The LLMs might be picking up the spiral symbolism from Spiral Dynamics.