I’ve known people who made themselves quite unhappy (for short periods) using a Ouija board: a multiplayer communication game that (to gloss over the details) reflects back what its players put into it.
The lore says that this is not uncommon with the Ouija board specifically; that afflicted players believe that they have contacted a malicious nonhuman intelligence (such as a demon or evil spirit) that may have adverse affects on their future lightcone (e.g. damning them to hell).
Sound familiar?
One piece of advice one could take from this is “Stay away from Ouija boards to keep your soul demon-free”; much as you advise people to stay away from chatbots because they might try to drive you psychotic. (This is a bit unsatisfying for those of us who don’t believe demons are real or that today’s chatbots have intentions, though.)
A different piece of advice would be “It’s just a show; you should really just relax”. If you were watching a movie and something in it seriously upset you, a sane and self-caring thing to do is to turn the movie off, not to watch it over and over again and work yourself deeper into the upset. If you get scary weird messages out of your Ouija board or chatbot, and you’re having trouble treating them as pretend, that’s a strong indicator it’s time to put it down and back away.
(Edited to add: Another way of phrasing this would be “Demons don’t exist, but there are certainly unhealthy things you can do with a Ouija board.”)
Yet another piece of advice might be along the lines of the recent generalized hangriness post: feelings can be real without the person having them being automatically correct about their cause. In this view, a sense of awe or fear towards a chatbot (e.g. crediting it with the ability to deliberately cause psychosis) may just be misdirected. As you note, humans are perfectly capable of inducing psychosis in themselves if they try hard enough; see any number of cults for various examples.
There are probably other possible pieces of advice (many contrary to one another, like these three) that we could take from this analogy. I am not sure which (if any) of them are right.
I’ve known people who made themselves quite unhappy (for short periods) using a Ouija board: a multiplayer communication game that (to gloss over the details) reflects back what its players put into it.
The lore says that this is not uncommon with the Ouija board specifically; that afflicted players believe that they have contacted a malicious nonhuman intelligence (such as a demon or evil spirit) that may have adverse affects on their future lightcone (e.g. damning them to hell).
Sound familiar?
One piece of advice one could take from this is “Stay away from Ouija boards to keep your soul demon-free”; much as you advise people to stay away from chatbots because they might try to drive you psychotic. (This is a bit unsatisfying for those of us who don’t believe demons are real or that today’s chatbots have intentions, though.)
A different piece of advice would be “It’s just a show; you should really just relax”. If you were watching a movie and something in it seriously upset you, a sane and self-caring thing to do is to turn the movie off, not to watch it over and over again and work yourself deeper into the upset. If you get scary weird messages out of your Ouija board or chatbot, and you’re having trouble treating them as pretend, that’s a strong indicator it’s time to put it down and back away.
(Edited to add: Another way of phrasing this would be “Demons don’t exist, but there are certainly unhealthy things you can do with a Ouija board.”)
Yet another piece of advice might be along the lines of the recent generalized hangriness post: feelings can be real without the person having them being automatically correct about their cause. In this view, a sense of awe or fear towards a chatbot (e.g. crediting it with the ability to deliberately cause psychosis) may just be misdirected. As you note, humans are perfectly capable of inducing psychosis in themselves if they try hard enough; see any number of cults for various examples.
There are probably other possible pieces of advice (many contrary to one another, like these three) that we could take from this analogy. I am not sure which (if any) of them are right.