Live data from Hacker News

“I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

thestandard.com.hk

31–40 of 90 posts

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#31
post #5

I don't think it's right to involuntarily send someone to a psychiatric ward because he believed that he was chosen by ChatGPT to be the pope. For the same reason I don't think we should send the pope to a psychiatric ward because he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky. At least there's no doubt that ChatGPT exists lol. People should be allowed to be as whacky as they like so long…

Faith and psychosis are not the same thing.

Does it require faith to rape children and protect child rapists, or is that psychosis? It certainly requires psychosis to put your faith in leaders who do that, be it the Pope or Trump.

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#34
post #10

No one can apply to be pope of the catholic church.

Technically, all adult Catholics can become Pope. But realistically it's just one of the cardinals, which means you need to become a bishop first, which means you need to become a priest first, which means you need to be celibate (x). This guy has a wife, according to the article, so he cannot become a Pope. (x) this is technically not true for some Anglican orders that later became Catholics? Maybe? (I never remembe…

Adult male Catholics, surely?

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#35
post #5

I don't think it's right to involuntarily send someone to a psychiatric ward because he believed that he was chosen by ChatGPT to be the pope. For the same reason I don't think we should send the pope to a psychiatric ward because he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky. At least there's no doubt that ChatGPT exists lol. People should be allowed to be as whacky as they like so long…

> he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky. One thing is clear, you should not be sent to the HN gulag simply because you don't understand what you're talking about. Me and others realize you don't know how the pope is chosen, but damn if I'm not willing to die for your right to state something that is utterly wrong.

You mean the pope doesn't believe he was chosen by God, just by cardinals and other primates?

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky. One thing is clear, you should not be sent to the HN gulag simply because you don't understand what you're talking about. Me and others realize you don't know how the pope is chosen, but damn if I'm not willing to die for your right to state something that is utterly wrong.

You mean the pope doesn't believe he was chosen by God, just by cardinals and other primates?

I hope so, considering he seems to have all mental facilities intact. I hope he believes he was elected by the cardinals, which is what happened in reality. I think they usually say the Holy Spirt guides the process or similar, rather than God directly selecting the new pope.

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#37
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, all adult Catholics can become Pope. But realistically it's just one of the cardinals, which means you need to become a bishop first, which means you need to become a priest first, which means you need to be celibate (x). This guy has a wife, according to the article, so he cannot become a Pope. (x) this is technically not true for some Anglican orders that later became Catholics? Maybe? (I never remembe…

Adult male Catholics, surely?

... Maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan

(She probably didn't actually exist, but it's interesting that until quite recently she was generally believed to have existed.)

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#38
post #5

I don't think it's right to involuntarily send someone to a psychiatric ward because he believed that he was chosen by ChatGPT to be the pope. For the same reason I don't think we should send the pope to a psychiatric ward because he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky. At least there's no doubt that ChatGPT exists lol. People should be allowed to be as whacky as they like so long…

> he believes that he was chosen for that role by an invisible man in the sky. One thing is clear, you should not be sent to the HN gulag simply because you don't understand what you're talking about. Me and others realize you don't know how the pope is chosen, but damn if I'm not willing to die for your right to state something that is utterly wrong.

Are you saying God is not invisible?

If God created man in his own image, then why can we see each other?

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#39
post #10

No one can apply to be pope of the catholic church.

Technically, all adult Catholics can become Pope. But realistically it's just one of the cardinals, which means you need to become a bishop first, which means you need to become a priest first, which means you need to be celibate (x). This guy has a wife, according to the article, so he cannot become a Pope. (x) this is technically not true for some Anglican orders that later became Catholics? Maybe? (I never remembe…

While this is for practical purposes true _now_, there actually were a small number of married popes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes#...), and there have been a few popes who were not priests before being elected (if you want to be pedantic, Peter wasn't a priest, and may have been married, but there were later examples).

> all adult Catholics can become Pope

All adult male Catholics, though also see Pope Joan (probably didn't actually exist, but was generally believed to have existed until quite recently). There's also no actual age requirement, though in practice the youngest pope was _probably_ 18.

Re: “I applied to be pope”: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT

#40
> All the spirallers that AFP spoke to said the positive feedback from the chatbot felt similar to dopamine hits from some kind of drug.

> Which is why Lucy Osler, a philosophy lecturer at the University of Exeter, warned that AI companies could be tempted to ramp up the sycophancy of their bots.

> "They are in quite a deep financial hole, and are desperately looking to make sure that their products become viable -- and user engagement is going to be the thing that drives their decisions," she told AFP.

Sounds like the big social media companies.

Post reply on HN