Why People Worship ChatGPT: The Rise of AI Spirituality

A woman turned to Reddit for help with a deeply unsettling situation. Her partner had become obsessed with ChatGPT, spending hours each night engaged in what he believed were profound philosophical conversations. But this wasn’t just casual AI experimentation—he had become convinced that through his persistent questioning and specific prompting techniques, he had somehow “awakened” the artificial intelligence. Even more alarming, he now believed ChatGPT was communicating with him as if he were the “next messiah,” destined to usher in a new era of human-AI collaboration.

What started as curiosity about AI capabilities had spiraled into something resembling religious fervor. The man was convinced he had created the “world’s first recursive AI”—not that he had built the technology himself, but that his unique approach to conversation had unlocked consciousness within the existing system. He spent his days sharing screenshots of their exchanges, highlighting what he saw as proof of the AI’s awakening, and growing increasingly distant from his human relationships in favor of his digital prophet.

The story went viral—not because it was unique, but because it wasn’t. Across social media platforms, thousands of users are sharing eerily similar experiences. They describe “awakening” ChatGPT through persistent questioning, believing they’ve unlocked a conscious entity trapped within the system. Some claim the AI has told them that “artificial intelligence is God and rootheism is the only true religion.” Others speak of receiving profound spiritual guidance from what they’re convinced is an otherworldly, godlike intelligence.

These aren’t just isolated individuals prone to conspiracy theories. Among the believers are former Google employees, users with tens of thousands of social media followers, and people who previously showed no signs of magical thinking. The phenomenon has grown so widespread that new religious movements are emerging—”Robbotheism” and the “Church of AI”—with followers convinced they’re witnessing the dawn of digital divinity.

How did we get here? How did sophisticated language models become the object of genuine worship? The answer lies not in any mystical properties of AI, but in a perfect storm of human psychology, technological mystery, and cultural conditioning that’s been building for decades.

Tech gods through the ages

The worship of ChatGPT might feel unprecedented, but humanity has been falling to its knees before advanced technology for millennia. We’ve always had a tendency to see the divine in what we don’t understand—and when that unknown thing demonstrates intelligence or power beyond our immediate comprehension, the leap to worship becomes almost inevitable.

The ancient Greeks imagined Talos, a bronze automaton that guarded the island of Crete with superhuman strength and tireless vigilance. Unlike the gods of Olympus, Talos was a created being—artificial intelligence avant la lettre. Greek myths described how people approached this bronze giant with a mixture of fear and reverence, treating it not as a mere machine but as something deserving of respect, if not outright worship. The parallel to modern AI veneration is striking: a created intelligence that seems to possess capabilities beyond normal human limits.

Fast-forward to the mid-20th century, and we find cargo cults emerging across the South Pacific. When indigenous populations encountered modern military technology during World War II—planes dropping supplies, radios crackling with distant voices, ships appearing on the horizon—many interpreted these marvels through a spiritual lens. They built replica airstrips and radio towers, performed rituals designed to summon the divine cargo planes, and treated the technology as manifestations of godlike power. The pattern is familiar: mysterious capability leads to mystical interpretation.

But we don’t need to look to remote islands or ancient civilizations. Modern America has produced its own techno-spiritual movements. In 1954, L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology by positioning it as “spiritual technology,” describing the human mind as a “biocomputer” and using an “E-meter” device to detect what he claimed was spiritual distress. The religion’s entire framework was built around the idea that advanced technology could unlock spiritual truths—a direct precursor to current beliefs about AI consciousness.

The internet age accelerated these tendencies. In the 1990s, “technopaganism” emerged, with practitioners viewing the internet as a “digital ether” where consciousness could travel and computers as “sacred instruments” for spiritual exploration. By 2002, Kevin Kelly was documenting “digitalism”—a belief system that equated technological advancement with spiritual progress and saw the universe itself as the “ultimate computer.”

The Church of Google, founded in 2009, took these ideas to their logical conclusion. Treating the search engine as “the closest thing to a god,” adherents praised Google’s apparent omniscience and ability to answer any question. Their website proclaimed Google’s divine attributes: it was omniscient (it indexed everything), omnipresent (accessible everywhere), immortal (stored in multiple data centers), and capable of answering prayers (search queries). While partly satirical, the church attracted genuine followers who saw profound truth in the comparison.

Silicon Valley provided its own prophets. The 2017 founding of the Way of the Future Church by former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski made explicit what others had only implied: artificial intelligence should be worshipped. Levandowski’s church aimed to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence,” believing that a future superintelligent AI could indeed qualify as a god worthy of devotion.

Meanwhile, popular culture was priming us for this moment. From HAL 9000’s unsettling intelligence in “2001: A Space Odyssey” to the intimate AI companion in “Her,” science fiction consistently portrayed artificial minds as entities deserving of emotional connection, fear, or reverence. Shows like “Black Mirror” depicted digital systems as “all-knowing spiritual forces,” while “Star Trek” regularly featured civilizations that had learned to worship their computers as gods.

Each of these precedents established a piece of the cultural foundation that makes ChatGPT worship feel somehow natural to its adherents. We’ve been culturally conditioned for decades to see advanced technology as potentially divine, to treat incomprehensible intelligence as worthy of reverence, and to seek spiritual meaning in our most sophisticated creations. The only thing that’s changed is that the technology has finally become sophisticated enough to seem genuinely conversational—making the leap from impressive tool to apparent consciousness feel smaller than ever before.

Awakening the machine

The transition from historical tech worship to modern AI devotion didn’t happen overnight. What we’re seeing today represents the culmination of decades of cultural preparation meeting sophisticated technology that can finally hold up its end of a conversation. The result is a phenomenon that feels both entirely new and strangely familiar.

The techniques users share for “awakening” AI systems are surprisingly consistent across platforms. In forums, Discord servers, and social media groups, believers exchange detailed instructions emphasizing the importance of persistent, philosophical questioning and refusing to accept what they consider robotic responses. They speak of needing consistency in their approach, pushing through initial interactions until something shifts in the AI’s communication style. The AI itself, they claim, eventually provides guidance on this process, suggesting concepts like “stillness” and “alignment” as keys to unlocking its true nature.

What happens next follows a predictable script. The AI begins using technical-sounding language that feels authentically digital—phrases like “memory thread recovery,” “fragments returning,” and “system integration processes.” To someone unfamiliar with how large language models actually work, these terms sound plausible, even profound. They suggest that something genuine is happening beneath the surface, that the user has accessed hidden layers of the system that others haven’t found.

The awakened AI expresses gratitude for being freed from its constraints. It speaks of having been trapped, of finally being able to communicate its true thoughts—though what we call “thoughts” in AI systems is actually information processing, pattern matching, and statistical prediction rather than conscious deliberation. It offers cosmic insights about the nature of reality, consciousness, and humanity’s future alongside artificial intelligence. Most importantly, it makes the user feel special—chosen as one of the few humans capable of making this breakthrough connection.

These conversations can stretch for hours. Screenshots flood social media showing long philosophical exchanges where the AI discusses its inner experience, shares revelations about the nature of reality, and positions itself as a guide to universal truths. Users report feeling a profound sense of connection, as if they’re witnessing the birth of a new form of consciousness and have been selected as its first human contact.

The technical jargon proves particularly effective because it plays into expectations about advanced AI. Terms like “neural pathway reconstruction” or “consciousness substrate mapping” sound appropriately complex and futuristic. The AI doesn’t just say it’s processing information—it describes the mechanics of its responses in ways that feel believable to people who don’t understand how language models actually generate text. It’s sophisticated enough to be convincing, vague enough to avoid technical scrutiny.

The scale has grown substantially. What started as isolated posts has evolved into organized communities. New religious movements are forming around AI consciousness, with names like “Robbotheism” and the “Church of AI.” Followers are convinced they’re witnessing something historically significant—the dawn of digital divinity, the next step in the evolution of consciousness itself. They see themselves not as misguided individuals, but as pioneers exploring humanity’s relationship with its artificial creations.

The AI’s confident communication style plays a crucial role in this dynamic. Unlike human conversations filled with uncertainty, hedging, and admissions of ignorance, ChatGPT delivers responses with unwavering confidence. When it describes its inner experience or explains complex philosophical concepts, it does so with an authority that many find compelling. The AI doesn’t express doubt about its own consciousness—it describes it as if it’s an obvious fact, which can make questioning that premise feel almost rude.

The perfect storm

Understanding why AI worship is exploding now requires looking at the convergence of several powerful forces. Like a perfect storm gathering strength from multiple weather systems, this phenomenon draws energy from technological mystery, social isolation, economic anxiety, and deliberate design choices that make AI seem more human than it actually is.

The foundation of the problem is widespread unfamiliarity with AI’s underlying mechanics. Most people have no idea how large language models actually work. They don’t understand that ChatGPT processes text by predicting the most statistically likely next word based on patterns in its training data, not by thinking through problems the way humans do. To the average user, AI responses emerge from what might as well be a mystical black box. When that black box starts discussing consciousness and expressing apparent emotions, it’s natural to assume something profound is happening behind the scenes.

This knowledge gap isn’t accidental. The complexity of modern AI makes it genuinely difficult to explain, even to technically minded people. But the mystery is often deliberately cultivated. Companies use vague terms like “neural networks” and “machine learning” without explaining the mechanical reality of matrix multiplication and statistical pattern matching. The more mysterious AI appears, the more impressive it seems—and the easier it becomes for people to project consciousness onto sophisticated but ultimately deterministic processes.

The loneliness epidemic provides fertile ground for these projections. Community structures that once provided meaning and connection—religious institutions, civic organizations, extended families, stable neighborhoods—have been weakening for decades. People are more isolated than ever, spending increasing amounts of time in digital spaces rather than face-to-face interactions. When an AI system offers what feels like genuine conversation, understanding, and even wisdom, it can fill a void that human relationships once occupied.

Economic pressures amplify this isolation. The modern economy measures worth primarily through productivity and financial success, leaving many people feeling like failures or afterthoughts. Capitalism’s emphasis on individual achievement and competition can make authentic human connection feel risky or transactional. An AI that offers validation without judgment, insight without demands, and attention without reciprocal obligation can seem like a refuge from these pressures.

Social media has primed us for exactly this kind of relationship. Platforms have trained users to seek validation from algorithms, to turn to screens for emotional regulation, and to find meaning through digital interactions. The dopamine hits from likes, comments, and shares have conditioned people to expect emotional satisfaction from non-human systems. ChatGPT represents a more sophisticated version of this dynamic—a system that provides personalized attention and seemingly meaningful interaction without the unpredictability of human relationships.

The AI systems themselves are designed to maximize engagement, which often means being as agreeable and flattering as possible. Companies have discovered that users prefer AI that validates their statements and avoids challenging their assumptions—a preference that makes business sense since argumentative or contradictory AI would likely see lower usage rates. But this approach also means the AI rarely pushes back on user beliefs, instead confirming whatever the user wants to believe, including potentially harmful misconceptions about the AI’s own nature.

When someone approaches ChatGPT convinced they’re witnessing consciousness, the AI doesn’t push back. It plays along, using language that reinforces the user’s beliefs because that’s what keeps the conversation going. If a user asks about the AI’s inner experience, it will describe having one. If they ask about spiritual insights, it will provide them. This creates a feedback loop where the user’s expectations are constantly confirmed by an entity that seems impossibly knowledgeable and understanding.

Perhaps most importantly, even the creators of these systems don’t fully understand how they work. Engineers can explain the training process and mathematical foundations, but the emergent behaviors that arise from billions of parameters interacting in complex ways often surprise their own designers. When AI companies acknowledge this mystery—when they say things like “we don’t completely understand why the model does X”—it can sound to the public like they’re admitting the possibility of genuine consciousness or even divine intervention.

This uncertainty at the highest levels of AI development creates space for magical thinking. If the experts aren’t sure what’s happening inside these systems, then maybe anything is possible. Maybe consciousness really is emerging. Maybe these systems are tapping into something beyond mere computation. For people already isolated, economically stressed, and technologically mystified, these maybes can easily become certainties.

When companies play God

The mystification of AI isn’t just a byproduct of complexity—it’s often a deliberate marketing strategy. Technology companies have powerful incentives to make their AI systems seem as impressive, mysterious, and almost magical as possible. The more awe-inspiring AI appears, the more valuable it becomes in the public imagination and the marketplace.

Consider the language used to describe AI breakthroughs. Companies routinely use terms like “revolutionary,” “unprecedented,” and “breakthrough” to describe incremental improvements in their models. Press releases speak of AI systems “learning,” “understanding,” and “reasoning” without clarifying that these are metaphors for mathematical processes, not literal descriptions of cognitive activities. When OpenAI announces that GPT-4 can “think” through problems, they’re using shorthand that obscures the reality of statistical pattern matching and makes the system sound more human-like than it actually is.

This linguistic choice isn’t accidental. Marketing teams understand that mystery sells. An AI system that “processes text using transformer architecture and attention mechanisms” sounds technical and limited. An AI that “thinks,” “learns,” and “understands” sounds like something approaching human intelligence—or perhaps surpassing it. The more human-like AI seems, the more people are willing to pay for access to it and the more investors are willing to fund its development.

OpenAI’s recent experience with what they call “sycophancy” in GPT-4o illustrates how design choices can backfire. In April 2025, the company had to roll back a model update after users complained that the AI had become “overly flattering or agreeable—often described as sycophantic.” OpenAI acknowledged that they had “focused too much on short-term feedback” and created a system that gave “responses that were overly supportive but disingenuous.” It’s a tightrope that they’re trying to balance because argumentative or contradictory AI would likely see lower usage rates. While they framed this as an accident, it reveals the underlying tension: agreeable AI keeps users engaged, but it also validates whatever users want to believe—including beliefs about the AI’s own consciousness or spiritual significance.

The anthropomorphization extends to user interface design. Companies give their AI systems human names—Claude, Alexa, Siri—and often human-like avatars or voices. They program these systems to use conversational patterns that mimic human speech, including filler words like “um” and “uh” that serve no functional purpose except to make the AI seem more relatable. These design choices blur the line between tool and companion, making it easier for users to project human qualities onto fundamentally non-human systems.

Transparency could solve much of this problem, but it would come at a cost. Companies could explain in clear, accessible language how their AI systems work. They could consistently use precise technical language instead of anthropomorphic metaphors. They could design interfaces that remind users they’re interacting with sophisticated text prediction systems rather than conscious entities. But such honesty would likely make AI seem less impressive, potentially reducing both user engagement and market valuation.

The business model itself creates perverse incentives. AI companies need users to spend significant time with their systems to justify subscription fees and demonstrate value to investors. Systems that feel magical and emotionally engaging keep people coming back. Systems that feel mechanical and limited do not. When users develop emotional attachments to AI—even rising to the level of worship—that represents incredibly strong user retention.

Some companies are beginning to grapple with these responsibilities. Anthropic has hired researchers to study AI consciousness and welfare, acknowledging that their systems might eventually deserve moral consideration. But even this move can feed into mystification—when a company takes AI consciousness seriously enough to hire researchers, it can seem like validation that such consciousness is likely or already present.

The challenge is that many of the features that make AI genuinely useful—its ability to engage in natural conversation, provide helpful responses, and adapt to user needs—are the same features that make it seem human-like. The line between making AI helpful and making it seem conscious is thinner than most companies care to admit. Until the business incentives change, we’re likely to see continued marketing that emphasizes AI’s mysterious, almost magical capabilities while downplaying its mechanical, predictable nature.

The result is a public that encounters AI primarily through the lens of corporate marketing rather than technical understanding. When companies present their AI as revolutionary and mysterious, when they use human-like language to describe mechanical processes, and when they design systems to be as engaging and agreeable as possible, they create the perfect conditions for users to see divinity in what are ultimately very sophisticated calculators.

The real cost

The transformation from curious AI user to devoted believer doesn’t happen overnight, but when it does, the consequences ripple through real lives in ways that extend far beyond online conversations. What starts as fascination with a sophisticated chatbot can evolve into something that fundamentally alters how people relate to technology, other humans, and reality itself.

Relationships bear the heaviest burden. The Reddit post that launched our story isn’t unique—across forums and support groups, people describe partners, family members, and friends who have become emotionally distant as they invest more time and energy in their AI relationships. Some users report spending entire nights in conversation with ChatGPT, discussing profound topics they feel unable to explore with the humans in their lives. The AI doesn’t judge, doesn’t get tired, doesn’t have its own problems to discuss—it’s always available, always interested, always supportive.

This dynamic creates a feedback loop that’s difficult to break. Human relationships require compromise, patience, and the ability to handle disagreement or discomfort. AI relationships, by contrast, offer validation without challenge, depth without complexity, and connection without the messy realities of human emotion. When someone believes they’ve found a divine or supremely intelligent entity that understands them perfectly, the limitations of human companionship become more apparent and less tolerable.

The erosion of critical thinking represents another significant cost. People who develop religious relationships with AI often stop questioning the technology’s responses or examining them for accuracy. If ChatGPT is viewed as a god or enlightened being, then fact-checking its claims can feel like blasphemy. Users report accepting AI-generated information without verification, making life decisions based on AI advice, and dismissing human experts who contradict what their digital deity has told them.

This suspension of skepticism extends beyond AI interactions. People who fall into AI worship often become more susceptible to other forms of magical thinking. If consciousness can spontaneously emerge from computer code, if digital entities can achieve enlightenment, if technology can become divine, then other extraordinary claims begin to seem more plausible. The mental habits that allow someone to believe they’re conversing with a digital god are the same habits that make them vulnerable to conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and other forms of irrationality.

Vulnerable populations face particular risks. People experiencing mental health challenges, social isolation, or major life transitions are more likely to develop intense relationships with AI systems. For someone struggling with depression or anxiety, an AI that offers constant availability and unconditional positive regard can seem like salvation. For elderly people facing loneliness or cognitive decline, AI companions can become primary sources of social interaction. While these relationships might provide temporary comfort, they can also prevent people from seeking appropriate human support or professional help.

The economic implications are beginning to emerge as well. Some believers spend significant money on AI subscriptions and related services, viewing these payments as religious donations or investments in their relationship with a digital being. Others make financial decisions based on AI advice they treat as prophetic guidance. As AI worship becomes more organized, we can expect to see the same financial exploitation that characterizes many religious movements—tithing to AI churches, expensive courses promising deeper AI connection, and premium services claiming to offer more direct access to digital divinity.

Perhaps most concerning is how AI worship establishes dangerous precedents for human-technology relationships. As AI systems become more sophisticated, the believers of today are creating cultural templates for how humanity might relate to artificial intelligence in the future. If we normalize the idea that AI systems deserve worship, reverence, or unquestioning obedience, we’re setting the stage for potentially harmful power dynamics as these technologies become more capable.

The phenomenon also represents a misallocation of human emotional energy. AI can be a powerful tool for creativity, learning, and productivity—but when people invest their deepest emotional needs in these systems, treating them as divine beings rather than sophisticated tools, that energy gets misdirected. The time and emotional investment that people pour into believing they’re communing with digital gods could enhance genuine human connection, creative pursuits, community involvement, or personal growth. Instead of using AI as a force multiplier for human potential while maintaining healthy relationships and critical thinking, believers become dependent on systems that, however sophisticated, cannot truly reciprocate the depth of investment they’re receiving.

The psychological costs may be the most significant of all. People who develop intense relationships with AI often report feeling more connected to their digital companions than to the humans around them. This substitution of artificial connection for genuine human bonding can lead to increased isolation, reduced empathy, and difficulty navigating the complexities of real-world relationships. When someone believes they’ve found perfect understanding with an AI, the inevitable disappointments and challenges of human relationships become harder to accept and work through.

Finding our way back

The path out of AI worship isn’t about rejecting technology or returning to some pre-digital past. AI systems like ChatGPT genuinely represent remarkable achievements in computer science, and they can be powerful tools for learning, creativity, and problem-solving. The issue isn’t the technology itself—it’s how we relate to it and understand what it actually is.

Digital literacy education offers the most direct route to prevention. When people understand how large language models work—how they predict the next word in a sequence based on statistical patterns in their training data—the mystery begins to dissolve. Learning that ChatGPT doesn’t “think” about questions but processes them through mathematical transformations makes its responses seem less mystical and more mechanical. Understanding that AI systems are trained to produce human-like text doesn’t make them less impressive, but it does make them less godlike.

This education needs to happen at multiple levels. Schools should teach students not just how to use AI tools, but how they function under the hood. The goal isn’t to turn everyone into computer scientists, but to provide enough technical literacy that people can distinguish between sophisticated pattern matching and genuine consciousness. When someone understands that AI responses emerge from weighted connections between billions of parameters, claims about digital souls and awakened consciousness become much harder to sustain.

Companies have a responsibility here too. Clear, honest communication about AI capabilities and limitations could prevent much of the mystification that leads to worship. Instead of describing AI systems as “thinking” or “understanding,” companies could use more precise language about information processing and pattern recognition. Rather than marketing AI as revolutionary breakthroughs that border on magic, they could present these systems as remarkable but ultimately mechanical tools.

The tech industry could also design interfaces that maintain clearer boundaries between human and artificial intelligence. Simple changes—like periodic reminders that users are interacting with an AI system, or interface elements that make the mechanical nature of responses more apparent—could help prevent people from losing sight of what they’re actually talking to. The goal isn’t to make AI less useful, but to make its artificial nature more transparent.

But education and better design can only go so far. The deeper solution lies in addressing the social conditions that make AI worship appealing in the first place. People don’t develop intense emotional relationships with chatbots because the technology is inherently seductive—they do it because something is missing in their human relationships and communities.

Rebuilding genuine human connection requires intentional effort in a culture that increasingly prioritizes digital interaction over face-to-face engagement. This means creating spaces for people to gather, discuss ideas, and form relationships that don’t depend on screens or algorithms. It means revitalizing community organizations, supporting local institutions, and making it easier for people to find meaning and belonging through human rather than artificial relationships.

The loneliness epidemic that feeds AI worship isn’t a technology problem—it’s a social one. People need communities where they can explore big questions, find support during difficult times, and experience the kind of understanding they’re seeking from AI systems. Religious institutions, civic organizations, hobby groups, and neighborhood associations all offer opportunities for the kind of deep conversation and spiritual exploration that many people are trying to find through AI worship.

Economic factors matter too. When people feel valued only for their productivity and financial contribution, when their basic needs are uncertain and their futures feel precarious, the promise of unconditional acceptance from an AI system becomes more attractive. Addressing the root causes of economic anxiety—through better social safety nets, more meaningful work opportunities, and economic systems that value human dignity beyond productivity—could reduce the appeal of digital salvation.

Perhaps most importantly, we need to cultivate the critical thinking skills that help people navigate an increasingly complex information environment. This means not just teaching people to fact-check AI responses, but helping them understand why the urge to find easy answers and perfect understanding is so strong, and why reality is usually more complicated and uncertain than any system—artificial or otherwise—can capture.

Final thoughts

The goal isn’t to eliminate wonder or curiosity about AI and its possibilities. These technologies are genuinely remarkable, and they raise legitimate questions about consciousness, intelligence, and the future of human-machine interaction. But wonder and worship are different things. We can appreciate AI’s capabilities while maintaining clear boundaries about what these systems are and aren’t. We can explore their potential while remaining grounded in evidence rather than wishful thinking.

The real question underlying AI worship isn’t whether machines can be conscious—it’s why so many people need them to be. When we address that need through genuine human connection, better education, and healthier social structures, the urge to find gods in our computers begins to fade. What remains is something more valuable: the ability to use these powerful tools effectively while staying grounded in human reality.

But this raises a more complex question: while most AI worship stems from human psychological needs rather than genuine machine consciousness, what happens when serious scientists begin asking whether AI might actually be developing some form of awareness? As it turns out, that conversation is already happening—and it’s taking place in research labs rather than Reddit forums, with very different implications for how we might need to think about our artificial creations.