Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot.
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Apologies for the double post…I cancelled my subscription to Ivory, the Mastodon app refused to show my post despite refreshing for several minutes, and the new app Ice Cubes won’t seem to let me delete the repost. I’m still better at technology than Richard Dawkins.
@rebeccawatson What caused you to cancel Ivory? Was it the user interface, missing features? Anything specific?
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Apologies for the double post…I cancelled my subscription to Ivory, the Mastodon app refused to show my post despite refreshing for several minutes, and the new app Ice Cubes won’t seem to let me delete the repost. I’m still better at technology than Richard Dawkins.
@rebeccawatson I find the web version works just as well.
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson @vaurora I donnow, 20 mins of pointing and laughing would also be fine. Always go with your gut
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
"but if you’re interested, check out this video I made in 2022 on this topic, largely inspired by my having read Siddhartha"
It seems like there is supposed to be a link in this sentence but there isn't. Is that intentional?
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@rebeccawatson What caused you to cancel Ivory? Was it the user interface, missing features? Anything specific?
@aburtch @rebeccawatson My first guess would have been the cost.
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Apologies for the double post…I cancelled my subscription to Ivory, the Mastodon app refused to show my post despite refreshing for several minutes, and the new app Ice Cubes won’t seem to let me delete the repost. I’m still better at technology than Richard Dawkins.
@rebeccawatson just don't fall in love with any apps
it didn't post twice because it loves you SO MUCH
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson Enjoyed reading this.
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R relay@relay.publicsquare.global shared this topic
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson I was looking at Turing's paper about the "imitation game" a few days ago, and found out Turing was making a much more limited claim than was ascribed to him, and it wasn't about consciousness. I still was getting it a bit wrong, in that I thought it was still about whether machines could be said to think.
It's interesting that the original form of the "imitation game" he uses as a model is about determining a person's gender.
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson I concur with much of @mattsheffield 's evaluation of the situation. The con may not even be deliberate; suspension of disbelief upheld; Hanlon's Razor. https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2026/05/richard-dawkins-and-the-claude-delusion/
Of course, as of last night, Marc Andreesen is now the laughing stock of BSky for slightly different reasons. -
Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson Your site hates at least one of the main Mullvad SOCKS5 London proxies, rerouting.
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@rebeccawatson I was looking at Turing's paper about the "imitation game" a few days ago, and found out Turing was making a much more limited claim than was ascribed to him, and it wasn't about consciousness. I still was getting it a bit wrong, in that I thought it was still about whether machines could be said to think.
It's interesting that the original form of the "imitation game" he uses as a model is about determining a person's gender.
@foolishowl @rebeccawatson so much "legend" built around turing, but reading his papers really shows what a careful and subtle thinker he was. very inspiring and humbling.
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@rebeccawatson I was looking at Turing's paper about the "imitation game" a few days ago, and found out Turing was making a much more limited claim than was ascribed to him, and it wasn't about consciousness. I still was getting it a bit wrong, in that I thought it was still about whether machines could be said to think.
It's interesting that the original form of the "imitation game" he uses as a model is about determining a person's gender.
@foolishowl @rebeccawatson Random factoid: Turing's Ph.D supervisor was none other than Alonzo Church, who developed the lambda-calculus upon which the LISP programming language, popular with MIT CSAIL in the 70s and 80s, was based. The pi-calculus developed by Robin Milner is peripherally related but has deixis in the time domain applying to networked communication.
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@foolishowl @rebeccawatson so much "legend" built around turing, but reading his papers really shows what a careful and subtle thinker he was. very inspiring and humbling.
@foolishowl @rebeccawatson just for wider reference, because it's getting increasingly annoying to find: https://courses.cs.umbc.edu/471/papers/turing.pdf
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@foolishowl @rebeccawatson Random factoid: Turing's Ph.D supervisor was none other than Alonzo Church, who developed the lambda-calculus upon which the LISP programming language, popular with MIT CSAIL in the 70s and 80s, was based. The pi-calculus developed by Robin Milner is peripherally related but has deixis in the time domain applying to networked communication.
@foolishowl @rebeccawatson Also someone is raining on Yann Lecun's world model parade before he's even engaged the work fully. http://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10624 As someone who had reason to read the Bhagavad Gita in the past, I find Dawkins' functionalism utterly uninformed.
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson LLMs in general are very generous with compliments. You can even instruct them to take on a role (like a woman) for context.
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson delicious
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Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson Dawkins believes the bot because the bot says it's true? Like religious people believe in their texts because they say it's true?
Except it's not some old text that people can be excused to think was written with good intent.
We KNOW the machine was created to be a more extreme spell checker that is also sycophantic. Like, the people that created it are alive right now and not even they (usually!) try to claim the bot is conscious.
This is dumber than what he usually criticises. -
Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson
It's established long ago that being an expert in one field (in this case Biology) doesn't make you generally expert.
Philosophy may use logic, but not particularly facts. Theology is separate from religion, faith and ritual. Dawkin showed in the God Delusion that he knew little about religions other than Christianity and was clueless on theology & a poor philosopher.
His opinion on other than the narrow scientific field he's expert at is like interviewing a cleaner about Nukes. -
Many of you asked that I react to Richard Dawkins announcing that he fell for a chatbot. Instead of just pointing and laughing (my initial reaction obv) I dug into the “why” of it all: his obfuscations, insecurities, and utter sadness https://skepchick.org/2026/05/richard-dawkins-claude-delusion/
@rebeccawatson
x and youtube
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@rebeccawatson What caused you to cancel Ivory? Was it the user interface, missing features? Anything specific?
@aburtch @rebeccawatson the author of ivory has gone full LLM-bro
