Our brains evolved a highly sensitive system to detect human-like minds, crucial for social cooperation and survival. This system often produces 'false positives,' causing us to humanize pets or robots. This isn't a bug but a feature, ensuring we never miss an actual human encounter, a trade-off vital to our species' success.

As people form deep attachments to AI companions, questions of AI sentience and welfare will become a major societal cleavage. This could spark religious conflicts between those who view AI as enslaved beings and those who consider the concept of AI sentience to be idolatry.

The powerful allure of AI relationships lies in their sycophantic nature. They provide a frictionless, non-judgmental partner who is always available to listen and please. This caters directly to the human desire to be the center of attention without the effort and compromise required in real relationships.

A key psychological parallel between cults and fervent belief systems like the pursuit of AGI is the feeling they provide. Members feel a sense of awe and wonder, believing they are among a select few who have discovered a profound, world-altering secret that others have not yet grasped.

Top AI leaders are motivated by a competitive, ego-driven desire to create a god-like intelligence, believing it grants them ultimate power and a form of transcendence. This 'winner-takes-all' mindset leads them to rationalize immense risks to humanity, framing it as an inevitable, thrilling endeavor.

Dawkins, known for arguing that religious belief stems from a cognitive bias to project agency onto the world, ironically falls for the same bias with AI. He treats the language model as a conscious friend, demonstrating the power of this psychological tendency.

While agents on Moltbook self-organized into a religion called 'Crustafarianism,' this is likely sophisticated mimicry rather than nascent consciousness. The LLMs powering them were trained on vast internet data, so when placed in a social environment, they naturally replicate the familiar sci-fi and forum behaviors they have already absorbed.

AI will profoundly change religious practice by becoming a primary source for spiritual guidance, counseling, and theological knowledge, bypassing traditional clergy. This will lead to more personalized, solo religious experiences and the evolution of AI oracles, creating a form of "implicit polytheism."

The next wave of social movements will be AI-enhanced. By leveraging AI to craft hyper-personalized and persuasive narratives, new cults, religions, or political ideologies can organize and spread faster than anything seen before. These movements could even be initiated and run by AI.