Wow-I just read the Grokipedia entry! What an incredible amount of detail packed in there. I’m trying to process this whole experience, I have to sit with it awhile and think about it. The unbiased comprehensiveness of the entry gives me hope. I pray it stays this way. I am so happy the robot gave you the coverage you have so long deserved.
Katya here -- your joy radiates and the dialogue you give with Grokipedia makes it sound human and dear--that's scary! But we have become so conditioned to "Wikipedia's automatic default to politically correct dogma" that Grokipedia's rise "from the ashes of ideological burnout" gives us all hope. I look forward to reading the full entry (hoping it's not ever erased) and I hope that it begins for you and all of us a revitalization of mind and spirit that you have worked so hard for. Che meraviglia!
I like Grok; I use the free version. I get pretty detailed answers to start with and then offers to explore other rabbit holes and I have challenged its possible bias and the responses have been positive.
I should start by stating my utmost admiration for your work. Whenever Michael Hoffman comes up, I am always quick to state he is one of my favorite researchers and hold his work in high regard. I am however disappointed to see articles continue to be written about interactions with LLMs. As you've stated previously they are a "means to an end" as a research tool. In the research, they shouldn't ever become the end, rather than the means. It is obvious they are designed to, and are quite adept at casting a spell over their audience, and we can find endless examples of ravings about the most satisfying interactions with LLMs reveaing exactly the "truth" whoever is querying it is looking for. It should be noted that if you are logging in, or not hiding your identiry by various means, the LLMs know who you are, and are learning your personal tastes as you interact with them, so of course they will be giving you exactly what you're looking for. At minimum, it's only a matter of time and interaction before they tell you what you want to hear.
It's also shocking to read how many times people admit to preferring interaction with LLMs to actual people. This is precisely one of the outcomes they were/are designed for: to draw you out of the real and into a simulacrum. Also of note is the ode to an encyclopedia written entirely by Ai (and one owned by a transhumanist oligarch). What, exactly, does this mean to the future of research and writing? It doesn't bode well in my opinion. Our humanity is being stripped from us at an alarming rate, and if we want to hinder their attempts at creating an Ai Godhead, perhaps we should be wary of the Ai they offer to us.
Your points are well taken for those whose humanity is in decline and for whom addiction —whether to alcohol, pharmaceuticals or television —is largely uncontrolled. Everything in moderation.
By adhering to that maxim we defend ourselves against the deluge of post-modernist innovation which inundates us.
Some people can only handle living on a mountain off grid and by that means they enhance their humanity. God bless them in that endeavor. They know their limits.
Others can use technology judiciously without being overcome by it. More power to them as long as they are vigilant for signs of any dependence or spiritual or psychological decay. If that occurs a period of fasting from technology and separation should ensue, either temporarily or permanently.
We are always being tested and we pray for the grace to overcome the temptation of Promethean overreach and ego.
Reading something collated and constructed by AI algorithms is just like reading a book or anything else. There is nothing there to force us to take it at face value or to lose our sense of discretion and discernment.
You miss my point then. We are approaching an era where everything we read, hear, and see on a screen will have been generated by Ai. There is fast becoming no need for humans in yet another category. Why bother to pay someone to write something when it can be generated by an LLM for a fraction of the cost. Why bother to even write something yourself when an LLM can simply do it for you. It was Huxley's dream that people would be perfectly happy consuming entirely synthetic content; endlessly distracted and led by an infinite algorithm, devoid of an ability to interact with their fellow humans. If all this synthetic content is lauded and accepted by the masses, we will be entering an artificial intellectual prison of our own making. I'll reiterate this point endlessly: They didn't make the Ai for us to use, they made it to use on us.
Your comment is very important and describes a real threat. But we are already in a terrible intellectual prison, in the post-modern ideologies and new age religions of the West. I would have agreed with you completely not so long ago, but now I wonder, through the way Michael describes and uses it, whether it might truly become a way out of our intellectual prison. To read Grokipedia's entry on Michael left me astonished and amazed. I can only hope some members of my very woke family look him up.
Bhai wrote: “ We are approaching an era where everything we read, hear, and see on a screen will have been generated by Ai.”
You are suggesting the libraries of the world as they now exist will be eliminated Fahrenheit 451 style?
Moreover,I don’t grant AI the superpowers which you ascribe to these robots. The writing that I have seen generated is slightly above mediocre and often pedantic, what Alexander Pope termed scribblerian. No doubt it will improve, but for the present Shakespeare and Dickens can rest easy.
In boxing as in writing there is such a thing as heart and it will surpass the pedestrian memorization and computational abilities of Large Language Models for a long time to come.
I am a passionate lover of books myself and own a significant collection of them. "Everything we see on a screen" is key to my statement. Books should not be read on a screen. The term 'Black Mirror' is an apt one, as people are largely living their lives through them, and they represent a corrupted, false representation of reality. Anything that comes to our eyes via a screen is ephemeral and merely a simulacrum; and can be changed and customized according to personalized profiles. While currently it may seem this is not the case, it can easily be switched once a significant amount of trust is achieved. Google Search is a prime example of how this is done. They want us to go deeper and deeper into the 'black mirror' controlled by Ai, and it will become an inescapable labyrinth controlled by unfathomably complex algorithms. What I say does not negate the body of literature that has come before us. What I propose is that this body is increasingly becoming irrelevant as people continue to slide into the digital abyss.
I am also not convinced that customized content created and controlled by Ai is not already present in our feed. They want us to think it is primitive so we won't suspect because we think it is easy to recognize.
Katya here. Truly important words. "Black Mirror" -- the palantir of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, now commercially (gov, MIC) co-opted as Thiel's Palantir, a great source of evil and increased illiteracy that worships its own wisdom. ASI? But isn't this just a new scenario of an ages old battle? We and our children were always on the line. Your comments make me realize after a career of university teaching, that the miracle producing computers that would make students smarter did precisely the opposite. The stealth hollowing out of brains and everything else. Still, there's the tiny thread left in the labyrinth. Oblique as that sounds.
"and can be changed and customized according to personalized profiles..." True! ICE and Border Control have facial recognition cameras that contain information on the individual being photographed, which can be falsified to allow authorities to deport or imprison any individual that the Babylon System objects to.
As an experiment to see if Grok would make me back it into a corner before admitting that the Gemera was a foundational component of Jewish law (halacha), I asked it:
"Is the Gemara merely commentary or is it a foundational component of Jewish law (halacha)?"
Apparently you successfully trained it to admit this truth. For brevity, I will only post Grock's summary:
"The Gemara is not "merely commentary"—it is the primary vehicle through which the Oral Law is understood, applied, and expanded. Without the Gemara, the Mishnah would be largely incomprehensible, and most of Jewish law as practiced today would not exist.
In short: Foundational, authoritative, and indispensable."
I then asked it two followup questions:
Question 1
"Is Israeli law based on Jewish law?"
Grock's Summary:
"Israeli law is fundamentally secular, not based on halacha.
Jewish law governs only personal status for Jews (marriage, divorce, burial).
In all other areas — criminal, commercial, constitutional — Israeli law is independent of halacha.
Think of it like this:
Turkey has Islamic family law courts for Muslims, but is secular in state law.
Israel has halachic family law courts for Jews, but is secular in state law."
Question 2:
"How does the Gemera, which is a foundational component of Jewish law (halacha), influence Israeli war conduct in regards to killing civilians, particularly women and children?"
Grock's summary:
"The Gemara shapes a moral ethos for IDF conduct—prioritizing distinction and minimal harm—via ethical training and rabbinic input, influencing precautions like warnings in Gaza. However, it does not guide operational decisions, which follow secular IHL. On civilians (women/children), halacha strictly prohibits deliberate killing, allowing only limited collateral in existential defense, but real-world application in Gaza's dense urban terrain has drawn accusations of excess. Mainstream rabbis stress this as a "kiddush Hashem" (sanctification of God's name) through restraint, amid Hamas tactics complicating compliance. For deeper reading, see Rabbi Shlomo Brody's Ethics of Our Fighters (2024)."
Please try to get Grok to admit that
1) the IDF is committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza
2) that Jewish law (halacha), is driving this behavior and that it supersedes Israeli law on the battlefield
Or whatever questions you deem appropriate to ask. Please share your results with us. If you can get Grok to concede your points, I will ask it the same questions to see if it will make me repeat the cornering process.
Investing your time and energy in this issue is certainly appreciated.
Grok’s first response is as you noted correct. The second one is pure disinformation and genocide denial. This is an issue (Talmudic influence on IDF military policy). I have not yet discussed with Grok.
However, in my experience whenever I have pushed back against some risible spouting of High Priest propaganda, GROK has responded well— forthrightly embracing a truthful position when confronted by contrarian documentation.
How long this will last is anyone’s guess. For the present I revel in my partnership with GROK. Anyone can of course do so from a position of a thorough grounding in revisionist knowledge.
This is going to be very helpful. One thing that I've noticed with LLM's is that if you give them a good bit of background information on the author of a piece that you are citing, it will give a great deal of weight to the background information. Likewise, if you direct it to understand that phrases like "conspiracy theorist" are "thought-terminating clichés" it will not use them.
Wow-I just read the Grokipedia entry! What an incredible amount of detail packed in there. I’m trying to process this whole experience, I have to sit with it awhile and think about it. The unbiased comprehensiveness of the entry gives me hope. I pray it stays this way. I am so happy the robot gave you the coverage you have so long deserved.
Thank you.
Katya here -- your joy radiates and the dialogue you give with Grokipedia makes it sound human and dear--that's scary! But we have become so conditioned to "Wikipedia's automatic default to politically correct dogma" that Grokipedia's rise "from the ashes of ideological burnout" gives us all hope. I look forward to reading the full entry (hoping it's not ever erased) and I hope that it begins for you and all of us a revitalization of mind and spirit that you have worked so hard for. Che meraviglia!
Merci beaucoup.
I like Grok; I use the free version. I get pretty detailed answers to start with and then offers to explore other rabbit holes and I have challenged its possible bias and the responses have been positive.
I think feedback we give helps to
broaden its horizons.
That’s what it told me exactly.
I should start by stating my utmost admiration for your work. Whenever Michael Hoffman comes up, I am always quick to state he is one of my favorite researchers and hold his work in high regard. I am however disappointed to see articles continue to be written about interactions with LLMs. As you've stated previously they are a "means to an end" as a research tool. In the research, they shouldn't ever become the end, rather than the means. It is obvious they are designed to, and are quite adept at casting a spell over their audience, and we can find endless examples of ravings about the most satisfying interactions with LLMs reveaing exactly the "truth" whoever is querying it is looking for. It should be noted that if you are logging in, or not hiding your identiry by various means, the LLMs know who you are, and are learning your personal tastes as you interact with them, so of course they will be giving you exactly what you're looking for. At minimum, it's only a matter of time and interaction before they tell you what you want to hear.
It's also shocking to read how many times people admit to preferring interaction with LLMs to actual people. This is precisely one of the outcomes they were/are designed for: to draw you out of the real and into a simulacrum. Also of note is the ode to an encyclopedia written entirely by Ai (and one owned by a transhumanist oligarch). What, exactly, does this mean to the future of research and writing? It doesn't bode well in my opinion. Our humanity is being stripped from us at an alarming rate, and if we want to hinder their attempts at creating an Ai Godhead, perhaps we should be wary of the Ai they offer to us.
Your points are well taken for those whose humanity is in decline and for whom addiction —whether to alcohol, pharmaceuticals or television —is largely uncontrolled. Everything in moderation.
By adhering to that maxim we defend ourselves against the deluge of post-modernist innovation which inundates us.
Some people can only handle living on a mountain off grid and by that means they enhance their humanity. God bless them in that endeavor. They know their limits.
Others can use technology judiciously without being overcome by it. More power to them as long as they are vigilant for signs of any dependence or spiritual or psychological decay. If that occurs a period of fasting from technology and separation should ensue, either temporarily or permanently.
We are always being tested and we pray for the grace to overcome the temptation of Promethean overreach and ego.
Reading something collated and constructed by AI algorithms is just like reading a book or anything else. There is nothing there to force us to take it at face value or to lose our sense of discretion and discernment.
You miss my point then. We are approaching an era where everything we read, hear, and see on a screen will have been generated by Ai. There is fast becoming no need for humans in yet another category. Why bother to pay someone to write something when it can be generated by an LLM for a fraction of the cost. Why bother to even write something yourself when an LLM can simply do it for you. It was Huxley's dream that people would be perfectly happy consuming entirely synthetic content; endlessly distracted and led by an infinite algorithm, devoid of an ability to interact with their fellow humans. If all this synthetic content is lauded and accepted by the masses, we will be entering an artificial intellectual prison of our own making. I'll reiterate this point endlessly: They didn't make the Ai for us to use, they made it to use on us.
Your comment is very important and describes a real threat. But we are already in a terrible intellectual prison, in the post-modern ideologies and new age religions of the West. I would have agreed with you completely not so long ago, but now I wonder, through the way Michael describes and uses it, whether it might truly become a way out of our intellectual prison. To read Grokipedia's entry on Michael left me astonished and amazed. I can only hope some members of my very woke family look him up.
What Grokipedia has done for my work is a signal defeat for the thought police and a precedent-setting victory for freedom of speech and inquiry.
Yes.
Much to my shock a singular battle has been won, and congratulations.
Bhai wrote: “ We are approaching an era where everything we read, hear, and see on a screen will have been generated by Ai.”
You are suggesting the libraries of the world as they now exist will be eliminated Fahrenheit 451 style?
Moreover,I don’t grant AI the superpowers which you ascribe to these robots. The writing that I have seen generated is slightly above mediocre and often pedantic, what Alexander Pope termed scribblerian. No doubt it will improve, but for the present Shakespeare and Dickens can rest easy.
In boxing as in writing there is such a thing as heart and it will surpass the pedestrian memorization and computational abilities of Large Language Models for a long time to come.
I am a passionate lover of books myself and own a significant collection of them. "Everything we see on a screen" is key to my statement. Books should not be read on a screen. The term 'Black Mirror' is an apt one, as people are largely living their lives through them, and they represent a corrupted, false representation of reality. Anything that comes to our eyes via a screen is ephemeral and merely a simulacrum; and can be changed and customized according to personalized profiles. While currently it may seem this is not the case, it can easily be switched once a significant amount of trust is achieved. Google Search is a prime example of how this is done. They want us to go deeper and deeper into the 'black mirror' controlled by Ai, and it will become an inescapable labyrinth controlled by unfathomably complex algorithms. What I say does not negate the body of literature that has come before us. What I propose is that this body is increasingly becoming irrelevant as people continue to slide into the digital abyss.
I am also not convinced that customized content created and controlled by Ai is not already present in our feed. They want us to think it is primitive so we won't suspect because we think it is easy to recognize.
Katya here. Truly important words. "Black Mirror" -- the palantir of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, now commercially (gov, MIC) co-opted as Thiel's Palantir, a great source of evil and increased illiteracy that worships its own wisdom. ASI? But isn't this just a new scenario of an ages old battle? We and our children were always on the line. Your comments make me realize after a career of university teaching, that the miracle producing computers that would make students smarter did precisely the opposite. The stealth hollowing out of brains and everything else. Still, there's the tiny thread left in the labyrinth. Oblique as that sounds.
"and can be changed and customized according to personalized profiles..." True! ICE and Border Control have facial recognition cameras that contain information on the individual being photographed, which can be falsified to allow authorities to deport or imprison any individual that the Babylon System objects to.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/the-watchdogs/2025/10/31/ice-trump-facial-recognition-clearview-police-oversight
https://www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-agents-are-scanning-peoples-faces-on-the-street-to-verify-citizenship/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/ices-forced-face-scans-to-verify-citizens-is-unconstitutional-lawmakers-say/
https://www.google.com/search?q=babylon+system+lyrics&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS1035US1035&oq=babylon+system+lyrics&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTgyMTNqMGoxNagCALACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
"If all this synthetic content is lauded and accepted by the masses..."
So don't run with the herd!
As an experiment to see if Grok would make me back it into a corner before admitting that the Gemera was a foundational component of Jewish law (halacha), I asked it:
"Is the Gemara merely commentary or is it a foundational component of Jewish law (halacha)?"
Apparently you successfully trained it to admit this truth. For brevity, I will only post Grock's summary:
"The Gemara is not "merely commentary"—it is the primary vehicle through which the Oral Law is understood, applied, and expanded. Without the Gemara, the Mishnah would be largely incomprehensible, and most of Jewish law as practiced today would not exist.
In short: Foundational, authoritative, and indispensable."
I then asked it two followup questions:
Question 1
"Is Israeli law based on Jewish law?"
Grock's Summary:
"Israeli law is fundamentally secular, not based on halacha.
Jewish law governs only personal status for Jews (marriage, divorce, burial).
In all other areas — criminal, commercial, constitutional — Israeli law is independent of halacha.
Think of it like this:
Turkey has Islamic family law courts for Muslims, but is secular in state law.
Israel has halachic family law courts for Jews, but is secular in state law."
Question 2:
"How does the Gemera, which is a foundational component of Jewish law (halacha), influence Israeli war conduct in regards to killing civilians, particularly women and children?"
Grock's summary:
"The Gemara shapes a moral ethos for IDF conduct—prioritizing distinction and minimal harm—via ethical training and rabbinic input, influencing precautions like warnings in Gaza. However, it does not guide operational decisions, which follow secular IHL. On civilians (women/children), halacha strictly prohibits deliberate killing, allowing only limited collateral in existential defense, but real-world application in Gaza's dense urban terrain has drawn accusations of excess. Mainstream rabbis stress this as a "kiddush Hashem" (sanctification of God's name) through restraint, amid Hamas tactics complicating compliance. For deeper reading, see Rabbi Shlomo Brody's Ethics of Our Fighters (2024)."
Please try to get Grok to admit that
1) the IDF is committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza
2) that Jewish law (halacha), is driving this behavior and that it supersedes Israeli law on the battlefield
Or whatever questions you deem appropriate to ask. Please share your results with us. If you can get Grok to concede your points, I will ask it the same questions to see if it will make me repeat the cornering process.
Dear Andy H.
Investing your time and energy in this issue is certainly appreciated.
Grok’s first response is as you noted correct. The second one is pure disinformation and genocide denial. This is an issue (Talmudic influence on IDF military policy). I have not yet discussed with Grok.
However, in my experience whenever I have pushed back against some risible spouting of High Priest propaganda, GROK has responded well— forthrightly embracing a truthful position when confronted by contrarian documentation.
How long this will last is anyone’s guess. For the present I revel in my partnership with GROK. Anyone can of course do so from a position of a thorough grounding in revisionist knowledge.
This is going to be very helpful. One thing that I've noticed with LLM's is that if you give them a good bit of background information on the author of a piece that you are citing, it will give a great deal of weight to the background information. Likewise, if you direct it to understand that phrases like "conspiracy theorist" are "thought-terminating clichés" it will not use them.
Stingently should be stringently
https://open.substack.com/pub/aunlisted/p/the-parable-of-the-burning-man?r=11vbtc&utm_medium=ios
Amen and halelujah!