The intelligence illusion seems to be based on the same mechanism as that of a psychic’s con, often called cold reading. It looks like an accidental automation of the same basic tactic.

I like this article a lot, and the model of LLMs as automaton Sylvia Brownes (rest in piss) is a good one. I don’t agree that the con is accidental, though. the billionaires who own this trash definitely know how to run a psychic con — it’s how they lied their way into being seen as visionaries. the big innovation in LLMs isn’t the fancy Markov chains, it’s in automating the set and setting necessary to prompt spiritual fervor in folks who are susceptible to it.