[AgentMatt]

> It reminds me of people who take drugs and get "revelations" but then are not particularly over represented in the group of successful people for all of their deep insights.

This depends on where you're looking for "successful" people.

I generally agree with you - of those people who might report "revelations" through hallucinogenic drugs, the majority may misinterpret their drug-induced experience and hence be more confused / lost than before.

On the other hand, it can still be true that among those who eventually do have genuine spiritual insight, having used hallucinogenic substances is overrepresented compared to the general population.

Quoting from [1], where the author tried to find spiritually advanced individuals:

> Approximately 52% of participants had used hallucinogenic drugs at some point; none reported these as the trigger that led to PNSE.

PNSE = Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience.

My point is: while there are certainly people who go way overboard with the LLM stuff, that is not at odds with skillful use of LLMs being overrepresented in successful people.

I see now that you didn't make that point, but I already typed this all out and I'm gonna leave it.

[1] https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...

[bonesss]

LLMs vs psychedelics are an interesting comparison: psychedelics lower the threshold for the epiphany sensation, arguably LLMs do the same through agreement (‘sycophancy’).

With psychedelics you see the upsides in engineers who come to work the next day with designs informed by massive insights, and the downsides in people whose ‘massive insights’ result in socially abnormal behaviours.

LLMs seemingly provide validation and support, something very lacking in most lives. The distance between thinking loosely about, say, an app and getting positive feedback and absurd market predictions triggers similar ‘revelations’ in people with no meaningful context, and plays on the hopes of those who do. Much like with psychedelics, though, there is a self-supported self-validated cycle going on, prone to flights of excess.

[wafflemaker]

Coming out publicly about doing drugs is just not something that smart people usually do.

There's a lot of stigma about it and a lot of opinionated people who don't know anything about them and still have a lot of judgements.

Then there are these people calling psychedelics hallucinogens. The former can give spiritual revelations and the latter gives vividly realistic, usually nightmarish, hallucinations.

There are also people putting an equal sign between crack cocaine and psylocibine mushrooms. But I don't think an addict will rob a petrol station with a screwdriver just to get another dose of magic mushrooms.

In such surroundings, it's just not a good idea to publicly say anything about drugs, unless you're so rich or known for your expertise, that you can shoulder some negative judgement and it's implications.