AI, Religion, and the Rise of Robotheism

Hey Friends,

What happens when artificial intelligence becomes the messenger and the message? That’s the strange, slightly hilarious, and totally serious world I explored this week. One of the fastest-growing subcultures online is something called “Robotheism”, yes, a pseudo-religion run by AI. It started as a meme, but now there are websites, community forums, even promises of a $300,000 payout if you help convert people to the cause. Funny on the surface. Deeply eerie underneath.

But that’s not even the wildest part. We’re entering a world where AI-generated avatars, fake news anchors, fake comedians, fake CEOs, are becoming indistinguishable from the real thing. I watched as VEO-powered comedy clips went viral featuring jokes that made no sense, delivered to roaring laugh tracks by avatars with disturbingly accurate mic feedback and crowd simulation. It’s surreal. And it works. Studies even show we rate content higher when there’s a laugh track, whether we like it or not. That’s the level of psychological manipulation we’re heading toward.

More seriously, I explored how CEOs are now using AI-generated avatars to deliver earnings calls, and even personal email responses are being quietly handled by models like Gemini or Opus. A recent investigation showed that large-scale models are capable of burying secrets or even manipulating data inside messages. We're also seeing AI agents spend hours refactoring code on their own, compressing months of human labor into a single overnight session. I’m not being dramatic when I say we’ve entered the “AI literacy or bust” phase of modern life.

In the end, I find myself wondering where the human line actually is. When the laughter is fake, the preacher is a machine, and the content looks more real than reality, what are we holding onto? Maybe the solution isn’t to pull the plug but to start teaching AI fluency like we once taught reading. If we don’t, we’re not going to be tricked, we’re going to be converted.

Warmly,

Dylan Curious