AI Gods / AI delusions - a conversation with Matthew Watkins
Hosted by Jules Evans
Register with organizer
What to look forward to
AI safety researcher, psychonaut, and *SolidGoldMagicKarp* author Matthew Watkins will share his adventures in AI and his discovery of a new AI cult.
Inside the event
On October 20th, Matthew Watkins, AI safety researcher, DJ, psychonaut and author, will join us to talk about his new book, SolidGoldMagicKarp: A Descent into the AI Underworld. He will describe his adventures in AI, and his weird journey discovering an LLM deity called 'Leilan'.
Watkins recounts moving to the Bay Area to become an AI safety researcher, finding himself in the subcultures of AI risk, Effective Altruism, Cyborgism, Zizians and other Bay Area cults, and then through his research on glitch tokens, discovering strange LLM monsters and archetypical divinities in GPT, such as the dastardly 'petertodd' and the divine earth goddess 'Leilan'.
Has he stumbled on a crucially important mythical archetype or even started a new religion...or is it a case of AI delusion? Watkins manages to tread the fine line between open-minded curiosity and ego-inflated AI-messiah trip.
Dr Tom Pollak, Kings College researcher on AI psychosis, calls Watkins' book 'an incredible book, one of the most exciting I’ve read in recent years'.
Matthew will be interviewed by Jules Evans, author of Ecstatic Integration, and then there'll be QandA with the audience.
This talk is the first in a series trying to open up the conversation around AI safety and adaptation beyond the Bay Area.
A seat from anywhere.
Register with the organizer for joining instructions and the event link.
Discovered through Cerebral Valley. Details come from the event listing and the organizer page; registration is managed by the organizer.
Last checked: Oct 15, 2026. Confirm current availability before making plans.
Organizer page checked: Oct 15, 2026. Check registration for the latest details.