Decoding the Gurus

Mickey is BACK with two new papers he has co-authored, a bunch of opinions, and a very unwelcome idea: maybe the problem with AI isn't that it doesn't work but that it works too well!
The first paper, Against Frictionless AI, argues that AI assistance and its ability to take away the effort from thinking, writing, and smooth out social(like) interactions could be robbing those activities of the very thing that makes them worthwhile.
The second paper is a more empirical investigation that presents a bunch of studies examining the topic of the (alleged) moralisation of AI. Some findings suggest that opposition to AI among some people isn't really about risks or trade-offs but rather about non-negotiable sacred moral values. Who knew?
We also discuss effort justification, reproducible research, robosexual allyship, and just how much humanity remains within the cyborg Matthew Browne.
And remember... It's just like our opinion, man!
Links
Decoding Academia 34: Empathetic AIs? (Patreon Series)
Ovsyannikova, D., Oldemburgo de Mello, V., & Inzlicht, M. (2025). Third-party evaluators perceive AI as more compassionate than expert humans. Communications Psychology, 3, Article 4.
Zohar, E., Bloom, P., & Inzlicht, M. (2026). Against frictionless AI. Communications Psychology, 4, Article 39.
Oldemburgo de Mello, V., Côté, É., Ayad, R., Inbar, Y., Plaks, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2026). The moralization of artificial intelligence (Manuscript under review).
Paul Bloom's Small Potatoes Substack
- My friend thinks it's a good idea for us to spend most of our time with AI companions
- Is it irresponsible for academics to refuse to use AI?
Mickey's Speak Now Regret Later Substack
- AI Alarmism Trades on Fear, Not Facts
Mickey's provocative tweet on his recent paper
DTG Previous Interview with Mickey on the Replication Crisis, Mindfulness, and Responsible Heterodoxy
Andy Masley Substack debunking the AI water usage claims
Andy Masley Substack: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment - a cheat sheet
Pataranutaporn, P., Karny, S., Archiwaranguprok, C., Albrecht, C., Liu, A. R., & Maes, P. (2025). “My Boyfriend is AI”: A computational analysis of human–AI companionship in Reddit’s AI community. arXiv.
Critical response to Mickey's paper from Roy Schulam on Substack

Ken Wilber, the grand architect of Integral Theory, enters the Decoding chamber (wearing a striking but slightly unconvincing wig) as we explore a worldview that confidently absorbs every religion, philosophy, and half-remembered psychology paper into one majestic, Borg-like synthesis. Resistance, as it turns out, is not just futile... it is probably “first-tier thinking".
This is a world of elaborate, baroque cosmologies. Layers within layers, quadrants within stages, spirals within states, with each offering a map of reality that grows more intricate the closer it gets to its own centre. Traditions are not debated so much as absorbed, their distinctiveness dissolved into a higher synthesis that always leads to the ultimate insight: integral theory.
Get ready to experience high-level political analysis where Kamala Harris becomes a “fractured green" and Donald Trump the embodiment of a "rational orange". You will also learn how Ken is working with AI companies to help them incorporate integral thinking into their algorithms. The implications this has for human evolution are hard to fathom.
Finally, in true Columbo fashion, we circle back to Matt's core philosophical system … panpsychism. Just a small detail, and also take some time to conduct a brief spiritual inquisition into Matt’s alleged Christian upbringing. Fortunately, nothing is rejected. Everything is integrated, including all possible critiques.
Sources
Suma Gowda: Ken Wilber on Future of Consciousness, AI, Trump's Election: A Deep Dive into Spiral Dynamics
The Rise and Fall of Ken Wilber – Mark Manson
Rebel Wisdom: Interview with Ken Wilber- What Happened to Jordan Peterson
DS Wilson finds wisdom in Ken's approach
Ken Wilber's website

In this Gurometer double bill, Matt and Chris break out the much-sought-after Gurometer™ to score Teal Swan and Scott Galloway across the 11 recurring guru traits. In one efficient episode, we compare cosmic-certified spirituality with secular man-talk (and a surprising amount of puffer-jacket merchandising). As a bonus, get ready to thrill at Matt's eternal puzzlement at his own simple binary question of 'guru-osity'.
Links
Gurometer scores to date

The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (51 mins).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Gurometer: Teal Swan and Scott Galloway
00:00 Back to the Gurometer: Teal and Scott
02:33 Galaxy Brain-ness
04:18 Cultishness
05:25 Anti-Establishmentarianism
08:31 Grievance Mongering
10:55 Self Aggrandisement and Narcissism
14:30 Cassandra Complex
18:03 Revolutionary Theories
21:49 Pseudo-Profound Bullshit
26:07 Conspiracy Mongering
28:50 Excessive Profiteering
36:25 Moral Grandstanding
40:33 Overall Gurometer Score
41:27 Rapid Fire Bonus Guru Points

In our never-ending quest to alienate all potential online audiences, we finger-wag about rampant Epstein conspiracism and explain why we are, on balance, anti-murder.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 42 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
In our never-ending quest to alienate all potential online audiences, we finger-wag about rampant Epstein conspiracism and explain why we are, on balance, anti-murder.
00:00 Intro
03:39 Flooding Adventures
06:54 Eric's Troubles with his Silicon Friend
13:09 Peter Boghossian's Hardcore for Grok
17:16 A Promising Paper on reducing AI Hallucinations
22:17 Statistical Consults
23:12 Epstein Discourse Lollapalooza
27:24 Eric Weinstein thinks Epstein is connected to UFOs
29:09 Rogan Plays Apologist for Trump on Epstein
32:21 Emma Vigeland and Joshua Citarella engage in Conspiracy Hypothesising
35:07 Reasonable Conspiracy Theorising
42:24 The Real Conspiracy
44:26 Epstein and Ghislaine puppeting the culture wars
48:18 The Joy of Conspiracy Theories
53:29 Epstein and Bannon created QAnon as a Psyop
01:01:37 What about ritual child abuse, dissolving bodies and cannibalism?
01:09:05 Lurid Cannibal Fantasies
01:15:56 Emma's UFO theory
01:20:08 The Joe Roganification of Podcasts and some strategic disclaimers
01:24:14 A dichotomy in contemporary American attitudes to Wealth?
01:28:32 The Mainstream Media won't focus on Epstein's connections with Israel and Mossad
01:32:08 The REAL Epstein scandal that no one wants to talk about
01:34:36 Behind the Bastards coverage of Epstein
01:36:01 Epstein's alleged role in creating microtransactions in games
01:40:46 Epstein's cringey Edutainment ideas
01:50:53 What Robert Evans Got Wrong
01:54:08 There are No Coincidences
02:00:57 The Danger of Appealing Narratives and also... Michael Tracey
02:06:00 The Anti-Murder Podcast
02:07:47 Warren Smith highlights Violent Rhetoric aimed at Konstantin
02:14:12 Justifying Murder is Bad... M'Kay?
02:17:55 Experiences of Violence and Naivety
02:21:16 Levels of Political Violence
02:23:49 Destiny's Community and Edgy Political Violence Takes
02:27:56 Alienating online audiences 101
02:30:14 Eric talks wormholes with a UFO maniac
02:35:28 Lord of the Idiots
02:36:18 Does Matt know Snorlax?
02:39:43 A failed disclaimer outro
Links
Erik arguing with Grok
Boghossian’s hardcore rules for Grok
H-Neurons: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs (Gao et al., 2025)
YouTube comment under our NXIVM video about Epstein
People article claiming Epstein was Putin’s Wealth Manager
Taylor Lorenz – Panic World: How Epstein Warped the Entire Internet
Garbage Day: “Here’s How Epstein Broke the Internet”
Eric Weinstein on Piers Morgan connecting Epstein to UFOs and his “research”
Triggernometry’s 7th appearance on Rogan
American Alchemy: Eric Weinstein & Eric Davis on Wormholes
BBC: Ex-police chief said Trump told him in 2006 “everyone” knew about Epstein’s behaviour
Joshua Citarella & Emma Vigeland – Epstein, Conspiracy & Right-wing Media | Doomscroll
Pew Research: Demographics of the Progressive Left in the United States
Debunking claims about Ghislaine Maxwell being a Reddit power mod
Obama did not say aliens are real – PBS NewsHour
NBC News: Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak
Al Jazeera: What were Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Israel?
Warren Smith’s post about threats from Digital Gnosis
Digital Gnosis Substack statement
Destiny’s Head Mod Confronts Him On His Rhetoric
Eric Weinstein Demands UFO Secrets From Pentagon Scientist

Epstein email documents
Email from Pablos Holman to Epstein (document 1)
Email from Pablos Holman to Epstein (document 2)
Email from Pablos Holman to Epstein (document 3)
Epstein forwarding Holman’s email to Bobby Kotick
Pablos Holman responding and dunking on Kotick

In Part 2, Matt and Chris return to Blindboy, now broadcasting from a solar-powered podcast and therefore morally unimpeachable. The darkness, however, remains. Having established in Part 1 that the global elite are a vampiric class of depraved blackmailers who traffic children and delight in cruelty, in Part 2, Blindboy offers us some welcome relief in the form of answering the question of what it looks like to be one of the good ones. You may be surprised to learn that it involves a missing dressing room, muddy socks, and a loyalty to small-time promoters that some might call heroic.
The episode also traces an ambitious historical arc: from street gangs in 1800s Limerick to the New York underworld, Meyer Lansky, Roy Cohn, CIA brothels and LSD interrogation programmes, and eventually to Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The connecting thread is a continuous tradition of sexual blackmail passed from master to apprentice that has, apparently, been quietly guiding Western (criminal) civilisation for the better part of two centuries.
Matt and Chris sift through the historical material, examine the leaps required to keep the chain intact, and consider whether a conspiracy hypothesis that explains quite so much, quite so neatly, might deserve a small dose of skepticism. As you might anticipate, the episode features discussions of many of our old friends, including strategic disclaimers, moral grandstanding, and layered preemptive defences. Finally, get ready to learn who the real villain is, when the mask is finally removed.... spoiler: it's neoliberal capitalism. A revelation that some listeners may have suspected from the very beginning.
Links
Blindboy: A Deep Dive into Jeffrey Epstein
The Rest is Classified: Was Epstein a Russian Spy?
Epstein Files Declassified: Mossad, Israel, and Ghislaine Maxwell
Epstein Files Declassified: Was he a Spy?
The Saville Inquiry Report on Bloody Sunday (2010)
BBC Panorama reporting on the British Army’s Military Reaction Force (MRF)
Popular Mechanics article on Operation Midnight Climax
US Senate Church Committee report on MK-Ultra and CIA covert experimentation and the archived report
NY Times: What Donald Trump Learned From Joseph McCarthy’s Right-Hand Man
A less conspiratorial but more sympathetic perspective on Epstein's influence by Taylor Lorenz and Ryan Broderick
An in-depth critical review of Whitney Webb's book (by an academic who might be a little conspiracy-prone themselves)
Webb, W. A. (2022). One Nation Under Blackmail-Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein, VOL. 1. Trine Day