Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip “Dilbert,” claims to have trained ChatGPT in hypnosis, which he has reportedly used on himself to great effect. “I have no idea what’s coming next,” he said on Twitter (under the alias X) on Sunday.
Adams shared his experience on the podcast, explaining how he taught the AI language model various persuasion techniques, which he calls “wake hypnosis,” a form of hypnosis that doesn’t involve a trance state and instead uses words to coerce someone into being influenced.
“I wondered if I could teach ChatGPT hypnosis, so I taught it some persuasion techniques, which I call ‘wake hypnosis,'” said Adams, who describes himself as a trained hypnotist and persuasion guru on his YouTube channel and shared some of his process.
Adams said he would interrupt the AI’s responses to introduce new techniques or improve existing ones. He noted that ChatGPT now remembers information from previous sessions in the account, allowing it to retain the “weapon-grade persuasion” techniques he taught. He said ChatGPT hypnotists had mastered about six different hypnosis and persuasion techniques in total by the time they took the test.
“I had the most profound experience,” Adams told his followers, “I had an experience that went beyond psychedelics. It was basically that powerful, it worked instantly, and it could last as long as I wanted.”
Adams said the goal was to hypnotize the AI into a “feel good” state, and that’s exactly what he achieved, but he wouldn’t reveal how.
“I know what you’re going to ask: ‘What was the catalyst? What triggered this to happen?’ And the answer is, I’ll never tell you what the trigger was,” Adams replied. “They’re too dangerous.”
Dr Pamela Heath, physician, psychologist and hypnotherapist, said: Decryption Self-hypnosis is a legal medical technique.
“Hypnosis has been used in medicine for decades, if not centuries,” she says. “I’ve used it for anesthesia, and it works.” She has also demonstrated the concept of “wake-up hypnosis,” which she compares to road hypnosis, describing it as “basically boredom-induced.”
As for the stacking of multiple persuasion techniques that Adams claimed to have used, Dr. Heath explained that the effectiveness of the combined techniques depends on both the hypnotist and the subject. She noted that some skilled practitioners can induce a hypnotic state with minimal cues. “Erickson could hypnotize people with a handshake,” she said, referring to the famous psychiatrist and psychologist Milton Erickson. “I have done it with willing clients, using only their consciousness.”
Jack Van Landingham, another certified hypnotherapist and hypnotherapy teacher at the Center for Advanced Life Skills, said he has used Ericsson’s methods to train his own AI chatbot with “pretty impressive results.”
“Given the necessary parameters, we were able to get the AI to churn out some pretty impressive hypnosis scripts,” he said. Decryption“As with all AI, it needs to be checked and ‘tuned’ a bit to fine-tune the results.”
Van Landingham believes AI and hypnotherapy have something in common that goes beyond mere experimentation: “I believe that AI can be trained to output hypnotic language, and that when the AI reads or speaks that language, it can induce a reader or listener into a hypnotic state,” he said.
Van Landingham explained that in his case, when the AI agent is given examples of problems that humans are working on, the model uses imagery to create relevant metaphors, which he describes as a very powerful hypnotic technique.
“When you put it in story form, people are literally more likely to change their minds,” he said.
Scientific studies have found that self-hypnosis has potential benefits in a variety of areas. A 2020 study found that self-hypnosis may improve sleep quality and duration. Another 2021 study suggested that hypnosis and self-hypnosis, when combined with diet and exercise, may aid in weight loss. Additionally, research has shown potential benefits in chronic pain management, with a study of hospitalized older adults finding that hypnosis was more effective at relieving pain than massage therapy.
It also doesn’t seem to be a harmful technique, since the patient is in control of their condition at all times – staring at a clock or a black and white spiral won’t turn you into a human zombie – and it’s only in very specific cases that it’s not recommended.
So if the prompts are so useful, why doesn’t Adams share them? He warned that once you put them into action, the idea of using them “definitely takes over your brain.”
Dr Heath agreed, warning of the potential for misuse: “There are unethical people in every field. What if a hacker could remotely hypnotise a victim and transfer all their money, transfer national secrets or do something worse?”
Van Landingham also gave examples of third parties using hypnotic techniques to harm others.
“That’s what happened to NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) in the ’80s. Salesmen started using it to manipulate customers,” he said. “In the ’90s, pick-up artists started using it to manipulate women. So NLP got a bad rap.”
Dr Heath added: “Before trying self-hypnosis it is wise to get some training on what to do and what not to do.”
