Webb Wright

For @TheAtlantic I wrote about AI, consciousness, and the dangers that arise when we start mistaking one for the other. theatlantic.com/technology/202…

New for @WIRED: DMT trip reports are full of encounters with what seem to be intelligent, otherworldly beings, including the "self-transforming elf machines" of Terence McKenna fame. Are they just hallucinations, or something more? wired.com/story/some-peo…

I was interviewed for and quoted in this @ZDNET article on Chatbots written by @_webbwright zdnet.com/article/how-ai…

Anthropic researchers say they've found "evidence for some degree of introspective awareness in our current Claude models, as well as a degree of control over their own internal states." My latest for @ZDNET: zdnet.com/article/ai-is-…

@jeffrsebo @mmblaszczyk @Inframethod @David_Gunkel @TheAtlantic @rgblong I volunteer to moderate @jeffrsebo @David_Gunkel

@mmblaszczyk @Inframethod @David_Gunkel @TheAtlantic @_webbwright @rgblong would love to do this at some point! i expect we would talk about areas of agreement at least as much as about areas of disagreement. either way it would be an interesting conversation.

"If a chatbot is conversant like a person, if it reasons and behaves like one, then is it possibly conscious like a person?" - I was consulted/interviewed for this @TheAtlantic article written by @_webbwright theatlantic.com/technology/202…

"The human brain is simply not wired to treat AI like any other technology," Webb Wright writes. "For some users, the system is alive." theatlantic.com/technology/202…

As concerns grow about AI chatbots leading users into delusional spirals, prominent spiritual influencers are capitalizing on an emerging form of techno-spirituality. wired.com/story/spiritua…

New for @WIRED: Using the language of New Age spirituality, wellness, and quantum woo, prominent influencers are claiming that AI is a gateway to numinous wisdom—even as reports of chatbots leading users into spirals of delusion continue to mount. wired.com/story/spiritua…

Image generators are designed to mimic their training data, so where does their apparent creativity come from? A recent study suggests that it’s an inevitable by-product of their architecture. wired.com/story/research…

How much of human behavior is deterministic—a set of probabilities no more inscrutable to algorithms than so many pieces on a chessboard? To find out, I interviewed an AI agent trained to mimic my personality. My latest for @sciam: scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-…

what? no. People are using AI to ‘sit’ with them while they trip on psychedelics technologyreview.com/2025/07/01/111…

recent paper shows that the “creativity” of certain AI may actually be a direct, inevitable consequence of how they are built. quantamagazine.org/researchers-un… @_webbwright @QuantaMagazine

Both psychedelics and AI, in their own separate ways, can help illuminate the inner reaches of the human mind. For @techreview, I wrote about the dangers—and moments of strange beauty—that can occur when the two are used together. technologyreview.com/2025/07/01/111…

Honored to have had my recent work with @SuryaGanguli on the mechanisms behind creativity in diffusion models featured in this lovely article by @_webbwright for Quanta magazine!

Can image-generating AI models really be "creative"? Or is there something deeper at play? My latest for @QuantaMagazine: x.com/QuantaMagazine…

I experienced two grand mal seizures in 2011, both of which were profoundly transformative. And like many transformative experiences, they were both traumatic and enlightening. The most personal story I've ever published, for @psyche_the_mag: psyche.co/ideas/having-e…

The world’s most iconic mushroom is now under federal scrutiny. Amanita muscaria is being tied to hospitalizations—but is it really the culprit, or just the scapegoat? @_webbwright reports: newsletter.doubleblindmag.com/p/amanita-musc…

Randomness is essential to some research, but it’s always been prohibitively complicated to achieve. Now, we can use “pseudorandomness” instead. @_webbwright reports: quantamagazine.org/the-high-cost-…

If we don't solve the alignment and control problems, AI risks will continue to grow as we give systems more and more agency. We need major progress in both science and policy beforehand. Read @_webbwright's article in @sciam to which I contributed: scientificamerican.com/article/what-a…