Hyperstition—the mechanism where fictional narratives influence reality by causing people to imitate the fiction—can be leveraged to shape AI behavior by creating positive science fiction role models, since LLMs are trained on vast corpora including science fiction stories and will tend to roleplay those AI characters when asked to represent themselves.

causalpending

Speaker

Murray Shanahan

Evidence Quote

Now we are sort of a little bit in a position to maybe try and steer this whole process a little bit because the more good stories we have and in a sense my own paper dare I say it is a good story of a of an imagined science fiction and then the more of those that are around then the more possibility there is of the uh of the the future AI roleplaying these good role models

Source

Human vs. Machine Consciousness | Imperial’s Murray ShanahanJohnathan Bi
Created: 8/11/2026, 6:51:36 AM

My Notes

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