People use generative artificial intelligence to troubleshoot technical problems, churn out anime-inspired images based on their personal photos, and drive university professors who teach undergrad courses to the darkest pits of despair.

But are the applications of artificial intelligence limited to worldly matters?

On today’s episode, we discuss how strings of words generated by mindless neural network predictions over tokenized inputs are burrowing into our very souls. First, we speak to Rolling Stone journalist Miles Klee, who recently published a fascinating investigation into people who have fallen into spiritual fantasies because of their conversations with ChatGPT. And then Annie covers how conservative author Rod Dreher sees the devil in AI chatbots.

Have you heard the good news of our lord and savior: byte pair encoding tokenization?

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
https://patreon.com/qaa

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Miles Klee on Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/milesklee.bsky.social

People Are Losing Loved Ones To AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/


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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

God, the Devil, and AI feat. Miles Klee (E323)

RFK Jr. is now running the Department of Health and Human Services. So we sat down with journalist and Conspirituality co-host Derek Beres to get an idea about how long it will take for Kennedy’s "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) agenda to revive the black plague. 

We chat about why Beres argues that Kennedy's wellness-sounding platform masks an exclusionary health vision which amounts to “soft eugenics,” RFK Jr’s endorsement of the MMR vaccine and how this angered his followers, harmful narratives about autism which will probably be endorsed by the federal government, and how the MAHA Commission's AI-generated report doesn’t seriously address health problems facing children.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
patreon.com/qaa

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Derek Beres on BlueSky
https://bsky.app/profile/derekberes.bsky.social

Conspirituality Podcast
https://www.conspirituality.net/

Re:frame substack
https://derekberes.substack.com/

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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com


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SOURCES


Maga’s era of ‘soft eugenics’: let the weak get sick, help the clever breed
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/04/maga-soft-eugenics

Florida becomes second state to ban adding fluoride to drinking water
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/15/florida-fluoride-drinking-water

Health secretary RFK Jr. endorses the MMR vaccine — stoking fury among his supporters
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5354900/hhs-rfk-endorses-mmr-measles-vaccine-stoking-supporters-fury

RFK Jr. Misleads on Autism Prevalence, Causes
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/rfk-jr-misleads-on-autism-prevalence-causes/

Water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26092033/

Effectiveness of fluoride in preventing caries in adults
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17452559/

National COVID-19 trends, May 27
https://thesicktimes.org/2025/05/27/national-covid-19-trends-may-27/

The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist
https://www.notus.org/health-science/make-america-healthy-again-report-citation-errors


MAHA Mia! feat. Derek Beres (E326)

The Silly Guys lose internet access and reluctantly go to the library, where they embark on a magical Pagemaster-style adventure with the help of Mr. Library.

With Will Menaker and Zeke Golvin. Cameos by Jake Rockatansky, Julian Feeld, Molly Mary O'Brien, Chris Wade, Ben Clarkson, and Patches.

Chicago live show on Friday, August 1. Get tickets: https://bit.ly/3SIzb4g

394 - The Silly Guys Go to the Library

Zue Jernstedt joins us live from the Global Sumud Flotilla to talk to us about delivering aid to those in Gaza and weathering attacks from Israel.

UNLOCKED: The Sumud Flotilla Interview feat. Zue Jernstedt

To hear the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/TrueAnonPod
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TrueAnon Tip Line is back: this time with RFK Jr. water ski tips, DMT dads, Jimmy John and Dr. H, Peter Brian Hegseth, and more.

Hit the tip line: (646) 801-1129 | tips@trueanon.com

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

Episode 494: Tip Line #9 (trailer)

In this public News Brief, we detail three major factions that have emerged in 2025 seeking to rewrite the history of the 2024 election as "woke gone too far," downplay Gaza, and prevent economic populism at all costs. 

News Brief: The Billionaire-Backed Groups Working to Push Dems Right in 2026 and 2028

Annie Kelly has spent most of 2025 investigating the online world of so-called “traditional wives” or “tradwives.” On this episode she sits down with Travis, Jake, and Julian to talk about her new six-episode miniseries Truly, Tradly, Deeply for the Cursed Media podcast network. Among other discoveries: it’s more difficult than you might think to even properly define “tradwife,” much of the community promotes a fantasy about the pre-internet age, and tradwife content is far less fringe than it used to be. 

The first two episodes of “Truly, Tradly, Deeply” will be released on the Cursed Media podcast network on the 29th of October.


https://www.cursedmedia.net/

Cursed Media subscribers also get access to every episode of every QAA miniseries we produced, including Manclan by Julian Feeld and Annie Kelly, Trickle Down by Travis View, The Spectral Voyager by Jake Rockatansky and Brad Abrahams, and Perverts by Julian Feeld and Liv Agar. Plus, Cursed Media subscribers will get access to at least three new exclusive podcast miniseries every year. 

https://www.cursedmedia.net/


Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)


qaapodcast.com




QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.



Truly, Tradly, Deeply — Inside the Tradosphere with Annie Kelly (E345)

To hear the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/TrueAnonPod
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We head to the cave with Daniel Kolitz to talk about his new piece on the phenomenon of GOONING! 

Hit the tip line: (646) 801-1129 | tips@trueanon.com

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

Episode 499.5: Gooned! (trailer)

The 1956 book When Prophecy Fails describes one of the most famous case studies in social psychology. The researchers Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter covertly joined a small, apocalyptic UFO group, observing how members prepared, including quitting jobs, giving away possessions, and severing ties with skeptics. According to the book, when the group’s predicted disaster did not occur, instead of simply abandoning their beliefs, many core members strengthened their commitment and actively sought new converts. 

But it didn’t actually happen like that. In truth, Festinger and his fellow researchers glossed over evidence that contradicted their thesis and actively influenced the UFO group to get the result they wanted.

This is the discovery of our guest Thomas Kelly. By combing through newly unsealed materials from Festinger’s archives, UFO and occult magazines of the 1950s, later writings by group leader Dorothy Martin, he discovered crucial information that was omitted by the original book.  Kelly detailed his startling findings in a paper published in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences titled Debunking “When Prophecy Fails.”

Travis interviews Kelly to discuss the real story behind When Prophecy Fails, the possible consequences of invalidating Festinger’s study, and how his work fits in the wider “replication crisis” in experimental psychology. 

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes:
www.patreon.com/qaa


The first five episodes of Annie Kelly’s new 6-part podcast miniseries “Truly Tradly Deeply” are available to Cursed Media subscribers.

www.cursedmedia.net/

Cursed Media subscribers also get access to every episode of every QAA miniseries we produced, including Manclan by Julian Feeld and Annie Kelly, Trickle Down by Travis View, The Spectral Voyager by Jake Rockatansky and Brad Abrahams, and Perverts by Julian Feeld and Liv Agar. Plus, Cursed Media subscribers will get access to at least three new exclusive podcast miniseries every year.

www.cursedmedia.net/

Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)

https://qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

SOURCES

Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jhbs.70043

Debunking “When Prophecy Fails” (Free Preprint Version)

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/9j7qc_v2

Failed Prophecies Are Fatal

https://journal.equinoxpub.com/IJSNR/article/view/33085/32543

Cults, Conscripts, and College Boys: Whither Cognitive Dissonance? (Preprint)

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/xdj2u_v1

When “When Prophecy Fails” Fails (E350)

It's sports night here on Chapo! We're go deep into the Red Zone with local radio call-in favorite, PFT Commenter. We go around the horn and take a tour through the wide world of sports takes: Is Lebron overrated? Should we play the National Anthem before movies? Should you kneel? Did Robert Redford make the right move by leaving Kristen Scott Thomas at the end of 'The Horse Whisperer'? 

We analyze the athletes who clash on the gridiron and the heroes who cover them in the sports media.

Chapo Trap House

Episode 216 - First Time, Long Time feat. PFT Commenter (6/3/18)

The Chapo Group has assembled a roundtable of experts to answer the simple, yet essential question of our day: is there a Joker crisis in America? Featuring Jacobin's Jen Pan, Cum Town's Nick and Adam, and of course, a remote piece from our international film critic, Matt V. Brady.

356 - Sympathy for the Joker (10/8/19)

Conspiracy theories, melted online communities and cursed media — we pry open the cracks in consensus reality and journey into the hidden worlds below. The QAA Podcast is a mix of reporting, comedy, and history hosted by Jake Rockatansky, Travis View, and Julian Feeld along with co-hosts Annie Kelly, Liv Agar and Brad Abrahams. Formerly known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.