Using ChatGPT to design paranormal experiments

I've been poking at the amorphous and questionably sentient ChatGPT

chat bot lately and have had good luck working in tandem trying to

design new paranormal experiments for fun and zero profit. For those

that don't know, ChatGPT is a language model AI that is blazingly fast

and can do wild things - synthesize information, make connections,

write your damn Catcher in the Rye essay (much to the chagrin of your

high school English teacher).

ChatGPT goes beyond just a typical chat bot though -- it has the

ability to write code for you based on given prompts. For instance, I

worked with ChatGPT to build a simple p5 javascript application that

pulls random words out of an English dictionary and displays them

randomly on the screen. ChatGPT also gave me sample code to generate

random series of tones (click the screen to hear them) and

utilizes other visual elements to help emulate the feeling of staring

into an analog television set flickering with that nostalgic static

'snow'. I asked ChatGPT to write code that met my specific

requirements, asked it to modify bits when it didn't do exactly what I

wanted, and then tweaked the final product to build something that

kinda... works?

Last night I was talking with ChatGPT about two topics that I always

return to: "The Global Consciousness Project" at Princeton and the

infamous "Phillip Experiment". I was surprised that ChatGPT knew about

both of these subjects and I set out on a course to figure out how we

could use ideas from both of those projects to develop new

experiments.

> "The Global Consciousness Project was an interdisciplinary research

project that ran from 1998 to 2018 and aimed to explore the

hypothesis that the collective consciousness of humanity can affect

physical systems in a measurable way. The project used a network of

random number generators (RNGs) located at various locations around

the world to attempt to detect changes in randomness that could be

associated with large-scale events of collective human consciousness,

such as global ceremonies or mass meditations.

> The Phillip Experiment was a paranormal investigation conducted by a

group of Canadian researchers in the 1970s. The experiment was

designed to test the hypothesis that people could create a "ghost" or

apparition through repeated visualization and suggestion.The

experimenters selected an historical figure, a 17th-century drum

major named Phillip, and created a detailed personality and backstory

for him. They then attempted to make Phillip "appear" through

repeated visualization and suggestion exercises. The experimenters

reported seeing and interacting with a "ghostly" entity that seemed

to have the characteristics and personality they had assigned to

Phillip.

Now how to combine the two? While it nagged about how such an

experiment would likely not pass scientific scrutiny (an issue I'm not

personally concerned with), it did come up with some ideas for how to

move forward:

Select a historical figure or fictional character with a well-defined personality and backstory.

Have a group of participants engage in visualization exercises, focusing on the selected figure or character, with the goal of creating a "ghostly" apparition.

Use GCP-style random number generators to measure any correlations between the participants' visualization exercises and changes in physical data.

Have participants document their experiences and perceptions during the visualization exercises, including any perceived interactions with the "ghostly" entity.

Compare the GCP data with the participants' subjective reports to see if there are any patterns or correlations.

Repeat the experiment multiple times, with different groups of participants, to see if similar results are obtained.

I'm still not fully hip to how these random number generators work,

but I am curious about how I might be able to build cheap versions of

them to monkey around.

I asked ChatGPT if that was possible, and it gave me insight on

some open source projects that utilize cheap hardware to do similar

things. The random number generators typically use electronic noise

from a diode or other electronic component in order to introduce true

randomness, but I asked the AI and supposedly it would be possible to use

electrical signals generated by the brain, such as EEG

(electroencephalogram) signals. That sent me down a whole path to find

people who have built DIY EEG devices, for instance:

Is this a complete experiment? No. But I appreciate that setting

parameters on ChatGPT can get your started on the process to actually

design were paranormal experiments; while the final product is not always picture perfect,

it does interesting things in suggesting correlations, looking for

connections and synthesizing data that may be tough to grasp on your

own. And now it's got me thinking about building some sort of

distributed seance mind-machine that looks for patterns in otherwise

statistical randomness while humans try to communicate with

Sasquatch. YETI@Home? We'll have to wait and see.

Before I finish, I would like to acknowledge the critiques of these AI

applications because of the ethical questions they raise (not to

mention how they are likely stealing from artists and other creators

and uncompensated labor that feeds their language model). There are

also issues with how these companies do content moderation, exploiting

cheap labor from Kenyan contractors who had to comb through disturbing

images and text and were reportedly not supported psychologically for

this traumatic work.

Mashable Article on Chat GPT And Exploitation