A thought I had while out shopping on the AI cult/"true believers": They don't necessarily believe in their own narrative that chatbots are intelligent or progressing towards intelligence. What they fundamentally believe in is The Singularity. What they think they need is to rob humanity's resources long enough for their chatbots to *get lucky* and vomit out something that's capable of the "recursive self-improvement" they believe is possible. Saying they believe we're on the right path is just a justification for hoarding the resources. Much like religious fanatics throughout history, they want us to believe ridiculous things about their god for the sake of organizing social and economic structures that will make their god's power real.