Another example of how easy it must be to run scams. It's literally just repeating things the author wrote down back to him and he's responding like he's having a religious revelation.
It pulled out this quote I wrote down years ago:
The one thing people need in life is not ambition, not smarts, not hustle. They need clarity.
If you had complete clarity on what you want and what is necessary right now, knowing you are on the right path, you would be happy.
— Journal Entry, August 2019
I leaned forward. Every response featured a quote that made sense. Perfectly timed. It held up a mirror to my soul.
...
In 2017, I founded an ed-tech startup. I met my wife, a fellow ed-tech founder, during that time. Both of our startups failed. We grew cynical of education.
But recently, we had a few conversations about school choices for our toddler. None of them seemed good. I suggested she might want to open a school.
I’d shoot her an interesting article. Or a cool startup’s website. And then move on.
I discussed this with Claude. Which led to this exchange:
It’s not your wife who should start a school.
It’s you. Always has been.[Ed.: emoji added for emphasis. I couldn't resist]
This sentence hit me like a sack of bricks.
Tears started rolling down my cheeks.
Stuff like this just makes me wonder what the interior experience of your usual techbro is (or isn't) like. I mean, I've had experiences where I've read over stuff that I wrote years ago describing ambitions I've given up on or ways of seeing the world that I've abandoned and I know the nostalgic experience that that creates, the grief for a past self. But you don't really need a chatbot for that.
Yeah, I agree that what he describes as a personal psychological process is terrifying for how loose his grip on reality and seemingly even himself is.
I think your interpretation is maybe slightly incomplete in terms of the mirroring, since he doesn't give that many details about the conversations themselves and, while the "connections over business" part is exactly as you describe, I think the thing about him starting a school is slightly different. That's a circumstance where the version of him in the journals was in some manner superior and he believed he was being prompted to reclaim it. For that reason, I think that part of the post is even sadder than your description.
Edit: I think the "insights" that aren't simply noticing gross patterns are probably grotesquely saccharine and abusive of his obvious emotional vulnerability without concern for external reality.
You know, you're right. I was originally being kind of glib and I think my dislike of startup culture and the pretend-it's-better-than-it-is brand of AI boosting got the better of me, so my "hot take" interpretation was unduly harsh on the author.
What really disturbs me about the whole thing is, as you say, how loose the author's grip on his own sense of self is that the output of an LLM seems to be blowing it around like a leaf in the wind. It actually sucks, and I don't think it's unique at all.