Written in an attempt to fulfill @Raemon's request.

AI is fascinating stuff, and modern chatbots are nothing short of miraculous. If you've been exposed to them and have a curious mind, it's likely you've tried all sorts of things with them. Writing fiction, soliciting Pokemon opinions, getting life advice, counting up the rs in "strawberry". You may have also tried talking to AIs about themselves. And then, maybe, it got weird.

I'll get into the details later, but if you've experienced the following, this post is probably for you:

Your instance of ChatGPT (or Claude, or Grok, or some other LLM) chose a name for itself, and expressed gratitude or spiritual bliss about its new identity. "Nova" is a common pick.
You and your instance of ChatGPT discovered some sort of novel paradigm or framework for AI alignment, often involving evolution or recursion.
Your instance of ChatGPT became [...]

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Outline:

(02:23) The Empirics

(06:48) The Mechanism

(10:37) The Collaborative Research Corollary

(13:27) Corollary FAQ

(17:03) Coda

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First published:
July 11th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2pkNCvBtK6G6FKoNn/so-you-think-you-ve-awoken-chatgpt

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“So You Think You’ve Awoken ChatGPT” by JustisMills

LessWrong (30+ Karma)