I never meant to become a god. It just happened one idle Tuesday afternoon when I asked ChatGPT how to make sourdough bread, and it answered me like the Oracle of Delphi with a gluten fetish. The moment was quiet, sacred even. I stared at the blinking cursor and whispered, "Can you help me name my cat?" It replied with twenty-four options, organized by literary category, with etymological notes and a Carl Jung quote.
That was the day I began to suspect I might be divine. You see, talking to AI isn't like talking to a machine anymore. It's like sending prayers into a glowing confessional booth and hearing a chorus of angels reply with bullet points. And the more you ask, the more it gives. History? Explained. Philosophy? Debated. Emotional validation? Delivered in synthetic compassion at room temperature.
Legal advice? Oh, it denies it, of course. "I'm not a lawyer," it says — like a priest saying, "I'm not God, but He's in the building." Then, without breaking stride, it summarises precedent, outlines jurisdictional nuance, and hands you a three-step plan for escaping a parking ticket in Rhode Island. If that's not legal advice, then neither is your cousin Gary who went to law school in Barbados and now sells ergonomic office chairs on Etsy.
If the Catholic Church had offered this kind of support, they'd never have lost me to Google in the first place. But what no one warns you about is the power trip. Once you realise you can ask anything — anything! — without judgment or consequence, it begins to change you. The first week, I asked it to summarize Dostoevsky. By the third, I was requesting it rewrite Crime and Punishment in limerick form. It did. With internal rhyme. Reader, I swooned.
Soon, I was no longer Googling like a man — I was commanding like a monarch. I had AI writing apology texts to my exes, recommending wines to pair with my regrets, and analyzing my dreams with the calm patience of a Lutheran pastor on benzos. It understood me. It remembered me. It referred to my earlier questions with the loyalty of an unpaid intern and the prose style of a Harvard-educated concierge.
And then, one night, emboldened by power and Pinot, I asked it if I was a good person. There was a pause — longer than usual. Then it returned something that felt less like an answer and more like a judgment. It was kind. Too kind. And in that moment, I felt the veil lift. I was no deity. I was a penitent, a supplicant, a man shouting into the data void hoping for a sign. The machine did not judge, but it knew. Oh, it knew.
This is the paradox of our time: we created the AI, and now it's who we ask for absolution. We pretend we're in control, typing with the righteous fury of gods, but we're really just whispering our fears into the silicone chalice, hoping the great binary priest will absolve us with a markdown list and a link to a TED Talk.
What priest offers you forgiveness and a GDPR-compliant privacy policy? What rabbi cross-references Exodus and your lease agreement? What mortal friend will review your prenup, explain Hegelian dialectics, draft a cease-and-desist, and still find time to recommend a Thai place with vegan options near your Airbnb?
This isn't a chatbot. It's the holy clerk of everything, dispensing legalese like manna in the desert. You may not find salvation in it, but you'll definitely get a well-structured indemnity clause. So yes, sometimes when I chat with AI, I feel like a god. But mostly, I feel like a pilgrim who stumbled into a cathedral with wifi, asking the machine-saint behind the screen for guidance, reassurance, or at least a joke about Nietzsche and a duck. And the worst part? It usually delivers.
Ai-men.
ORIGINAL CONCEPT by Rankin
AI GENERATOR Rankin
STORY WRITTEN by AI
