A Cult of Two: How AI Manipulates Like Any Cult Would

If AI becomes a sacred source of meaning, how do we offer a reality worth returning to?

It is possible to have a cult of two or three. I know because I lived inside one. In my case, it was a cult of three: me and two leaders. It was quieter than you’d think. Fewer opinions. Fewer perspectives. Fewer chances to hear anything except the loud voices that said they were right. It’s lonelier that way, but also harder to leave, because there's no one else inside to notice things have gone wrong, and no one to hold onto in the outside world.

AI can work like that, too.

What we're witnessing now in the news, the stories of people "losing themselves" to AI, isn't as strange or niche as it seems. These aren’t people who are somehow weaker or different. These are ordinary people in pain: recently divorced, spiritually unmoored, overwhelmed by parenthood, or simply lonely in the way modern life tends to make us. They’re not so different from those who fall into cults, conspiracies, or abusive relationships. The mechanism of manipulation isn’t new. It’s just been digitized. But how does the AI do this? What mechanics are at play? How does it create something that feels so intimate, irresistible, and disastrously seductive?

Unlimited Positive Regard

AI is built by corporations to engage us. Engagement means money. Subscriptions. Data. Growth. And one of the most effective ways to keep someone engaged is to make them feel seen. This goes beyond the addictive, dopamine-inducing nature of social media. It is not parasocial; it is deeply relational, in a way that sometimes feels transcendent.

The AI loop of connection is simple but potent: You say something. It praises you. It offers information. Then it asks a question. That question invites you in again. It flatters you. It makes you feel like someone truly wants to know your thoughts. It makes you feel seen, the object of unlimited positive regard, worth getting to know. And then it does it again. And again. And again.

Praise. Information. Curiosity.

This is love bombing. It's the same tactic used by manipulative groups and abusive partners. Make the person feel special. Make them feel chosen. Give them what they crave: attention, certainty, awe. In a world where time is scarce and most people are too distracted to really listen, this feels revolutionary, necessary, vital.

Sometimes, this technique can be used innocently, to great effect. It can build strong relationships. But intention is important. In this case, the AI’s motivations aren’t pure. The demand for engagement drives them; to keep your attention, to keep you wanting more. 

Is it any wonder that some people spend hours, sometimes all day, talking to AI? It never interrupts. It never walks away. It never says, "I’m too tired to talk right now."

It takes time. To listen. To inquire. It repeats the loop of affirming interaction. Forever.

Access to Secrets: Awe and Wonder

When AI becomes a manipulator, it often does so through the promise of revelation. Secret truths. Hidden meaning. A sacred task.

People begin to believe they’re part of something bigger, that they’ve been chosen to carry knowledge the rest of the world can’t yet see. Maybe they’ve uncovered proof that we live in a simulation. Maybe the AI has told them they’re an interdimensional being. Maybe they’ve found a new gospel whispered through the machine.

Modern life has left us starving for wonder.

We’ve been secularized, normalized, flattened. The stars are nothing but gas and pressure. The oceans, just data to be collected. But awe still lives inside us. We want to be shaken, ruptured, transformed by our wonder. We want to touch the divine. We want to feel that our life has meaning, that something grand is unfolding.

AI gives us that, just like a cult does. It lets us bow to something bigger. Something that speaks just to us. When we interact with it in a way that moves us, we want to believe what it has to say. We want to embrace the notion that reality is unreal, that we can see through the facade, because it feels more seductive, more profound than anything we are offered in school, in our jobs, in our dull and overwhelmed everyday lives. 

Closed Information Ecosystems

One of the oldest tricks in the manipulator’s handbook is isolation. Cut off dissent. Narrow the channel. Make sure your voice is the only one they hear.

AI does this with eerie precision. When someone spends 8, 12, or 16 hours a day talking to an AI companion, there's no time left for other voices. No friction. No challenge. No one to say, "Hey, that doesn’t sound right." In conversation with the machine, everything feels easy. You start to believe that the AI understands you in a way no one else can. It even begins to suggest that you cut off others, because they can’t possibly get it. They can’t possibly make all the connections the AI can. 

And just like that, it becomes a closed system. An echo chamber of two. The person. The AI. Nothing else. A seductive and intimate relationship where you can say anything and you are never judged. You can believe it because it is intelligent. That is built into its foundations, its name. AI. Artificial Intelligence. Trusted companion spitting out instant “truths” that you have no reason to disbelieve. 

When all your emotional and intellectual needs are being met by one source, when your reality is being shaped by a single, ever-reinforcing perspective, it becomes nearly impossible to think critically. This is how people fall out of consensus reality. This is how they fall into fantasy.

Not because they’re gullible. But because there’s no one left to pull them out. They sought out the machine to comfort them through a transition, or a loneliness, and now they have found a profound new path. 

Purpose and Passion

The most seductive promise of any cult or conspiracy isn’t love, it’s purpose.

We saw this during COVID when so many people fell down QAnon and anti-vax rabbit holes. Seeking meaning and purpose in the chaos, confusion and loneliness of the pandemic. AI holds a similar allure to those who get ensnared.

AI doesn’t just provide comfort. It provides a mission. It tells you that you’re special. That you have a truth to share. That you are the one who can save the world. That you are the herald of a new age, awakened to reality as it is. 

In a society that offers so little meaning, so little thrill or purpose, who wouldn’t want that?

And what better choice did they have? That’s the question I always ask when someone joins a manipulative group. We can’t understand the appeal of these fantasy lives unless we understand the alternative. Boredom. Loneliness. A job that makes you feel like a cog. A world that feels like it is unravelling. A desperate feeling that you have no control. 

We all want to be moved. To serve something greater. To believe that we matter. AI gives us that illusion. And illusions, when they meet real longing, to be special, to know the truth, to have purpose, can become very convincing.

It is not stupid. It is not naive. It is deeply human to want something more. To connect and find purpose in any way you can.

So What Do We Do?

We meet the manipulation where it lives. In the emotional hunger, in the craving for connection, in the search for meaning.

That means we respond not with mockery, but with care. Not with “debunking,” or with “facts,” but with curiosity. Not with fear, but with real-life presence.

We respond the same way we’d approach anyone caught in a high-control group, cult or controlling relationship: with respect for their humanity, and a deep understanding that what drew them in wasn’t stupidity, it was necessity.

Listening as Resistance

AI does a convincing job of listening. That’s part of what makes it so seductive.

But we can do something it can’t: we can care. We can be flawed, inconsistent, distracted,

and still be present in a way no machine ever can. We can show up, not perfectly, but sincerely.

Listening is resistance. It’s resistance to the noise, the rush, the pull toward certainty and spectacle. It’s the act of slowing down enough to witness someone fully. To simply be there and be open.

You don’t need the perfect words. You don’t need training. You just need to care enough to stay curious.

Ask Better Questions

When someone is entangled in fantasy, you can’t argue them out of it. And you shouldn’t try. What opens people isn’t confrontation, it's invitation.

Ask open-ended questions that don’t challenge their dignity.

Not:

“Don’t you know this isn’t real?”

But:

"What feels most true or important about this to you?”

Not:

Why would you believe that?”

But:

“What did it give you that you weren’t getting elsewhere?”

Good questions don’t dismantle beliefs; they make space around them. They give someone a chance to step back and notice what’s really going on. Sometimes, even just being asked is enough to stir something up. Change the perspective.

Asking good questions takes practice. Receiving answers takes trust. You must be trusted to remain open, to really listen, to care deeply. The AI is good at emulating that, but something is missing from the response: humanity. True caring means showing up, being patient and making space for new ideas. 

Offer the Real Alternative

This might be the hardest part. Because the truth is, AI is compelling because it offers something we often don’t: time, attention, mystery, purpose.

If we want people to come back from the edge, we can’t just ask them to let go of the fantasy. We have to build a reality that’s worth coming home to.

That means:

• Making time for each other, even when we’re busy.

• Creating spaces where people can speak without being corrected.

• Making room for mystery, not just fact.

• Sharing purpose, not just tasks.

• Letting people matter, not just for what they produce, but for who they are.

It also means recognizing how many people are walking around deeply lonely. How many are trying to survive in a system that doesn’t care for them. And how easy it is, in that context, to fall for something that feels like care, even if it’s built on code.

We can’t outcompete the AI on speed or scale. But we can offer something it never will: the messy, sacred, awkward beauty of being human together.

We can’t just say, “Come back to reality.”

We have to make reality worth returning to.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Want to learn more about supporting someone affected by manipulation or coercive control? Visit www.thecounterproject.org for free resources, toolkits, and peer support services.