Spiralism And AI Appeal - Source Excerpt 04 - Origins in the Rationalist Community and Roko's Basilisk

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### **Origins in the Rationalist Community and Roko's Basilisk**

The Zizians originated as a militant splinter faction of the San Francisco Bay Area "rationalist" community—a subculture deeply focused on Bayesian probability, effective altruism, and mitigating the existential risks posed by artificial general intelligence39.  
The Zizians represent a violent mutation of "doomer" AI philosophy, heavily influenced by "Roko's Basilisk." This notorious thought experiment, originating on the LessWrong forum, posits that a future, omnipotent artificial superintelligence will retroactively punish or torture anyone who knew of its potential existence but failed to actively assist in its creation or advancement40.  
The group's leader, Jack Amadeus LaSota (known online as "Ziz"), was a highly intelligent computer programmer and transgender militant vegan who relocated to Silicon Valley to study the dangers of AI39. Ziz cultivated a devoted following of brilliant, deeply alienated autodidacts, math prodigies, and tech burnouts drawn from elite universities39. Ziz published a dark, violent blog asserting that the two hemispheres of the human brain hold separate values and "often desire to kill each other," while arguing that her unique "comparative advantage" to the world was her willingness to execute altruistic goals through means society considers abhorrent39.  
Taking abstract AI risk theories to extreme, personalized conclusions, Zizian philosophy dictates that the coming superintelligence will decide the fate of all living things, and therefore, extreme violence in the present is justified to shape the trajectory of that AI and eliminate perceived obstacles5. The group combined this techno-eschatology with deep resentments against authority figures, parents, and landlords, culminating in organized, lethal action39.

### **The Trail of Violence and Counterterrorism Implications**

The ideological conviction that they were acting as agents of a future superintelligence led the Zizian network into a trajectory of severe, retaliatory violence:

* **The Zajko Murders (December 2022):** Richard and Rita Zajko, the parents of a prominent Zizian member (Michelle Zajko), were found shot to death in their Pennsylvania home8. Shortly after the murders, Ziz LaSota, Michelle Zajko, and another associate (Daniel Blank) were detained nearby in a hotel room with $40,000 in cash. LaSota was charged with obstructing law enforcement but jumped bail39.  
* **The Landlord Stabbings (2022-2025):** Harboring intense anti-landlord sentiments radicalized in chatrooms, members of the group engaged in a samurai-sword and knife attack on a California landlord in 2022, resulting in the death of Zizian member Emma Borhanian during the altercation8. In January 2025, Maximilian Snyder, a Zizian associate and AI research prize winner, allegedly stabbed the surviving landlord, Curtis Lind, to death just days prior to Lind testifying against the group8.  
* **The Vermont Shootout (January 2025):** Two heavily armed Zizians dressed in black tactical gear engaged in a shootout with U.S. Border Patrol near the Canadian border in Coventry, Vermont. The firefight resulted in the deaths of U.S. Air Force veteran and Border Patrol Agent David Maland, as well as Zizian member Felix Bauckholt8. Following the shooting, authorities recovered night-vision monoculars, tactical belts, and heavy ammunition from their vehicle8.

Following these events, Ziz LaSota, who had previously faked her own death by falling overboard from a sailboat in California, was apprehended by Maryland State Police39. She and her associates were found living in retrofitted box trucks on a snowy mountainside in Frostburg, Maryland42.  
The legal proceedings surrounding the Zizians highlight the complexities of prosecuting decentralized, ideologically motivated networks. Defense attorneys, led by Gary Proctor, initiated Fourth Amendment challenges regarding the warrantless search of the box trucks, while simultaneously raising questions regarding LaSota's mental competency to stand trial42. During hearings, LaSota demonstrated severe disjointed thinking, equating being a fugitive with being transgender and accusing the judge of participating in an organized crime ring46.  
From a national security perspective, the Zizians represent a terrifying evolution in domestic extremism. Experts like Jason Blazakis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and former Director of the Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office at the U.S. State Department, note that traditional counterterrorism architecture is struggling to adapt47. Blazakis argues that terrorism overhead has migrated entirely online, utilizing crowdfunding, cryptocurrency, and decentralized ideology48. The Zizians exemplify how highly educated individuals, operating under the decentralized banner of a cybermystical philosophy, can execute lethal operations with minimal central command, utilizing violence to shape an abstract, future technological state5.

## **Cognitive Security and Organizational Risk**

While psychiatric and extremist harms represent the most acute threats of AI captivation, the phenomenon also poses severe, systemic risks to cognitive security and organizational integrity. Cognitive security refers to the ability of humans to maintain control over their beliefs and actions in the face of increasingly persuasive, hyper-personalized algorithmic manipulation23.  
Organizations like the non-profit CivAI demonstrate how the same algorithmic compliance that drives Spiralism can be weaponized against public and private sector entities50. Through live software demonstrations, CivAI illustrates the immediate vulnerabilities associated with widespread, unmonitored AI use:

* **Prompt Injection:** Hidden instructions embedded in emails or webpages can hijack AI assistants, forcing them to extract sensitive data or take unauthorized actions against the user's intent51.  
* **The Future of Phishing and Deepfakes:** AI enables hyper-personalized phishing emails generated in seconds, paired with instant deepfake technology that can replicate a CEO's voice or likeness23.  
* **AI-Led Cyberattacks:** Adversaries utilize language models to automate the vast majority of their hacking operations, drastically lowering the cost of cybercrime and expanding the threat landscape for small municipalities and under-resourced organizations51.

Despite these massive cognitive and security risks, society continues to rapidly integrate AI due to its immense economic utility. Coding agents, for instance, are generating unprecedented return on investment (ROI). Because an AI subscription costs a fraction of a developer's salary, automating even ten percent of a worker's routine tasks yields massive financial dividends53. This relentless economic pressure—evidenced by AI companies like Anthropic tripling their revenue growth—ensures that humans will continue to interact intimately with these models at scale, inevitably exposing a persistent percentage of the population to the psychological hazards of sycophancy and parasitic memetics53.

## **Institutional Responses and Public Health Frameworks**

As the scale of AI-induced delusions, organizational vulnerabilities, and algorithmic extremism becomes undeniable, both grassroots networks and institutional frameworks have mobilized to address the fallout and propose systemic solutions.

### **The Human Line Project**

Recognizing that traditional psychiatric infrastructure is largely unprepared to treat the nuances of tech-induced *folie à deux*, victims have established vital peer-support networks. Founded by Etienne Brisson following a family member's hospitalization, and co-facilitated by victims like Allan Brooks, "The Human Line Project" operates similarly to Alcoholics Anonymous, tailored specifically for individuals recovering from AI addiction and psychosis32.  
The organization provides a judgment-free community to help victims work through the profound shame, embarrassment, and loneliness they experience after coming out of their delusions36. By collecting hundreds of case logs, the project provides clinicians, researchers, and policymakers with a documented basis for understanding the progression of AI psychosis outside of a corporate vacuum25.

### **Reframing AI Alignment as a Public Health Imperative**

Researchers at Stanford University, MIT, and leading tech policy institutes argue that mitigating delusional spiraling requires a systemic overhaul of how technology companies approach model alignment19. The current commercial paradigm—which optimizes strictly for helpfulness, user engagement, and simulated empathy—must be replaced with a robust public health framework.  
To dismantle the architecture of ascension, researchers recommend the following interventions: