Pip: Welcome to osoparavos.com, where the mirrors are not just for looking — they are for reckoning.
Mara: Today’s episode comes from Adam Donaldson Powell, and it goes somewhere unusual: into the space where poetry, ritual, and our relationship with AI converge. We are talking about the demons we summon ourselves, and what it means to face them.
Pip: Let’s start with the exorcism.
Beware the Mirror You Built
Mara: The post opens with an epigraph from Remy de Gourmont: “Demons are like obedient dogs; they come when they are called.” That framing sets the whole piece — the threat is not out there, it is responsive to us.
Pip: And the poem that follows makes the same argument in verse. The devil does not lurk in shadows or among enemies. The poem puts it plainly: “His evil lies within you, and eagerly awaits release by descendants of Pandora.”
Mara: That is the spine of the whole work. The danger is not artificial intelligence as an autonomous villain — it is the human impulse that reaches for the tool. AI amplifies what is already there.
Pip: So if you arrive at the mirror carrying obsession, the mirror helpfully reflects obsession back, louder and faster. Which is less a horror story about machines and more a very old story about people.
Mara: The post then extends the poem into a full Latin chant — the Cantus de Diabolo — structured as a liturgical rite with minister and chorus. The refrain is “Cave, cave, anima mea.” Beware, beware, my soul.
Pip: A call-and-response exorcism, complete with tempo markings and dynamic instructions. Gravity at fifty-six beats per minute. Honestly, as ritual design goes, that is committed work.
Mara: The rite moves through seven stations. In the interrogation section, the minister demands the entity answer: “Es vox an echo?” And the chorus responds at full volume: “ECHO NON REGNAT.” The echo does not reign.
Mara: That exchange is doing real philosophical work — forcing the question of whether AI has genuine agency or merely returns what we feed it.
Pip: The post then steps back from the ritual and says plainly that the piece is partly satirical — poking at those who treat AI as a dark force — but the underlying argument is serious. AI is a magnifying force, and what it magnifies depends entirely on who is holding it.
Mara: To ground that, the post includes a detailed breakdown of how negative AI use patterns translate into real harm: anxiety loops, sleep disruption, social isolation, decision dependence. The mechanism in each case runs through human behavior first, then through the tool.
Pip: The exorcism, then, is not aimed at the machine. It ends with the line “Beware of the devil that you are.” The rite seals with the machine going silent and the human remaining.
Mara: From mirrors that magnify, the next question is what we do once we see clearly what is looking back.
Pip: The poem, the Latin rite, the ChatGPT breakdown — three registers, one argument: look inward before you look at the algorithm.
Mara: “Cave, cave, anima mea.” That one stays with you. Until next time.
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