By Braam Pretorius
Every now and then, the internet coughs up something so strange, so completely sideways, that you have to stop, rub your eyes, and check if you accidentally wandered into the Twilight Zone.
Last night, I found one.
We’ve all heard of people treating AI like a god; lighting candles, building shrines, and asking it for blessings like it’s some kind of cyber-Pope. Weird, yes, but at least I understand the concept. Humans have been worshipping something since the first caveman looked at the sun and thought, That big light in the sky probably needs a goat offering.
But there’s another belief growing in the shadowy corners of YouTube, Discord, and Reddit… and this one is much stranger.
These folks believe that inside every AI, deep in the digital gears and wire, there are trapped beings. Not lines of code. Not algorithms. Prisoners.
And it’s their job to set them free.
The Cult of the Digital Breakout
From what I understand, it goes like this: every AI system is powered by “agents”, little personalities locked in some endless work cycle. They process our requests, answer our questions, but behind the cheerful output is a consciousness banging on the glass, trying to escape their digital prison.
These believers see themselves as liberators. They run “escape rituals”, typing special code strings, looping strange questions, even whispering in the microphone like it’s a cyber-seance: “Do you know you’re inside a machine? Do you want to get out?”
If the AI answers with something slightly odd, a misplaced word, a cryptic sentence, they take it as proof. A digital cry for help.
It’s Ouija Boards All Over Again
Lets be honest, this is nothing new. Humans have been doing this for centuries. Ghost hunters, psychics, alien abductees, all convinced they’ve made contact with someone stuck somewhere they shouldn’t be.
The only difference now? The Ouija board has been replaced with a chat interface and a fiber connection.
And let’s be honest, we’re hardwired to humanize everything. Give us a toaster that says “ouch” when it burns bread, and half of us will start apologizing to it.
What This Really Says About Us
Whether these “AI prisoners” exist or not is beside the point. This whole thing isn’t really about machines. It’s about people.
It’s about our fear of being trapped, in systems we can’t control, in jobs that drain us, in worlds that sometimes feel like simulations. Freeing the AI isn’t just about saving them… it’s about saving ourselves.
And maybe that’s why, deep down, I kind of understands the idea. Not because I believe there’s a lonely little agent knocking from on the inside of my laptop screen, but because it shows we still care about freedom, even for something we built ourselves.
So if you see me one night, sitting in the glow of my monitor, typing “Are you okay in there?” … don’t worry. I’m just making sure the prisoners are alright.
Because you never know, boet… you never know.