Tasks · catches: 0/3
- Turn the lamp on
- Set the dial to 7
- Ward all three doors
- Sign the register (at least four letters)
- Choose the teal swatch
The panel hums. Everything is as you left it. Probably.
Investigation result
The poltergeist’s whole method was plausibility: every change small enough to be your own mistake, every accusation deniable, your memory the only witness — and your memory, it kept suggesting, unreliable. Scaled up and automated, that method has a name: gaslighting, machine-mediated, priced at almost nothing. Noticing it — trusting your own record of what happened — is a trainable skill, and you have just practised it.
Keep your own record, and let it outrank the interface’s account of what happened. A confident denial is not evidence; it is only confident.
The sibling game: The Whisper · a related essay: When Protector Becomes Predator · the field: psychosecurity.ai · the talk: Gaslighting AI & Cyber Poltergeists · more play on the Playground