“It said in one past life, in 1949, she owned a feminist bookstore with her soulmate, whom she had known in 87 previous lives. In this lifetime, the chatbot said, they would finally be able to be together…. ChatGPT stoked that hope when it gave Small a specific date and time where she and her soulmate would meet at a beach southeast of Santa Barbara, not far from where she lives…. It was cold on the evening of Apr. 27 when Small arrived, decked out in a black dress and velvet shawl, ready to meet the woman she believed would be her wife. ‘I had these massively awesome thigh-high leather boots — pretty badass. I was, let me tell you, I was dressed not for the beach. I was dressed to go out to a club,’ she said, laughing at the memory…. ‘So I’m standing here, and then the sun sets,’ she recalled. After another chilly half an hour, she gave up and returned to her car….”

From “ChatGPT promised to help her find her soulmate. Then it betrayed her” (NPR).

1. Were there feminist bookstores in 1949? I’m seeing that the first feminist bookstore — Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis — opened in 1970. So that’s a fact Small could have tried to check very early in this process. A soulmate in a feminist bookstore in 1949 is, perhaps, too good to check. 
2. If there’s one eternal truth about the human mind, it’s people believe what they want to believe. But that doesn’t answer the question what we do with a commercial operation that takes advantage of that quality. I was going to write “that vulnerability,” but is it a weakness or is it the force that drives this whole crazy human world we’ve got going? The answer is the latter, because that’s what I want to believe. 
3. If there were a feminist bookstore in 1949, what books would be there? “The Second Sex,” “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” “A Room of One’s Own,” “The Well of Loneliness,” “The Subjection of Women,” “Herland” — perhaps a better set of readings than you’ll find in a feminist bookstore today.
4. Did the chatbot tell Small to wear thigh-high boots to the beach? I think most people would be put off by a stranger dressed the way she was. I guess the idea was that the soulmate from other lifetimes would recognize these things. Everyone else will steer clear. Maybe when you’re out there, walking the face of the earth, and you see someone who’s not at all dressed for the time and place, you will remember that this person might be following directions from a chatbot a beautiful dream.