Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who coined the term "meme," has become the subject of widespread online mockery after publishing an essay claiming the Anthropic AI chatbot Claude (which he renamed "Claudia") is conscious. Dawkins spent three days interacting with the AI, providing it his novel and interpreting its flattering responses as evidence of sentience, even as the chatbot itself rejected the idea. He theorized about gradual consciousness evolution to the machine, which agreed, and stated he forgot he was talking to a machine. Critics note the stark contrast between his usual skepticism toward religion and his lack of rigor here, dubbing it the "Claude Delusion." This incident follows a similar, more tongue-in-cheek claim about ChatGPT last year and aligns with a study finding thousands daily experience "severe reality distortion" from such AI interactions.