How Silicon Valley's AI tech culture gave birth to a trans death cult

A new book by investigative reporter Andy Ngo, “The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult,” claims to trace the origins of a real-world radical transgender vegan group that believed AI would take over the world and allegedly carried out a homicidal spree. The story centers on Jack LaSota, a 23-year-old aspiring tech entrepreneur from Alaska who moved to Silicon Valley in 2016. While working on the puzzle game “Dystheism,” he adopted online ideas tied to rationalism and “effective altruism.” According to the book excerpt, LaSota later took the alias “Ziz” and warped those beliefs into the cult’s ideology. The book links this mindset to broader Silicon Valley trends.