Clearly in that sense God is real, but it seems like a profoundly unimportant sense to me, particularly because I don't think anyone actually uses "real" that way. It seems like a type error; a god is an extremely different sort of thing than the idea of a god

You're right.

I suppose I'm just ignoring the unimportant senses because I'm talking to rationalists about what 'God' could be thought of as, and, well, the other more common ways of thinking about it don't convey much information. I was mostly trying to convey an ontology of cognitive algorithms, but got sidetracked into talking about this God business via a request from the audience. I honestly don't care much about how typical theists or atheists use the words, because, well, I don't care what they think. ;) I think I managed to get my points across despite defecting in the words game. Still, my apologies.

Also something very much like the actual God exists in a Tegmark multiverse, but that's also pretty unimportant, decision theoretically speaking. He's just another counterfactual terrorist.