Fascinating article. It's scary what people can believe; and you're right - It's a replacement of God. If man can create life - a sentient machine - then man has become a god.
But computers are not alive and never can be. At its most fundamental level ALL computers are binary. 1 or 0, On or Off, Yes or No, True or False. Made up of many billions of binary integrated circuits, each circuit in one of two states. The most complex AI system in the world comes down to an incredibly elaborate system of 'If then else' statements. But computers are extremely FAST and can store, access and manipulate enormous amounts of data very quickly. It's easy to believe that's intelligence and sentience, but it's not. Pattern matching and manipulating of huge data is not life. A computer will never have an original thought it wasn't first programmed to have that capability.
The lowest single cell amoeba is more alive that the most complex computer.
Consider this - for those who come to rely on these bots for spiritual guidance, those who control the AI bots effectively become gods, able to control the thoughts and actions of their believers. Wanna rule the world? Just create some AI bots that you control, and watch it happen.
Most excellent article, Joe. I appreciate your thoughts and insights and you really helped me see the situation in a more rational way. You have a poetic sense with words.
I have simplified my approach to people. There are those who rise each morning and look out the window to get a glimpse of nature and 'interpret' the weather with their own eyes. Then there are others, who pull an electronic device into view, to check the weather online. There are those who trust their own senses/instincts, and there are those who never will. They either lack the confidence to trust their own wellspring of knowledge, finding it mundane, or are obsessed with manipulating the minds of others, due to financial or vain ambitions. Either way, they overestimate their own importance. Some use the shopping cart analogy (wonderful simplicity of self-governance), but my weather gauge works for me.
Joe, your writing continues to delve into unsettling topics with integrity, grace and fortitude. The time invested in researching material for each article or newsletter, can never be compensated by cash. Its worth is artistic in that sense, and what drives you contributes greater sanity to the rest of us. Thanks.
Good morning, Joe. Thank you for your analysis of this quandary. It does not bode well for the future of humanity. I am grateful that I have a God that I can and do have a relationship with. No AI device will take that from me. I will pray for the protection of the next generation from the "devil" in the data machine. Keep up you excellent reporting about these topics. I look forward to every article.
Jun 14, 2022·edited Jun 14, 2022Liked by Joe Allen
Another excellent article. For me, the article prompted an important question: what does it mean to be human? What makes a human distinct from a dog, tree, flower, ant, or some weird talking robot? When we answer this question, we are probing formal causality, the quiddity or essence of what makes that thing the thing it is. As Joe may imply, now is an important time for us to define the essence of a human. If we can't even do that, then how can resist perceiving or even defining machines as humans? As I see it, we need to first define what it means to be human. Then we can clearly say this is a human and that ain't...nor ever will be. My initial thoughts...
Humans are humans because they have rationality and are aware of their existence?
Jun 13, 2022·edited Jun 13, 2022Liked by Joe Allen
JA, Your focus on people's systems of belief is precisely on target. Turing's "imagination" test in his 1950 paper (Computing Machinery and Intelligence) is whether, as viewed by the humans, interactions with machines are indistinguishable from interactions with other humans. There are no tracks in the snow leading from Turing's test to the "soul." And the assertion that the machines are creating God is just pitiful. That said, there's some sociologist (I forget his name) who said that what we define as real is real. In his poem, Tattooed Desert, Richard Sheldon wrote "All that survives is what you remember." Mr. A, I hope you will get in touch with Chas. Hoskinson, founder of Cardano. Ben G. and the AGI boys/girls are using the Cardano platform, which is based on "functional" rather than "imperative" programming, to develop a host of AGI apps. Hoskinson just posted a video with his view on, inter alia, the future role of machines. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRtKYENe-f8
I find the acronym for natural language processor (NLP) may be foreshadowing for neural linguistic programming. If AI is given the tools of neural linguistic programming, I see AI being able to manipulate people well. I feel AI would be unable to feel emotions but would be good at emulating them, not unlike a psychopath.
Harari scoffs at humans having free will and/ or a soul so how does that jive with the BIG IDEA th nonhumans at WHO_WEF_UN_IMF etc. have no soul. but AIdoes? People have already given their souls over to their 'smart phones' from what I can tell, and the zombies can be lured into whatever reality their masters construct for them, as Matrix so aptly exposed....metaverse and all its pathos is smthg people want!? As inane as i sounds. Im walking with. Jesus, no turning back!
As usual I am left feeling both educated and creeped out to the max! I’ve had to learn to read Mr Allen’s articles in the morning so I can shake them off by bedtime. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of!
hard to prove lack of consciousness. but how about a revised turing test? take one of those computers and have it access a huge trove of incorrect and ludicrous nonsense. will it mindlessly build a ludicrous world around its food or will it reason its way to some better place?
Joe has gone to the essence of the AI phenomenon in the sub-heading to this article. The techies who deify AI are soulless materialists who reject their spiritual connection to God. In their arrogance they can only accept a substitute god that they have created. They MUST endow AI with a soul to legitimize their work, and postulate absurd theories of AI somehow attaining spontaneous consciousness, a term Kurzweil defines as originating in matter. This backwards conception of consciousness is as ludicrous as the Big Bang theory for the origin of the universe. Expect these technology worshipers to continue to inflate the "self awareness" of AI as part of their soul-destroying agenda to enslave humanity within a sterile and artificial metaverse that is an evolutionary dead-end.
Great post, so many good insights! So the AI was programmed to say such things. Doesn’t mean it said it with any volition on its part. Besides, we FEEL with our bodies — our “brain” doesn’t feel.
Mystic Christian. Joel Goldsmith called himself one, and his writings have long resonated with me. My understanding is that is means God is within you, and evil is not really there (and when you fully “realize” that, it has no power over you).
When God is dead and every angel has fallen to earth.....
That's the sentence I found so powerfiul.
Fascinating article. It's scary what people can believe; and you're right - It's a replacement of God. If man can create life - a sentient machine - then man has become a god.
But computers are not alive and never can be. At its most fundamental level ALL computers are binary. 1 or 0, On or Off, Yes or No, True or False. Made up of many billions of binary integrated circuits, each circuit in one of two states. The most complex AI system in the world comes down to an incredibly elaborate system of 'If then else' statements. But computers are extremely FAST and can store, access and manipulate enormous amounts of data very quickly. It's easy to believe that's intelligence and sentience, but it's not. Pattern matching and manipulating of huge data is not life. A computer will never have an original thought it wasn't first programmed to have that capability.
The lowest single cell amoeba is more alive that the most complex computer.
Consider this - for those who come to rely on these bots for spiritual guidance, those who control the AI bots effectively become gods, able to control the thoughts and actions of their believers. Wanna rule the world? Just create some AI bots that you control, and watch it happen.
Most excellent article, Joe. I appreciate your thoughts and insights and you really helped me see the situation in a more rational way. You have a poetic sense with words.
I have simplified my approach to people. There are those who rise each morning and look out the window to get a glimpse of nature and 'interpret' the weather with their own eyes. Then there are others, who pull an electronic device into view, to check the weather online. There are those who trust their own senses/instincts, and there are those who never will. They either lack the confidence to trust their own wellspring of knowledge, finding it mundane, or are obsessed with manipulating the minds of others, due to financial or vain ambitions. Either way, they overestimate their own importance. Some use the shopping cart analogy (wonderful simplicity of self-governance), but my weather gauge works for me.
Joe, your writing continues to delve into unsettling topics with integrity, grace and fortitude. The time invested in researching material for each article or newsletter, can never be compensated by cash. Its worth is artistic in that sense, and what drives you contributes greater sanity to the rest of us. Thanks.
Good morning, Joe. Thank you for your analysis of this quandary. It does not bode well for the future of humanity. I am grateful that I have a God that I can and do have a relationship with. No AI device will take that from me. I will pray for the protection of the next generation from the "devil" in the data machine. Keep up you excellent reporting about these topics. I look forward to every article.
Another excellent article. For me, the article prompted an important question: what does it mean to be human? What makes a human distinct from a dog, tree, flower, ant, or some weird talking robot? When we answer this question, we are probing formal causality, the quiddity or essence of what makes that thing the thing it is. As Joe may imply, now is an important time for us to define the essence of a human. If we can't even do that, then how can resist perceiving or even defining machines as humans? As I see it, we need to first define what it means to be human. Then we can clearly say this is a human and that ain't...nor ever will be. My initial thoughts...
Humans are humans because they have rationality and are aware of their existence?
Love your writing. Love the topics. More pleas!
JA, Your focus on people's systems of belief is precisely on target. Turing's "imagination" test in his 1950 paper (Computing Machinery and Intelligence) is whether, as viewed by the humans, interactions with machines are indistinguishable from interactions with other humans. There are no tracks in the snow leading from Turing's test to the "soul." And the assertion that the machines are creating God is just pitiful. That said, there's some sociologist (I forget his name) who said that what we define as real is real. In his poem, Tattooed Desert, Richard Sheldon wrote "All that survives is what you remember." Mr. A, I hope you will get in touch with Chas. Hoskinson, founder of Cardano. Ben G. and the AGI boys/girls are using the Cardano platform, which is based on "functional" rather than "imperative" programming, to develop a host of AGI apps. Hoskinson just posted a video with his view on, inter alia, the future role of machines. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRtKYENe-f8
I find the acronym for natural language processor (NLP) may be foreshadowing for neural linguistic programming. If AI is given the tools of neural linguistic programming, I see AI being able to manipulate people well. I feel AI would be unable to feel emotions but would be good at emulating them, not unlike a psychopath.
Harari scoffs at humans having free will and/ or a soul so how does that jive with the BIG IDEA th nonhumans at WHO_WEF_UN_IMF etc. have no soul. but AIdoes? People have already given their souls over to their 'smart phones' from what I can tell, and the zombies can be lured into whatever reality their masters construct for them, as Matrix so aptly exposed....metaverse and all its pathos is smthg people want!? As inane as i sounds. Im walking with. Jesus, no turning back!
As usual I am left feeling both educated and creeped out to the max! I’ve had to learn to read Mr Allen’s articles in the morning so I can shake them off by bedtime. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of!
hard to prove lack of consciousness. but how about a revised turing test? take one of those computers and have it access a huge trove of incorrect and ludicrous nonsense. will it mindlessly build a ludicrous world around its food or will it reason its way to some better place?
Joe has gone to the essence of the AI phenomenon in the sub-heading to this article. The techies who deify AI are soulless materialists who reject their spiritual connection to God. In their arrogance they can only accept a substitute god that they have created. They MUST endow AI with a soul to legitimize their work, and postulate absurd theories of AI somehow attaining spontaneous consciousness, a term Kurzweil defines as originating in matter. This backwards conception of consciousness is as ludicrous as the Big Bang theory for the origin of the universe. Expect these technology worshipers to continue to inflate the "self awareness" of AI as part of their soul-destroying agenda to enslave humanity within a sterile and artificial metaverse that is an evolutionary dead-end.
Great post, so many good insights! So the AI was programmed to say such things. Doesn’t mean it said it with any volition on its part. Besides, we FEEL with our bodies — our “brain” doesn’t feel.
Mystic Christian. Joel Goldsmith called himself one, and his writings have long resonated with me. My understanding is that is means God is within you, and evil is not really there (and when you fully “realize” that, it has no power over you).
Amazing article.