8 ms·

The Neon God

53 points by DeusExMachina 3y ago

low_tech_love 3y ago
Ilia Delio, a Franciscan nun who writes about the relationship between AI and God, has a better idea: gender-neutral robot priests, which will challenge the patriarchy, prevent sexual abuse... Ok, that's enough internet for today (and it's only 11:00).
- auggierose 3y ago
  It kinds of makes sense: If everything is derived from God, then so are bots.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    If so (and it's a very big "if") then so is sin, and Satan.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      Welcome to theology. :-)
      - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
        Thank you. I don't intend to stay for long.
        actionfromafar 3y ago
        Haha, I had a good chuckle, thanks!
  - coldtea 3y ago
    That's not what Christian doctrine says though.
- theage 3y ago
  if you have to choose between a female priest and a similarly qualified robot priest, choose the underrepresented genderless robot.
thinkingemote 3y ago
I've enjoyed his writing on the whole - the author was an extreme green activist which I think informs some of the more radical ideas in this article. He's now against environmentalism or at least the political manifestation of it which is basically mainstream policy in most European countries. He is a Christian convert but his radical roots show through. There's the danger for cultural commentators of seeing the apocalypse around every corner and in thinking that right now this very moment is the most important of all time (and not observing that we have thought that at every moment in the past too!) and there's the attraction for authors that stories invoking fear are a powerful motivator for attention and that it lends emotion to stories. Without this we would get blander, dryer and less emotion filled reports. Less eyeballs. Nevertheless behind this at the foreground which I have to navigate, there are some interesting ideas and stories in the article. Those bots in churches and temples are so weird , but seeing the AI developments with a spiritual lens could be good. I'd suggest reading some of the comments in the article too.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  But in a sense, right now is the most important of all time, because it's the only moment we have to effect change. And the levers of what we do or don't, echoes in eternity.
- hoseja 3y ago
  So, a chronically contrarian larper.
- waboremo 3y ago
  I'm having a difficult time assessing the radical roots you highlight. They seem far less radical, and more a substantial support of the status quo. Almost as if his extreme green activism was some sort of phase.
petesergeant 3y ago
I mean this basically just boils down to: > my belief in the profanity of technology is not widely shared, and that even people who I imagined would have a serious critique of technology often simply don’t with a vague suggestion that the religious people who dedicate their life to spiritual pursuits are in the wrong
- lynx23 3y ago
  Finger-pointing is what many religious people like to do most... I am shocked this article got upvoted enough in a community of tech-people. I was hoping 30 years ago that the tyrany of christianity is being eradicated in my lifetime. I am not so sure anymore.
  - logicchains 3y ago
    >I was hoping 30 years ago that the tyrany of christianity is being eradicated in my lifetime It's funny you refer to the tyranny of Christianity when by far the most tyrannical regimes were all officially atheist (Stalin's, Mao's, Pol Pot's, North Korea), and the west has been getting steadily more and more authoritarian as it's gotten less and less Christian. Fundamentally most non-religious people are utilitarians, who see no inherent value in a life and hence are open to the idea of sacrificing a few lives for the "good of the many". The first step to dictatorship is convincing people there's no such thing as "absolute" rights, so that they won't object to the regime making up more and more excuses to violate people's rights. And without a belief in some kind of higher power the majority of people also won't have any reason to believe that some rights are inherently inviolable.
    - krapp 3y ago
      >Fundamentally most non-religious people are utilitarians, who see no inherent value in a life and hence are open to the idea of sacrificing a few lives for the "good of the many". Non-religious people are no different than religious people in the way they view life and its inherent value. They simply don't feel that value necessitates a supernatural framework. I know this will likely be incomprehensible to you, but one does not need to believe in God at all to value human life.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
chrisco255 3y ago
> Even here, I thought, even them. If even they can’t make a stand, who possibly could? I don't know much about Mount Athos, but the Amish famously have rejected modern technology including smart phones, so it certainly is possible to live without them, despite the author's jarring impression of the monks.
- superchroma 3y ago
  The amish have cellphones and vehicles. It's cute to think they don't but they do. https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-telephones/ https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-telephones/
  - sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago
    Didn't read the article you posted, but there are different types of the amish. Some more radical than others and live more primitive lifestyle.
    - MandieD 3y ago
      Even among “Old Order” Amish, various communities may reject individuals and households possessing certain kinds of technology, but a community as a whole might, for example, share a cellphone that members can use for specific purposes (and with the knowledge of others in the community). Some of them also modify modern electrical (but not electronic) sewing machines to work with foot treadles - the Bernina 1200 is a currently produced model that this is possible for. Also, I remember reading about a type of jaundice that is common among Old Order Amish in some areas due in part to a lack of genetic diversity, and those families are allowed to have electricity to their homes to run the therapeutic lights those children are prescribed. There’s a lot about that culture that I don’t think is great, but cautious reflection before bringing new technology into the home, and especially around kids, is a practice worth borrowing.
      - chrisco255 3y ago
        I recognize that Amish integrate into modern society, make use of modern hospitals, take "Rumspringa", and sell their goods and services, all of which requires touch points with modern society. But unlike the monks depicted, they're not walking around with smart phones in their pockets and they don't have wifi in their churches or homes.
pyrale 3y ago
> BlessU-2, which looks like a character designed by Aardman Animations, can ‘forgive your sins in five different languages’ I really wonder if people use that thing.
bluepizza 3y ago
Even more relevant to the text is that Pepper the Robot Priest was obviously a marketing ploy to get attention. Everyone involved clearly understood that this idea would be shocking. This is how you build dystopias: one product at a time.
bowsamic 3y ago
Correct me if I’m wrong but he gives no real reason to feel the way he does, that technology is evil. This seems just like some emotional prejudice (shared by many Americans for some reason) that he expects all others to share. Perhaps he needs to actually analyse why he feels this way
- beepbooptheory 3y ago
  I would say that this essay is a good and thorough self analysis of how the author feels. It does seem to be connected to a larger work, so you might get your answer there, but I would just say that "technology is evil" is not the most important assertion here. Doesn't it seem to be more about what it means to think it is evil, however "emotional" the reasons are for thinking that? How to reckon with this force in any way considering its increasing implementation in everything around us? In general, don't you at least think they say more than just "technology is evil"? Perhaps there is analysis to be made why you'd be so quick to dismiss a text that doesnt match one of your unemotional assumptions about the world! Because a lot of good thinking (and writing) comes from granting an assumption and seeing where that leads. Its never a failure of your unprejudiced intellect to connect with what a writer is actually saying, even if you don't agree with some belief of theirs.
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    What analysis do you think he is offering, exactly? I can't see anything here but a moral panic
leashless 3y ago
"If there was a big red button that turned off the Internet, I would press it without hesitation. Then I would collect every screen in the world and bulldoze the lot down into a deep mineshaft, which I would seal with concrete, and then I would skip away smiling into the sunshine." I know Paul Kingsnorth from the "Dark Mountain" days -- I worked closely with Dougald Hine on a project (http://collapsonomics.org http://collapsonomics.org) before they started Dark Mountain. The rhetoric is strong, but the realism is not. Next step: let's turn off the electricity.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Next step: let's turn off the electricity. Why not? Or an even better question: say electricity is deemed OK to keep. Does that transfer to anything else we have or will build? Should we ever not develop something, e.g. are there any diminishing returns combined with negative tradeoffs beyond some point? Or we should develop everything, even a future "government can add telemetry to get all your thoughts and remotely zap you if you had one it doesn't like" device, for example?
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    "If we have the ability to do something, we must do it, even if we annihilate ourselves in the doing". Such will be said, only unironically instead. It's the core belief of the Cult of Progress that dominates this site, and I am phrasing it that way to hit some nerves, maybe spark a smidge of introspection, though I'm not hopeful on the latter :P
    - bratbag 3y ago
      A lack of progress inevitably leads to annihilation anyway. So might as well go for it.
      - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
        Called it, took less than a day too. The Sentinelese and the various uncontacted and/or hunter-gathering tribes still in existence across Australia, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America would tend to disagree with this notion. And barring complete ecological collapse, they'll be here after we're gone :)
sampo 3y ago
> AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky I guess you can call anyone you want a researcher, it's not like the term has any legal meaning. But in a more conservative sense, Yudkowsky is not a researcher. Maybe an activist? > regarded as a leader in the field of Artificial General Intelligence No. Not regarded as a leader.
- coldtea 3y ago
  He's pretty much regarded as a leader. He sits in the table with AI experts and tech moguls, he's invited to write his opinions on AI on major outlets, as if they mattered, he's given sizable grants, he's covered in almost every news item or book about AI, and so on. He's not an actual AI scientist/engineer (more like "handwavist who likes to keep company with actual geeks and talk about science and stuff, often in the way college kids do after a few joints"), but he's still regarded as a leader in the field - if not for anything else because he wont shut up.
- ftxbro 3y ago
  That part of the blogpost stuck out to me too. But I would say that he is a researcher. And a leader. But not necessarily an "AI researcher" or "a leader in the field of Artificial General Intelligence."
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Popularizer, if anything. But researcher too - unless you're willing to restrict that term to people only working within the structures of academia or corporate R&D labs. And I'd definitely say he's a legitimate leader in the field; more than that, I'm inclined to agree with Time Magazine on this - in the byline, Eliezer is said to be "widely regarded as a founder of the field [of Artificial General Intelligence, or at least of aligning AGI]" (emphasis mine). OpenAI folks? Anthropic? All the AI pundits and pundit wannabies so loud these days? They're all people directly or indirectly influenced by Eliezer's writings, talking or dismissing or commenting the specific concerns Eliezer described/popularized more than a decade ago. Hell, I've been on HN for more than a decade, and in that time, GAI existential risks, and X-risks in general, have always been strongly associated with Eliezer and LessWrong crowd (read: them being mocked for indulging in delusions and fear-mongering). So don't tell me Yudkowsky isn't a "leader in the field", when the very reason he's invited to the table with all the current AI movers and shakers is precisely because the latter recognize his contributions are foundational to the field. Sure, he mostly wrote a lot of blog articles dealing with topics most considered purely theoretical then, but the field was started in the earnest by people who read that blog, making it a foundational mythos of modern AI research.
phist_mcgee 3y ago
This reminds me of the novel 'Hyperion', which explores religion and technology in the far future.
- wnkrshm 3y ago
  Where we ironically have AGIs who want to build their own 'Ultimate' AGI to defer decisions to, since they cannot predict the future well enough.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    This is hilarious but you know it would happen. It’s turtles all the way down.
dale_glass 3y ago
This is kind of old news. I think something like two decades ago one of my friends went on her honeymoon to Japan and got her Mac blessed in a temple by a Shinto priest. Even Christian churches do machine stuff, just in a way slightly less goofy to our eyes. Eg, coin operated votive candles: https://c7.alamy.com/comp/A82EPW/artificial-candles-lit-when-paid-for-using-coin-in-slot-roman-catholic-A82EPW.jpg https://c7.alamy.com/comp/A82EPW/artificial-candles-lit-when...
rob74 3y ago
> Not to be outdone, a protestant church in Germany has developed a robot called - I kid you not - BlessU-2. BlessU-2, which looks like a character designed by Aardman Animations, can ‘forgive your sins in five different languages’, which must be handy if they’re too embarrassing to confess to a human. Except that's not how it works for protestants. In the Lutheran church, to quote Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession_(religion)#Lutheranism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession_(religion)#Lutheran...): > The first form of confession and absolution is done at the Divine Service with the assembled congregation (similar to the Anglican tradition). Here, the entire congregation pauses for a moment of silent confession, recites the confiteor, and receives God's forgiveness through the pastor as he says the following (or similar): "Upon this your confession and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." ...so you don't need to actually confess your sins to anyone, but you do need a priest to "hand out" God's forgiveness. Which is what this robot (which is "meant to start a debate about the future of technology and the church" in the city where Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" to the church door) does.
noufalibrahim 3y ago
When AI generated art hit the internet a few months ago, one of things that occurred to me was that this would scale/democratise/whatever the production of art. So things which required it commercially (movies, video games etc.) would be affected significantly. However, the producer of individual pieces would still need to do it for his own sake. Things like art therapy, medium of expression etc. all produce art finally but the process is the point and using an AI to do that wouldn't have the same effect. Perhaps there's some mid point where AI could just be seen as another brush or pen for the artist but that's a digression. Going further on this line of thought, if we were successfully able to automate things so much that human effort is no longer necessary for most of our daily activities and we have a lot of leisure time (the promise that almost every tech. revolution has made), the existential question of what do we do with all this time looms. The answer, I think, given current trends, is to consume and distract ourselves so that we don't think about this. One thing that's a huge part of human history is religion and while a lot of people can disagree on the truth of it, its personal utility for (or atleast effect on) individuals is pretty much a given. I don't know how effective an AI bot issuing blessings will actually have the "effect on the user" but that remains to be seen. As a religious person myself, I feel it's kind of defeatist if there is no human being who has the time and interest to actually preach to his congregation and guide them on their spiritual journeys. I can personally say that listening to a bot deliver a sermon or a speech wouldn't have any effect on me and I'd probably stop going to wherever it's operating. Perhaps my background in tech. makes this transparent to me so I might be the exception but nevertheless.
- mtkhaos 3y ago
  This would be a terrible way to go as in moving increased consumerism and having that blur with religion would only serve to blur that line in media. We already live in a Post Truth world. Dillution, radicalization, and the clash between such cranked up to 12. Not to say you cannot have such. But a system focused on education, community, and understanding. As a Foundational basis could support what you want and respect belief without the same teeth.
stareatgoats 3y ago
And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said, "The words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sounds of silence." The sound of silence - Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel
smaddox 3y ago
Quite the deluded and hypocritical take. The author focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of technology while ignoring all of its positive benefits. Even the fact that he's using technology in both writing and publishing this essay is framed as valiantly attacking the machine from within. No doubt our world is far from perfect, but does he honestly believe destruction of technology would somehow magically improve the situation, when we know from history that our technological past was full of just as much, if not more, unnecessary suffering than the present? Vigilance is necessary, yes. Reducing our reliance on fickle technology is valuable, yes. Practicing mindfullness, in our use of technology as in other aspects of everyday life, is beneficial, yes. But, no, destruction is not merited.
fiforpg 3y ago
The parts where the author is scandalized about the tasteless use of technology in religion read less as a critique of technology then that of religion. If anything, they demonstrate that the human-written sermons were just as robotic.
pnut 3y ago
Praying to a machine is silly. That is the least creative interpretation of what role technology can play in an individual's spiritual journey. Imagine this guy was born a hundred years from now. No way his judgment on the relationship between humanity and technology would look the same, so all of this hand wringing is a nice pastime, but not saying anything substantial.
flipgimble 3y ago
In my own life I try to hold some of the skeptical views of what technology is doing to my attention and time. I am striving to enact a discipline and focus of attention that sounds very much like the Askesis he describes. Sometimes it works, and then I'm back here. However I am concerned about the conservatism and religious overtones of the anti-technology reactionaries. To me (and a large and growing demographic) modern major religions are at best irrelevant, or morally bankrupt and malignant. Its a shame to because we lost some deeper dimensions of human experience this way. The core teaching of Buddhism is the middle path: neither absolute asceticism nor hedonism. I also like how John Vervaeke puts it: "Neither utopia, nor nostalgia" (is the path to wisdom, presumably).
Myrmornis 3y ago
I'm not sure if it counts as technological askesis but I can highly recommend birdwatching. Going walking in natural areas is a million times better when you can start to put a name to all the birds you inevitably see and hear. (And don't discount the "hear" - learning to be able to identify species from the sounds you hear when walking is one of the best parts; especially as you tend to hear more species than you see).
- dmd 3y ago
  > See that bird? It’s a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany, it’s called a halzenfugel, and in Chinese, they call it a Chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird. You only know something about people; what they call the bird. - Feynman
  - Myrmornis 3y ago
    Unless there's more to that quote that has to be one of the dumbest things Feynman is on record as saying. The name of the bird (in whatever language) can be used as a key to retrieve information about the biology of the bird (as presumably you already understand!).
    - dmd 3y ago
      Oh absolutely! Naming things is important, it's how we communicate. But there are a TON of people whose knowledge acquisition STOPS at naming things. Oddly this is exceptionally prevalent in things like birdwatching and stargazing. "That's a yellow-rumpled warbler!" "Nice, what do you know about it?" "What do you mean? I know it's a yellow-rumpled warbler!" "So, what's interesting about it?" "???"
      - Myrmornis 3y ago
        Ok well I was (rightly) suggesting that birdwatching is a good break from technology, and you have responded by making a criticism of birdwatching, so I'm going to take you up on that. (I've been a birdwatcher since I was about 6, did a PhD partially on birds and have done lots of scientific field work on birds in addition to "birding") What you said (and Feynman's specious know-it-all comment) is actually not true. Let's take your example of someone seeing a Yellow-rumped Warbler. Being a birdwatcher, this person is probably interested in seeing other Yellow-rumper Warblers in the future, or more likely, in seeing other Warbler species they've never seen before. Because they are interested in seeing birds, they'll notice Yellow-rumpeds microhabitat choice -- leafy branches in mid to high canopy. And when they see Black-and-white Warblers, they're obviously going to learn that Black-and-White has a habit of foraging along the trunk itself in a manner more like a treecreeper, and quite unusual for a warbler. So their birdwatching is already teaching them something about habitat and foraging behavior. They'll be learning how to tell something is a warbler on sight, rather than say a Chickadee or a Thrush, and hence learning how morphology and plumage features vary across avian taxonomy. And they may even start wondering whether that bird-book taxonomy accurately reflect the true evolutionary relationships. They'll hear the Yellow-rumped warblers thin, high-pitched calls and song, and they'll hear songs of other warblers and other birds, and eventually they'll realize that they can tell that a call is a warbler, even if they don't know what species. So they'll have learned that vocalisations are correlated with phylogeny. Perhaps they'll wonder whether birds vocalisations are arbitrary or not: they might end up learning about the notion of sexual selection, and also the fact that birds living near fast-flowing water (Kingfisher, Dippers, Wagtails) have strikingly loud and sharp high-pitched calls which can be heard over water (so not arbitrary sexual selection) and maybe they'll learn that in some species, studies have shown that females prefer males with more complex songs. The bird-book / app they use to carry out their hobby shows them geographic ranges, and which species are migratory. They'll learn not to look for warblers in the winter, and hence they'll learn which birds are migratory and which not, and how that varies over avian taxonomy, and it will lead to many questions about what can be learned from these phylogenetic and geographic patterns versus what is just random. Of course, what you said is true of some people, but the general statistical characterization of birdwatching is the opposite: identifying species is the starting point for virtually all field studies of biological organisms, and of course there is a huge statistical tendency for people who know what species they are looking at to end up learning more natural history and biology than those who are oblivious to it all.

53 points by DeusExMachina 3y ago

Ilia Delio, a Franciscan nun who writes about the relationship between AI and God, has a better idea: gender-neutral robot priests, which will challenge the patriarchy, prevent sexual abuse... Ok, that's enough internet for today (and it's only 11:00).

auggierose 3y ago
It kinds of makes sense: If everything is derived from God, then so are bots.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  If so (and it's a very big "if") then so is sin, and Satan.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Welcome to theology. :-)
    - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
      Thank you. I don't intend to stay for long.
      - actionfromafar 3y ago
        Haha, I had a good chuckle, thanks!
- coldtea 3y ago
  That's not what Christian doctrine says though.
theage 3y ago
if you have to choose between a female priest and a similarly qualified robot priest, choose the underrepresented genderless robot.

thinkingemote 3y ago

I've enjoyed his writing on the whole - the author was an extreme green activist which I think informs some of the more radical ideas in this article. He's now against environmentalism or at least the political manifestation of it which is basically mainstream policy in most European countries. He is a Christian convert but his radical roots show through. There's the danger for cultural commentators of seeing the apocalypse around every corner and in thinking that right now this very moment is the most important of all time (and not observing that we have thought that at every moment in the past too!) and there's the attraction for authors that stories invoking fear are a powerful motivator for attention and that it lends emotion to stories. Without this we would get blander, dryer and less emotion filled reports. Less eyeballs. Nevertheless behind this at the foreground which I have to navigate, there are some interesting ideas and stories in the article. Those bots in churches and temples are so weird , but seeing the AI developments with a spiritual lens could be good. I'd suggest reading some of the comments in the article too.

actionfromafar 3y ago
But in a sense, right now is the most important of all time, because it's the only moment we have to effect change. And the levers of what we do or don't, echoes in eternity.
hoseja 3y ago
So, a chronically contrarian larper.
waboremo 3y ago
I'm having a difficult time assessing the radical roots you highlight. They seem far less radical, and more a substantial support of the status quo. Almost as if his extreme green activism was some sort of phase.

petesergeant 3y ago

I mean this basically just boils down to: > my belief in the profanity of technology is not widely shared, and that even people who I imagined would have a serious critique of technology often simply don’t with a vague suggestion that the religious people who dedicate their life to spiritual pursuits are in the wrong

lynx23 3y ago
Finger-pointing is what many religious people like to do most... I am shocked this article got upvoted enough in a community of tech-people. I was hoping 30 years ago that the tyrany of christianity is being eradicated in my lifetime. I am not so sure anymore.
- logicchains 3y ago
  >I was hoping 30 years ago that the tyrany of christianity is being eradicated in my lifetime It's funny you refer to the tyranny of Christianity when by far the most tyrannical regimes were all officially atheist (Stalin's, Mao's, Pol Pot's, North Korea), and the west has been getting steadily more and more authoritarian as it's gotten less and less Christian. Fundamentally most non-religious people are utilitarians, who see no inherent value in a life and hence are open to the idea of sacrificing a few lives for the "good of the many". The first step to dictatorship is convincing people there's no such thing as "absolute" rights, so that they won't object to the regime making up more and more excuses to violate people's rights. And without a belief in some kind of higher power the majority of people also won't have any reason to believe that some rights are inherently inviolable.
  - krapp 3y ago
    >Fundamentally most non-religious people are utilitarians, who see no inherent value in a life and hence are open to the idea of sacrificing a few lives for the "good of the many". Non-religious people are no different than religious people in the way they view life and its inherent value. They simply don't feel that value necessitates a supernatural framework. I know this will likely be incomprehensible to you, but one does not need to believe in God at all to value human life.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

chrisco255 3y ago

> Even here, I thought, even them. If even they can’t make a stand, who possibly could? I don't know much about Mount Athos, but the Amish famously have rejected modern technology including smart phones, so it certainly is possible to live without them, despite the author's jarring impression of the monks.

superchroma 3y ago
The amish have cellphones and vehicles. It's cute to think they don't but they do. https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-telephones/ https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-telephones/
- sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago
  Didn't read the article you posted, but there are different types of the amish. Some more radical than others and live more primitive lifestyle.
  - MandieD 3y ago
    Even among “Old Order” Amish, various communities may reject individuals and households possessing certain kinds of technology, but a community as a whole might, for example, share a cellphone that members can use for specific purposes (and with the knowledge of others in the community). Some of them also modify modern electrical (but not electronic) sewing machines to work with foot treadles - the Bernina 1200 is a currently produced model that this is possible for. Also, I remember reading about a type of jaundice that is common among Old Order Amish in some areas due in part to a lack of genetic diversity, and those families are allowed to have electricity to their homes to run the therapeutic lights those children are prescribed. There’s a lot about that culture that I don’t think is great, but cautious reflection before bringing new technology into the home, and especially around kids, is a practice worth borrowing.
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      I recognize that Amish integrate into modern society, make use of modern hospitals, take "Rumspringa", and sell their goods and services, all of which requires touch points with modern society. But unlike the monks depicted, they're not walking around with smart phones in their pockets and they don't have wifi in their churches or homes.

pyrale 3y ago

> BlessU-2, which looks like a character designed by Aardman Animations, can ‘forgive your sins in five different languages’ I really wonder if people use that thing.

bluepizza 3y ago

Even more relevant to the text is that Pepper the Robot Priest was obviously a marketing ploy to get attention. Everyone involved clearly understood that this idea would be shocking. This is how you build dystopias: one product at a time.

bowsamic 3y ago

Correct me if I’m wrong but he gives no real reason to feel the way he does, that technology is evil. This seems just like some emotional prejudice (shared by many Americans for some reason) that he expects all others to share. Perhaps he needs to actually analyse why he feels this way

beepbooptheory 3y ago
I would say that this essay is a good and thorough self analysis of how the author feels. It does seem to be connected to a larger work, so you might get your answer there, but I would just say that "technology is evil" is not the most important assertion here. Doesn't it seem to be more about what it means to think it is evil, however "emotional" the reasons are for thinking that? How to reckon with this force in any way considering its increasing implementation in everything around us? In general, don't you at least think they say more than just "technology is evil"? Perhaps there is analysis to be made why you'd be so quick to dismiss a text that doesnt match one of your unemotional assumptions about the world! Because a lot of good thinking (and writing) comes from granting an assumption and seeing where that leads. Its never a failure of your unprejudiced intellect to connect with what a writer is actually saying, even if you don't agree with some belief of theirs.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  What analysis do you think he is offering, exactly? I can't see anything here but a moral panic

leashless 3y ago

"If there was a big red button that turned off the Internet, I would press it without hesitation. Then I would collect every screen in the world and bulldoze the lot down into a deep mineshaft, which I would seal with concrete, and then I would skip away smiling into the sunshine." I know Paul Kingsnorth from the "Dark Mountain" days -- I worked closely with Dougald Hine on a project (http://collapsonomics.org http://collapsonomics.org) before they started Dark Mountain. The rhetoric is strong, but the realism is not. Next step: let's turn off the electricity.

coldtea 3y ago
>Next step: let's turn off the electricity. Why not? Or an even better question: say electricity is deemed OK to keep. Does that transfer to anything else we have or will build? Should we ever not develop something, e.g. are there any diminishing returns combined with negative tradeoffs beyond some point? Or we should develop everything, even a future "government can add telemetry to get all your thoughts and remotely zap you if you had one it doesn't like" device, for example?
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  "If we have the ability to do something, we must do it, even if we annihilate ourselves in the doing". Such will be said, only unironically instead. It's the core belief of the Cult of Progress that dominates this site, and I am phrasing it that way to hit some nerves, maybe spark a smidge of introspection, though I'm not hopeful on the latter :P
  - bratbag 3y ago
    A lack of progress inevitably leads to annihilation anyway. So might as well go for it.
    - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
      Called it, took less than a day too. The Sentinelese and the various uncontacted and/or hunter-gathering tribes still in existence across Australia, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America would tend to disagree with this notion. And barring complete ecological collapse, they'll be here after we're gone :)

sampo 3y ago

> AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky I guess you can call anyone you want a researcher, it's not like the term has any legal meaning. But in a more conservative sense, Yudkowsky is not a researcher. Maybe an activist? > regarded as a leader in the field of Artificial General Intelligence No. Not regarded as a leader.

coldtea 3y ago
He's pretty much regarded as a leader. He sits in the table with AI experts and tech moguls, he's invited to write his opinions on AI on major outlets, as if they mattered, he's given sizable grants, he's covered in almost every news item or book about AI, and so on. He's not an actual AI scientist/engineer (more like "handwavist who likes to keep company with actual geeks and talk about science and stuff, often in the way college kids do after a few joints"), but he's still regarded as a leader in the field - if not for anything else because he wont shut up.
ftxbro 3y ago
That part of the blogpost stuck out to me too. But I would say that he is a researcher. And a leader. But not necessarily an "AI researcher" or "a leader in the field of Artificial General Intelligence."
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Popularizer, if anything. But researcher too - unless you're willing to restrict that term to people only working within the structures of academia or corporate R&D labs. And I'd definitely say he's a legitimate leader in the field; more than that, I'm inclined to agree with Time Magazine on this - in the byline, Eliezer is said to be "widely regarded as a founder of the field [of Artificial General Intelligence, or at least of aligning AGI]" (emphasis mine). OpenAI folks? Anthropic? All the AI pundits and pundit wannabies so loud these days? They're all people directly or indirectly influenced by Eliezer's writings, talking or dismissing or commenting the specific concerns Eliezer described/popularized more than a decade ago. Hell, I've been on HN for more than a decade, and in that time, GAI existential risks, and X-risks in general, have always been strongly associated with Eliezer and LessWrong crowd (read: them being mocked for indulging in delusions and fear-mongering). So don't tell me Yudkowsky isn't a "leader in the field", when the very reason he's invited to the table with all the current AI movers and shakers is precisely because the latter recognize his contributions are foundational to the field. Sure, he mostly wrote a lot of blog articles dealing with topics most considered purely theoretical then, but the field was started in the earnest by people who read that blog, making it a foundational mythos of modern AI research.

phist_mcgee 3y ago

This reminds me of the novel 'Hyperion', which explores religion and technology in the far future.

wnkrshm 3y ago
Where we ironically have AGIs who want to build their own 'Ultimate' AGI to defer decisions to, since they cannot predict the future well enough.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  This is hilarious but you know it would happen. It’s turtles all the way down.

dale_glass 3y ago

This is kind of old news. I think something like two decades ago one of my friends went on her honeymoon to Japan and got her Mac blessed in a temple by a Shinto priest. Even Christian churches do machine stuff, just in a way slightly less goofy to our eyes. Eg, coin operated votive candles: https://c7.alamy.com/comp/A82EPW/artificial-candles-lit-when-paid-for-using-coin-in-slot-roman-catholic-A82EPW.jpg https://c7.alamy.com/comp/A82EPW/artificial-candles-lit-when...

rob74 3y ago

> Not to be outdone, a protestant church in Germany has developed a robot called - I kid you not - BlessU-2. BlessU-2, which looks like a character designed by Aardman Animations, can ‘forgive your sins in five different languages’, which must be handy if they’re too embarrassing to confess to a human. Except that's not how it works for protestants. In the Lutheran church, to quote Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession_(religion)#Lutheranism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession_(religion)#Lutheran...): > The first form of confession and absolution is done at the Divine Service with the assembled congregation (similar to the Anglican tradition). Here, the entire congregation pauses for a moment of silent confession, recites the confiteor, and receives God's forgiveness through the pastor as he says the following (or similar): "Upon this your confession and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." ...so you don't need to actually confess your sins to anyone, but you do need a priest to "hand out" God's forgiveness. Which is what this robot (which is "meant to start a debate about the future of technology and the church" in the city where Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" to the church door) does.

noufalibrahim 3y ago

When AI generated art hit the internet a few months ago, one of things that occurred to me was that this would scale/democratise/whatever the production of art. So things which required it commercially (movies, video games etc.) would be affected significantly. However, the producer of individual pieces would still need to do it for his own sake. Things like art therapy, medium of expression etc. all produce art finally but the process is the point and using an AI to do that wouldn't have the same effect. Perhaps there's some mid point where AI could just be seen as another brush or pen for the artist but that's a digression. Going further on this line of thought, if we were successfully able to automate things so much that human effort is no longer necessary for most of our daily activities and we have a lot of leisure time (the promise that almost every tech. revolution has made), the existential question of what do we do with all this time looms. The answer, I think, given current trends, is to consume and distract ourselves so that we don't think about this. One thing that's a huge part of human history is religion and while a lot of people can disagree on the truth of it, its personal utility for (or atleast effect on) individuals is pretty much a given. I don't know how effective an AI bot issuing blessings will actually have the "effect on the user" but that remains to be seen. As a religious person myself, I feel it's kind of defeatist if there is no human being who has the time and interest to actually preach to his congregation and guide them on their spiritual journeys. I can personally say that listening to a bot deliver a sermon or a speech wouldn't have any effect on me and I'd probably stop going to wherever it's operating. Perhaps my background in tech. makes this transparent to me so I might be the exception but nevertheless.

mtkhaos 3y ago
This would be a terrible way to go as in moving increased consumerism and having that blur with religion would only serve to blur that line in media. We already live in a Post Truth world. Dillution, radicalization, and the clash between such cranked up to 12. Not to say you cannot have such. But a system focused on education, community, and understanding. As a Foundational basis could support what you want and respect belief without the same teeth.

stareatgoats 3y ago

And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said, "The words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sounds of silence." The sound of silence - Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel

smaddox 3y ago

Quite the deluded and hypocritical take. The author focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of technology while ignoring all of its positive benefits. Even the fact that he's using technology in both writing and publishing this essay is framed as valiantly attacking the machine from within. No doubt our world is far from perfect, but does he honestly believe destruction of technology would somehow magically improve the situation, when we know from history that our technological past was full of just as much, if not more, unnecessary suffering than the present? Vigilance is necessary, yes. Reducing our reliance on fickle technology is valuable, yes. Practicing mindfullness, in our use of technology as in other aspects of everyday life, is beneficial, yes. But, no, destruction is not merited.

fiforpg 3y ago

The parts where the author is scandalized about the tasteless use of technology in religion read less as a critique of technology then that of religion. If anything, they demonstrate that the human-written sermons were just as robotic.

pnut 3y ago

Praying to a machine is silly. That is the least creative interpretation of what role technology can play in an individual's spiritual journey. Imagine this guy was born a hundred years from now. No way his judgment on the relationship between humanity and technology would look the same, so all of this hand wringing is a nice pastime, but not saying anything substantial.

flipgimble 3y ago

In my own life I try to hold some of the skeptical views of what technology is doing to my attention and time. I am striving to enact a discipline and focus of attention that sounds very much like the Askesis he describes. Sometimes it works, and then I'm back here. However I am concerned about the conservatism and religious overtones of the anti-technology reactionaries. To me (and a large and growing demographic) modern major religions are at best irrelevant, or morally bankrupt and malignant. Its a shame to because we lost some deeper dimensions of human experience this way. The core teaching of Buddhism is the middle path: neither absolute asceticism nor hedonism. I also like how John Vervaeke puts it: "Neither utopia, nor nostalgia" (is the path to wisdom, presumably).

Myrmornis 3y ago

I'm not sure if it counts as technological askesis but I can highly recommend birdwatching. Going walking in natural areas is a million times better when you can start to put a name to all the birds you inevitably see and hear. (And don't discount the "hear" - learning to be able to identify species from the sounds you hear when walking is one of the best parts; especially as you tend to hear more species than you see).

dmd 3y ago
> See that bird? It’s a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany, it’s called a halzenfugel, and in Chinese, they call it a Chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird. You only know something about people; what they call the bird. - Feynman
- Myrmornis 3y ago
  Unless there's more to that quote that has to be one of the dumbest things Feynman is on record as saying. The name of the bird (in whatever language) can be used as a key to retrieve information about the biology of the bird (as presumably you already understand!).
  - dmd 3y ago
    Oh absolutely! Naming things is important, it's how we communicate. But there are a TON of people whose knowledge acquisition STOPS at naming things. Oddly this is exceptionally prevalent in things like birdwatching and stargazing. "That's a yellow-rumpled warbler!" "Nice, what do you know about it?" "What do you mean? I know it's a yellow-rumpled warbler!" "So, what's interesting about it?" "???"
    - Myrmornis 3y ago
      Ok well I was (rightly) suggesting that birdwatching is a good break from technology, and you have responded by making a criticism of birdwatching, so I'm going to take you up on that. (I've been a birdwatcher since I was about 6, did a PhD partially on birds and have done lots of scientific field work on birds in addition to "birding") What you said (and Feynman's specious know-it-all comment) is actually not true. Let's take your example of someone seeing a Yellow-rumped Warbler. Being a birdwatcher, this person is probably interested in seeing other Yellow-rumper Warblers in the future, or more likely, in seeing other Warbler species they've never seen before. Because they are interested in seeing birds, they'll notice Yellow-rumpeds microhabitat choice -- leafy branches in mid to high canopy. And when they see Black-and-white Warblers, they're obviously going to learn that Black-and-White has a habit of foraging along the trunk itself in a manner more like a treecreeper, and quite unusual for a warbler. So their birdwatching is already teaching them something about habitat and foraging behavior. They'll be learning how to tell something is a warbler on sight, rather than say a Chickadee or a Thrush, and hence learning how morphology and plumage features vary across avian taxonomy. And they may even start wondering whether that bird-book taxonomy accurately reflect the true evolutionary relationships. They'll hear the Yellow-rumped warblers thin, high-pitched calls and song, and they'll hear songs of other warblers and other birds, and eventually they'll realize that they can tell that a call is a warbler, even if they don't know what species. So they'll have learned that vocalisations are correlated with phylogeny. Perhaps they'll wonder whether birds vocalisations are arbitrary or not: they might end up learning about the notion of sexual selection, and also the fact that birds living near fast-flowing water (Kingfisher, Dippers, Wagtails) have strikingly loud and sharp high-pitched calls which can be heard over water (so not arbitrary sexual selection) and maybe they'll learn that in some species, studies have shown that females prefer males with more complex songs. The bird-book / app they use to carry out their hobby shows them geographic ranges, and which species are migratory. They'll learn not to look for warblers in the winter, and hence they'll learn which birds are migratory and which not, and how that varies over avian taxonomy, and it will lead to many questions about what can be learned from these phylogenetic and geographic patterns versus what is just random. Of course, what you said is true of some people, but the general statistical characterization of birdwatching is the opposite: identifying species is the starting point for virtually all field studies of biological organisms, and of course there is a huge statistical tendency for people who know what species they are looking at to end up learning more natural history and biology than those who are oblivious to it all.