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<< “Oh, most wise GPT, please take these words into the heart of your GPU cluster.” Amusingly, I was doing some mild chatting with gpt on origins of various re

<< “Oh, most wise GPT, please take these words into the heart of your GPU cluster.” Amusingly, I was doing some mild chatting with gpt on origins of various religious practices and, depending on the next few years, the quote from article may not seem that far fetched. There is already a level of dumbing down process that was present prior to LLMs entering the scene, but that process has been heavily accelerated. Don't get me wrong, I actually like LLMs. I am, however, mildly hesitant over the impact on humanity as a whole. This is likely the first time where I consider idiocracy to be a plausible outcome.

TeMPOraL 1y ago
There's the common, and IMO boring, sociological take on AI/Singularity vs. religion: humans are so infantile they prefer to worship advanced technology than to understand it. I.e.: we turn anything too difficult into religion. Then there's the more interesting, speculative take: sufficiently advanced systems acquire properties associated with deities, such us being everpresent, acting in mysterious way, and seemingly omnipotent or at least omniscient in limited domains. Related, per Arthur C. Clarke, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". I.e. we turn things into religion when it's pragmatic. Then there's the more speculative fiction take: maybe it's not the first time humanity has been there, maybe propensity for religious practice and thinking is a consequence of humanity's previous, otherwise forgotten, dealings with advanced technology :).