I'd put my money on this won't replicate.
My intuition was the same, but they are doing this the way you should: Pre-registered, sufficient N for small effect sizes, comparative across countries. I'm not so sure it does not replicate.
Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
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Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#12Relating a statistics language model to religion is ... beyond words.
I think that's the point. ;)
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#13Looks like the article is behind a paywall, so I only read the abstract, but it looks that there is a significant flaw in this study. There are really many really various religions out there, and the results _might_ depend heavily on the choice of religion. As a thought experiment, consider a fictional example religion where A.I. is treated as a god, compared to the religions of the Dune universe (where A.I. is a tab…
Different religions is potentially interesting; though now I'm also wondering if this is cultural "God salience" or serious "God salience" (the way the British do Easter and Christmas even though mostly not taking it seriously).
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"""Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate that the reduced reliance on humans is driven by a heightened feeling of smallness when God is salient"""
I'd expect this to be less true for pantheons.
"""followed by a recognition of human fallibility."""
In pantheons, I'd expect this to vary by the nature of the god/goddess in question; Greek revivalism probably has different answers when considering Athena vs. Dionysus.
"""Study 5 addresses the similarity in mysteriousness between God and AI as an alternative, but unsupported, explanation."""
Yeah, that feels plausible.
"X and Y are mysterious, perhaps they're the same?" seems common for any {X, Y} — AI, consciousness, quantum mechanics, god, evolution, prime numbers, art, …
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#14I'd put my money on this won't replicate.
attention-grabbing headline combining a hype topic and a controversial topic... published in PNAS... and it's about priming... doesn't inspire confidence.
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#15What does thinking about god mean?
I think he doesn't exist, is that also thinking about god?
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#16I no longer believe in...these types of experiments.
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#17Entirely separate from the truth value or consequences of religious belief: I think this paper makes sense. If you think of the God concept as a kind of externalized decision-making system that enables “cognitive work” that is beyond human capabilities - or the perception of human capabilities- then acceptance of AI is a similar phenomenon. On a similar note, I haven’t done the research myself, but I have a solid fee…
Can you eloborate your last hypothesis about religion and math?
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#18In the game Deus Ex (2000) you can find a secret room that contains an artificial intelligence you can talk to. The dialogue tries to make connections between religious deities and artificial intelligences. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1glq98/deus_ex2000_a...
Morpheus: "The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms."
JC Denton: "Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence."
Morpheus: "God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary."
JC Denton: "No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera."
Morpheus: "The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment."
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#19I no longer believe in...these types of experiments.
I still do. Both cases, acceptance of god/ai is about (blind, if you will) trust. That the one correlates with the other doesnt supprise me.
Re: Thinking about God increases acceptance of AI in decision-making
#20This matches my prejudices. Namely that 'thinking about god' is similar to the Eliza effect, ie., a kind of projection of consciousness onto the world. Animals solve 'the problem of other minds' by assuming that everything is like them, ie., conscious. And then walking back from this presumption upon evidence to the contrary. This kinda mild 'default schizophrenia' is something I've always been allergic to. (I imagin…
You're starting to sound a little like Terry yourself towards the end there. How do you see a religion in enthusiasm around AI, and worse nothing else at all?
I think you're stretching the word religion very far from its meaning. No one is deriving any meaning or analogy to the world from AI beyond the answers to technical questions. Certainly no one attributes moral authority to AI?
The hype is about its applied value, not some new insight into the world.