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Magnifica Humanitas

vatican.va

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Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#711

Post by jdelfuego »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #695
jdelfuego wrote: post #679

I find the Amish approach to technology a very interesting one. As I understand it, they're not in principle "against" modern technology, but they carefully evaluate the potential impact of every new technology on the community. The decision is a purposeful one, governed by the criterion of the common good of the community, which in my opinion is much healthy than our free-for-all. In this respect I find this encycli…

> But in this document everything seems to be based in the concept of "human dignity", which, however useful or beautiful, has no roots in Catholic tradition: it's a purely secular idea. I'm not a philosopher or theologian, but this just seems wrong to me, at least when taken in the context of the entire encyclical and the history of Catholicism. That "God created humanity in his own image" has always been a central…

I think I get your point. The issue with which I disagree is that it remains a principle of Catholic thought that it avails nothing to man being created in the image of God without conversion and grace. A piece of moral guidance coming from the Pope which remains at a natural level (i.e. the danger of becoming "less human" which you identify as Leo's point) runs dangerously close to ignoring that the Catholic faith insists that the end of man is supernatural, not natural only. It'd be a good thing if the human dignity of some is preserved thanks to the discussions this encyclical might raise; but that's not enough, for "what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world and lose himself and cast away himself?” (Luke 9:25).

My issue with this encyclical is that, interesting discussion on ethical and philosophical aspects of AI notwithstanding, I still would like to hear the Catholic voice on AI: a voice that actually believes that man is not for this world, and that only grace through faith in Christ can save him. And this is not it, I think.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#712

Post by alecco »

nickvec wrote: post #417
alecco wrote: post #390

Yes it's a very dangerous concentration of power. But I don't believe strong words or proposing regulation by just another elite would change much. Please join/help open source groups doing small + local or distributed models. There's a lot to do. Support truly open source companies. Let's walk the walk.

Which open source companies would you recommend supporting?

From top of my head:

https://nousresearch.com/ They do much more than Hermes

https://pluralis.ai/ has distributed models the network owns

And many others filling very different niches.

I would also count DeepSeek because they publish and share so much. Their new caching prices are very good for not that bad models. Last week I needed to generate content via API and I spent literally $3.40 where before I would've paid easily $200. But you have to connect directly as it seems OpenRouter messes up caching somehow.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#713

Post by fragmede »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #676
zb wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CFC refrigerants are the canonical example.

But I think the action regulating CFCs is kinda what I'm talking about. As a consumer in the US, I don't ever remember having to sacrifice on my refrigerator or A/C - heck, I generally remember those appliances going down a lot in price from the 80s to the early 00s. So my argument is not that we can't regulate technologies, but that we only do so when it becomes "technologically convenient". I think the comparison o…

The question isn't what what you're experience of the 1980's, but what would have an alternate 1980's with flagrant use of freon been like? Freon was used everywhere, it's how air-conditioning worked back then. That technology was held back because of the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica. With a lot of money poured into researching alternatives, alternatives were found, but humanity deliberately held back use of freon for the greater good of humanity.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#714

Post by richk449 »

logicchains wrote: post #377
devilbunny wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Roman Catholic Church has a lot of things wrong with it, now and in the past, but it’s a human institution older than almost any other, and it’s composed of a lot of very intelligent people. Agree or disagree with them, but a papal encyclical is almost always worth reading and understanding.

[flagged]

It is also possible that the enlightenment only happened because of protestant reformation, which only happened because of the power and abuses of the Catholic Church. So in a way, we have the Catholic Church to thank for modern society.

The reformation was highly religious of course, but it was also about reading original sources, devolving power from a central authority, and allowing individuals to discover the truth.

Sometimes I think that the catholic church is like Leto II in Dune - ruling people so that they will rebel in a way that there can never again be a central power structure.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#715

Post by Animats »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #689
Animats wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electricity. Eventually, it was everywhere, used by everybody, and a background to society. Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world.

Thanks! This answer was actually the one that I found most helpful. I feel like some of the other responses to my comment were talking about how we regulate lots of other tech, but that wasn't really my point - I understand that we regulate tech, but only when it becomes "economically convenient". But your last sentence "Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world" really struck me. It's a great point, and TBH…

> Time for me to go research the early history of electrification.

Yes. Electric utilities were at one time quite powerful, around 1900 or so. Read up on Samuel Insull [1], the early history of antitrust, the Utility Company Holding Act, and the history of public utility regulation. Many countries just nationalized the electrical power industry. The US didn't, but regulated it strictly for most of a century. As is typical, this followed a financial disaster.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Insull

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#716

Post by [deleted] »

jfengel wrote: post #26
qsort wrote: post #15

I have only skimmed it, will definitely read carefully as soon as I have time. I will say, as an atheist, that regarding technology the Vatican has some of the best takes of any institution/government I have ever seen.

Much of Western thought traces back to serious work by Church theologians. Even atheists are strongly influenced by the patterns they set down. The Catholic Church, for all its many faults, retains a serious intellectual tradition. (In fact I think atheists should make more effort to learn about the vast diversity of other faiths. It's very narrow to be atheist only about the Abrahamic deity. You end up incorporating…

[deleted]

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#717

Post by femto »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #689
Animats wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electricity. Eventually, it was everywhere, used by everybody, and a background to society. Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world.

Thanks! This answer was actually the one that I found most helpful. I feel like some of the other responses to my comment were talking about how we regulate lots of other tech, but that wasn't really my point - I understand that we regulate tech, but only when it becomes "economically convenient". But your last sentence "Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world" really struck me. It's a great point, and TBH…

The electricity infrastructure where I was live was owned by the government. It's only in the last 15 years it was sold off to private interests [1]. I suspect you will find that the electricity systems in many regions are still government owned.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_Commission_of_New_...

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#718

Post by dyauspitr »

qsort wrote: post #15

I have only skimmed it, will definitely read carefully as soon as I have time. I will say, as an atheist, that regarding technology the Vatican has some of the best takes of any institution/government I have ever seen.

The Vatican as a religious institution has the best takes on most things. I only really disagree with them on their view on abortion and frankly I can see where they are coming from on that one. It’s just that I think that not allowing abortion leads to having a lot of unwanted kids that suffer a lot through their lives.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#719

Post by alecco »

ai_slop_hater wrote: post #604
alecco wrote: post #390

Yes it's a very dangerous concentration of power. But I don't believe strong words or proposing regulation by just another elite would change much. Please join/help open source groups doing small + local or distributed models. There's a lot to do. Support truly open source companies. Let's walk the walk.

> There's a lot to do. How can I contribute?

Join some Discord servers of open source projects/startups. Hang out and make friends. Figure out where and how you can fit best.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#720

Post by insane_dreamer »

Animats wrote: post #658
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

Electricity. Eventually, it was everywhere, used by everybody, and a background to society. Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world.

Right. And the only way to stop AI from ruling the world is to regulate it like a utility.
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