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Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

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Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#181

Post by throw0101c »

bananaflag wrote: post #128
ilaksh wrote: post #18

I'm an atheist, but most of what I have heard from popes in recent years seems like sound and possibly needed advice. Also, even though I feel AI and robotics are very important for progressing humanity, I think that much of the world has long since lost a proper sense of intrinsic human value. It's really gone from overt exploitation to slightly more mild exploitation where we pretend the system is really merit base…

> I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" This is the position of the Catholic Church, so don't expect anything different. My hope is that, within those boundaries, he may find something interesting and meaningful to say.

Non-human intelligences has been considered over the centuries / millennia:

* https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/aliens-and-...

I'm not sure there's a 'definitive' statement as of yet as to AI, but things tend to be leaning towards needing to be biological:

* https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/can-artificial-intelligen...

* https://www.ncregister.com/interview/the-mind-and-the-machin...

Not sure if this means carbon-based or not:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...

Some thoughts from a philosophy professor (who is Catholic):

> 2. “But neurons do what logic gates do. So we know that computers can be intelligent, because they are essentially doing what our brains are doing.”

> No, they aren’t. True, there are causal relations between neurons that are vaguely analogous to the causal relations holding between logic gates and other elements of an electronic computer. But that is where the similarity ends, and it is a similarity that is far less significant than the differences between the cases. Logic gates are designed by electrical engineers in a way that will make them suitable for interpretation as implementing logical functions. No one is doing anything like that with neurons. In particular, no one is assigning an interpretation as implementing a logical function, or any other interpretation for that matter, to neurons. (The point is simple and obvious, but commonly overlooked precisely because it is so obvious, like the tip of your nose that you never notice precisely because it is right in front of you.)

> That brings us to a second difference […]

* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/artificial-intellig...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Feser

He has a few books, including one entitled Philosophy of Mind (A Beginner's Guide), so has thought about this.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#182

Post by graemep »

throw0101c wrote: post #181
bananaflag wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" This is the position of the Catholic Church, so don't expect anything different. My hope is that, within those boundaries, he may find something interesting and meaningful to say.

Non-human intelligences has been considered over the centuries / millennia: * https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/aliens-and-... I'm not sure there's a 'definitive' statement as of yet as to AI, but things tend to be leaning towards needing to be biological: * https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/can-artificial-intelligen... * https://www.ncregister.com/interview/the-mind-and-the-machin... Not sure if this…

With regard to souls its intelligences vs animals rather than human vs alien intelligences. I doubt there will be a definitive position in AGI until we known what a true AI is like.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#183

Post by losvedir »

zeckalpha wrote: post #32
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #29

Why does this seem like it came out of a meeting where someone kept saying "how can we leverage AI?"

Not at all. The Rerum Novarum timing is too intentional.

Even more, the pope took his "Leo" name explicitly to indicate he would be doing this.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#184

Post by graemep »

analog31 wrote: post #169
swatcoder wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's telling how blithely you're missing the point of what the pope(s) mean by human value. Their intended meaning is that far gone from modern consciousness, even among people who meant to champion some kind of human value themselves. They're not talking about the economic value of humans or even the psychological value of humans as subjects with experiences and a right to liberty or care or something. The idea they…

>>> It's the human value that welcomed slaves, prostitutes, wretches, merchants and kings as peers in something grander than economy or state or lineage or tribe or creed. This sounds a lot like an appeal to democracy, yet it often seems that religion is at odds with democracy in our world. And given the choice between living in a religious society or a democratic one, I'd choose the democracy any day of the week. No…

Modern democracy developed in societies dominated by religious values and at least partly because of those values.

What you describe as an appeal to democracy could also be described as a statement of Christian values. The idea that every individual matters and is loved by God is a core belief. There are some quotes in my other comments, but I think this is worth adding. https://biblehub.com/galatians/3-28.htm

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#185

Post by losvedir »

torben-friis wrote: post #125
joenot443 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the case of Anthropic, it shows they’re at the very least willing to engage with the most important people in the philosophical and theological realm they’re in the midst of disrupting. When the question asked is roughly of “can an AI ever be considered a human soul?”, there isn’t a philosopher alive whose individual opinion would be considered more meaningful than Pope Leo’s. It’s unlikely that the church…

I don't think you got my point. I'm not criticizing anthropic for deciding to engage with the pope, I'm pointing at the state we're at where a for profit company is doing individually the work of understanding how their disruptive tech should fit in the wider world. Saving distances, it's like Glock engaging with spiritual leaders to figure out when it's ethical to kill. This should not be their area of decision, and…

I think Glock sounds silly because it's a relatively small weapon and company. But I wouldn't think it at all strange if you used, say, Oppenheimer engaging with the pope around nuclear weapons at the start of the nuclear age. Or maybe even better Enrico Fermi when he was developing nuclear reactors, since those had both the potential for cheap, clean energy and the spectre of nuclear weapons, which feels more analogous to the state of AI right now to me.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#186

Post by AlanYx »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #171
bananaflag wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" This is the position of the Catholic Church, so don't expect anything different. My hope is that, within those boundaries, he may find something interesting and meaningful to say.

I've recently started listening to a podcast from a retired Anglican Bishop, "Ask N.T. Wright Anything". IIUC, he claims that the concept of "soul" is something that the wasn't really present in the Jewish worldview of Jesus' time. Rather, it's something that later theologians (Aquinas?) picked up from Greek philosophy (Platonism?). I wonder if that means Wright would have a different take on the whole "only humans h…

>he claims that the concept of "soul" is something that the wasn't really present in the Jewish worldview of Jesus' time

That's a broadly accepted take among religious historians, although it's off by a half century, roughly, if you include the Jewish diaspora. Philo of Alexandria did begin to integrate Jewish scripture with Greek philosophy on the soul during his lifetime.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#187

Post by dfxm12 »

KoolKat23 wrote: post #138
ilaksh wrote: post #18

I'm an atheist, but most of what I have heard from popes in recent years seems like sound and possibly needed advice. Also, even though I feel AI and robotics are very important for progressing humanity, I think that much of the world has long since lost a proper sense of intrinsic human value. It's really gone from overt exploitation to slightly more mild exploitation where we pretend the system is really merit base…

This is a great point, further to your point on AI. Another perhaps worse offender is our focus on "the economy", at times the focus is always on "what about the economy?!" Forgetting "the economy" is merely a tool intended to improve the human condition. Sometimes I feel people lose sight of this original intention, be it unintentional or otherwise.

People are coerced into losing sight of this via capitalist-backed mass media, think tanks and politicians. In the context of popes in recent years as OP says, Pope Francis was particularly an opponent of trickle down economics and consumerism. Leo doesn't seem to be much different, based on his continuation of Francis' critique of modern capitalism as an economy of exclusion.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#188

Post by graemep »

epolanski wrote: post #172
nilkn wrote: post #26

I'm not religious and haven't been since 2008. However, the world today is very different from then. It's fragmented, far more authoritarian, much more dangerous, with "us vs them" mentalities just gaining more and more traction in general in so many countries. There are almost no political leaders left in the world offering a vision that is distinct from mere survival instinct or domination or some mixture of the tw…

I have long come to the conclusion, backed by data, that presidential and semi-presidential systems are deeply flawed. There's a reason why not a single country turning authoritarian in the last 50 years has been a representative parliamentary democracy. The last one has been Sri Lanka in the 70s. Not a single one since then. Electing single individuals to power instead of parties and coalitions is a terrible idea. T…

> The last one has been Sri Lanka in the 70s

Sri Lanka did not become authoritarian in the 70s. It did adopt a presidential system.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#189

Post by graemep »

tclancy wrote: post #157
pimlottc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It made me think that the founder wrote their own encyclical with AI

“Claude, today you will be speaking ex cathedra …” Actually I may try that as a prompt. Last week I was having git commit messages all be in iambic tetrameter to see if anyone noticed but it annoyed me to death after the first two. Now to look up “load-bearing” in Latin, just in case.

Funniest HN comment on religious topic ever. Literal LOL.

Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25

#190

Post by graemep »

buntsai wrote: post #179
levocardia wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intentional parallels are hard to miss: - Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum; current Pope Leo XIV chose his name as an explicit gesture to his nominative predecessor - This encyclical is a return to the earlier tradition of latin names (Magnifica Humanitas) for encyclicals, as opposed to many of Pope Francis' which used Italian (Laudato si') - The official date it was signed was 135 years to the day since Rerum N…

Don't forget the encyclical with the German ("Mit brennender Sorge") rather than Latin (Ardens curarum?) title written by Pius XII and promulgated by Pius XI.

German text too. That was in exceptional circumstances to enable rapid secret distribution of the text
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