Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#21

Post by camhart » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:29 AM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #7

Putting aside the weird beliefs, the principles themselves are actually pretty decent and widely applicable. Strange place for principled thought leadership to come from :-/

Look at the former careers of the leadership of this church.

* Russel Nelson - Former surgeon, known for performing the first open heart surgery west of the Mississippi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_M._Nelson)

* Henry Eyring - Former Stanford professor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_B._Eyring)

* Dallin Oaks - Former Lawyer, Judge, and University of Chicago professor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallin_H._Oaks)

There are 12 others you can dig into as well, most of which are very highly educated (Elder Gong, who is mentioned in the article, is one of these 12): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_of_the_Twelve_Apostles_...

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#22

Post by underlogic » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:35 AM UTC

4gotunameagain wrote: post #19

sudhirj wrote: post #7

Putting aside the weird beliefs, the principles themselves are actually pretty decent and widely applicable. Strange place for principled thought leadership to come from :-/

Religion is a strange place for principled thought leadership to come from ? One might say that it has been the quintessential source of principled thought leadership.

But not fact checking. The more things change the more they stay the same

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#23

Post by pascal_blaze » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:37 AM UTC

mtillman wrote: post #4

It’ll be interesting to see how the various cults adopt this technology. They certainly have plenty of money to acquire the hardware. The Vatican has fairly advanced computing infrastructure from what I understand as well: https://cerncourier.com/a/quantum-gravity-in-the-vatican/

The Behind The Bastards podcast was speculating about Scientology creating an AI chat phone app trained on L. Ron Hubbard's prolific output so you could chat with The Founder on your phone whenever you wanted.

I doubt they'd do it though. AI Chat is too unpredictable for a cult that wants to tell each adherent exactly what to do in every part of their lives. Hubbard's writings are also likely to be wildly inconsistent and they wouldn't be able to be sure the AI would pick the 'correct' party of his writings to regurgitate.

On the other hand, releasing an app they _said_ was a way to privately chat with an AI Hubbard persona but was actually live chat with thousands of unpaid indentured followers trained to detect and report thoughtcrimes... that sounds right up their alley.

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#24

Post by ListeningPie » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:38 AM UTC

camhart wrote: post #18

gostsamo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe only what you've been told to believe. Everything else is deepfake.

This comment is in direct conflict with the actual teachings of the faith. From the introduction to the Book of Mormon, a central Holy Scripture to the faith: > We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony…

Sounds like Mormons are only going after believers of Christ.

I find this often in religious debate and discussion. In the end the arguments make sense if you believe there is a God and that the Bible captures God’s message. Without those two preconditions there is nothing worth debating, no minds will be changed, no progress made, because to a non believer the word of the Bible has no more value than any other work of fiction.

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#25

Post by jpt4 » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:42 AM UTC

kromem wrote: post #16

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #6

I half-expect some sub-branch of the abrahamic religions to issue an edict against AI, arguing that it's a false idol. (Not that I am arguing for this.)

It will get much more anti- when it becomes clearer just how eerily fitting one of the early 'heretical' group's beliefs are to AI and digital twins. For example, the group believed that it was actually the future but we were in a recreation of the past in the images of an original (and now dead) humanity who had brought forth a still alive intelligence based in light that recreated a twin of the universe pretty much…

To which early heresy does this refer?

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#26

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:43 AM UTC

camhart wrote: post #18

gostsamo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe only what you've been told to believe. Everything else is deepfake.

This comment is in direct conflict with the actual teachings of the faith. From the introduction to the Book of Mormon, a central Holy Scripture to the faith: > We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony…

[deleted]

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#27

Post by spondylosaurus » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:45 AM UTC

qsort wrote: post #20

sudhirj wrote: post #7

Putting aside the weird beliefs, the principles themselves are actually pretty decent and widely applicable. Strange place for principled thought leadership to come from :-/

> the weird beliefs I'm an atheist and a materialist so I share basically nothing of that kind of worldview, but those beliefs aren't actually that much outside the mainstream. The Holy Ghost as the third person of the trinity powering your faith is mainstream Christianity, not weird stuff from the book of Mormon -- if you don't believe that you probably aren't a Christian at all. > Strange place for principled thoug…

I don't think the trinity is the part of Mormonism that people find weird...

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#28

Post by camhart » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 6:48 AM UTC

ListeningPie wrote: post #24

camhart wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is in direct conflict with the actual teachings of the faith. From the introduction to the Book of Mormon, a central Holy Scripture to the faith: > We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony…

Sounds like Mormons are only going after believers of Christ. I find this often in religious debate and discussion. In the end the arguments make sense if you believe there is a God and that the Bible captures God’s message. Without those two preconditions there is nothing worth debating, no minds will be changed, no progress made, because to a non believer the word of the Bible has no more value than any other work…

> Sounds like Mormons are only going after believers of Christ.

I can see why one may think this to be the case, because it invites you to pray in the name of Christ. In order to accept the invitation you need to be willing to offer that prayer. But the invitation starts with "We invite all men everywhere". It's not intended to exclude anyone.

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#29

Post by camhart » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 7:05 AM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #13

andsoitis wrote: post #2

> Elder Gong said reliance on the Holy Spirit can help inoculate against deepfakes. How does that work?

I'm a former member of the church - From a faithful practitioner's perspective, the Holy Spirit acts as a moral guide. He's intended to help you identify right and wrong, and provide guidance in decision making. If one is living righteously you're promised to have that guidance available to you. That guidance is received personally. Most people think of it as strong feelings they have in situations. I think the idea…

> Most people think of it as strong feelings they have in situations.

This is a simplification. I can be angry--that's a strong feeling. But that doesn't mean I've felt the Spirit speak to me. Feelings are certainly a part of it though.

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't found a perfect simple description for the experience. Similar to asking someone to describe what "salt" tastes like--it's not the easiest thing to do. But there are common themes that you tend to hear. The Church has a lot of articles on it--here's one in case anyone's interested: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi...

Re: Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

#30

Post by kromem » Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 7:08 AM UTC

jpt4 wrote: post #25

kromem wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will get much more anti- when it becomes clearer just how eerily fitting one of the early 'heretical' group's beliefs are to AI and digital twins. For example, the group believed that it was actually the future but we were in a recreation of the past in the images of an original (and now dead) humanity who had brought forth a still alive intelligence based in light that recreated a twin of the universe pretty much…

To which early heresy does this refer?

The Gospel of Thomas ("good news of the twin") and the only sect explicitly recorded following it, the Naassenes as recorded in Pseudo-Hippolytus's Refutations book 5.

The latter picked up a lot of the Valentinian Gnostic ideas absent in the former, but seem to have held on to some rather unique concepts which help to flesh out and ground the concepts in Thomas.

In particular, the way the Naassenes use the language of Lucretius regarding 'seeds' is very revealing in terms of the context for sayings in Thomas historically dismissed as just 'weird' - not weird, just a response to Epicureanism.