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Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

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Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#371

Post by mvieira38 »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #264
martin1975 wrote: post #222

Reminds me of one of my favorite ST: TNG episodes, "The Measure of a Man" - I urge anyone who read this note to watch this episode. Ultimately it comes down to the question of whether machines, regardless of how smart they can be made to appear, even if they pass the Turing test with flying colors, are imbued with a soul. In the episode, the Enterprise JAG officer, questions whether we humans "have souls." C.S. Lewis…

That's a great episode, but the question of whether anything has a soul is ill defined. Until someone can come up with a rigorous definition of what a soul is, the question itself has no meaning.

There are plenty of very rigorous definitions of what a soul is, though. Judging by your screen name I take you're already familiar with Aristotle, so what's your issue with his hierarchy of souls (vegetative, sensitive and rational)? Each one of those is as well defined as it can be within his logical system.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#372

Post by mrguyorama »

aeneasmackenzie wrote: post #124
mrguyorama wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Papal infallibility is not invoked that often. Here’s an example, in section 4 (wherefore…) [0] In particular papal infallibility was not involved in the Protestants’ complaints, and the response to their complaints (Trent) was a council and again has nothing to do with papal infallibility. The pope was also an absolute monarch at the time, but protestants didn’t care about that aspect. 0: https://www.vatican.va/cont…

I must confess that my knowledge of christian history from 300AD to 1800AD is what you can get from a few paragraphs in middle school social studies.

I was trying to allude to the indulgences with my "bullshit" but I failed.

I tend to focus more on the great awakenings and all the horrible things they led to in how they influenced America.

I thought Protestants were also at some point very against the way the Catholic faith focused on "here's what god meant" rather than letting people interpret the bible themselves? Papal infallibility is just a part of that.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#373

Post by exe34 »

nickburns wrote: post #369
exe34 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a pointless metaphor if there's an army of armed drones keeping you out.

You seem to have pondered this metaphor at least at some length before. Me too. :) And yes, that's certainly a plausible hurdle.

the whole unpluggable thing doesn't make any more sense than saying every CEO has a Luigi out there - very few will ever get through.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#374

Post by teeth-gnasher »

svieira wrote: post #330
teeth-gnasher wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of Hell most popular is the “eternal conscious torment” view, which gives us the “don’t be bad or you’ll burn in Hell forever” perspective. That’s fairly new, and several other interpretations are just as biblical as it, if not more. Your quote for instance doesn’t explain what happens after the weeping and gnashing of teeth, some believe you become reunited with the Lord, others believe you are eliminated f…

"And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my childre…

[dead]

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#375

Post by buu700 »

lolinder wrote: post #226
grahamj wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books are written by people. It’s humans all the way down.

OP is giving the correct answer for the Catholic worldview. You and the Catholic Church are operating under completely different axioms, so there's no point in responding to someone's explanation of Catholic axioms by just repeating your own axioms more forcefully.

I think it's a more interesting approach to disregard the metaphysical claims, which are inherently unfalsifiable and thus irrelevant to life in this universe, and look at religious texts as constitutions governing human behavior and morality. The metaphysical bits are just a side note to help sell that social contract and give it a theoretical enforcement mechanism.

In other words, the relevant question isn't how some pastor "knows" that God says to do XYZ. Obviously they don't. The relevant question is whether and to what extent there's value to be extracted from the collective wisdom of generations of members of an institution whose history stretches back thousands of years.

Whether or not a literal god may have been involved at any point is irrelevant. Right now, we're very far removed from any such claimed involvement, looking at documents that have been written, cherry-picked, translated, rewritten, and reinterpreted many times by many different fallible humans. If the only meaning someone sees in religious guidance is its connection to a literal physical deity, they're in for an exercise in frustration from what is at best the world's longest game of telephone. I think it makes more sense to just accept a religion and its culture and teachings for what they are, and try to be the best person you can be without worrying about how the guy controlling the simulation we live in may choose to mete out rewards and punishments.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#376

Post by mrbungie »

leecoursey wrote: post #370

In case anyone is interested, here is ChatGPT's rebuttal: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qRIL_6X_Lctu1CWddC1yTKrq...

If you ask for a rebuttal you will get a rebuttal from ChatGPT, even if the most probable answer might be supportive or neutral. Ask an LLM and it will comply (if not censored).

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#377

Post by blindhippo »

Animats wrote: post #313
kittikitti wrote: post #284

I just want to appreciate how well written and thought out this was. I have spent countless hours reading over ethics on AI, especially from Big Tech sources, but this note is leaps beyond. I compare this to the disastrous letter that effectively knee-capped American AI all while proposing flimsy AI ethics within about 500 words ( https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experime... ). This should be anoth…

It is well thought out. The "AI Magna Carta" is a stretch, though. Some good insights: 60. Anthropomorphizing AI also poses specific challenges for the development of children, potentially encouraging them to develop patterns of interaction that treat human relationships in a transactional manner, as one would relate to a chatbot. Such habits could lead young people to see teachers as mere dispensers of information r…

It could be argued that the emergence of the web and search engines in particular has established this as a common pattern long before AI was around. I'm not convinced that AI represents a dramatic change to this behavior, though the point about anthropomorphizing AI likely acts as a magnifier.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#378

Post by defgeneric »

Barrin92 wrote: post #289
macrocosmos wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have many misconceptions about what Catholics actually believe. And then you seem to take exception to these misconceptions. So your exceptions are only with beliefs that exist in your own mind.

It's not really a misconception, this was Feuerbach's and also Nietzsche's or Stirner's criticism of Christianity. It projects human attributes on an ostensibly divine subject "othering" and worshipping them, in reality just attempting to sanctify humanity. (in Stirner's words creating Mensch (human/mankind) with a capital M". This is incredibly obvious in the psychology underpinning a lot of Christian beliefs, the M…

Exactly, this is alienation. Marx went on to describe the emergence of capital in history as another form of alienation.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#379

Post by zoogeny »

linguistbreaker wrote: post #128
simonw wrote: post #19

I enjoyed this bit - great use of the word "idolatry": ---- 104. Technology offers remarkable tools to oversee and develop the world's resources. However, in some cases, humanity is increasingly ceding control of these resources to machines. Within some circles of scientists and futurists, there is optimism about the potential of artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical form of AI that would match or sur…

While I agree with the thrust against deification and idolatry - these characterizations border on naive and myopic: "remember that AI is but a pale reflection of humanity" and "AI cannot possess many of the capabilities specific to human life" We just don't know yet. The philosophical and spiritual questions at hand should be asked for a future, hypothetical super-intelligence and the above characterizations lack im…

I think they are fair statements, but perhaps not saying what you think.

Plato covers a lot of this kind of thing and it is maybe useful to use his framework (since much of modern Catholicism has a healthy dose of Platonism). Both flowers and music can be called "beautiful" and there is some sense in which both partake in a universal "Beauty". Yet at the same time the nature of the beauty of flowers and music is distinct. This is a difficult paradox to contemplate.

And so it may be with Intelligence. There may be some Platonic form of Intelligence that both humans and AIs partake in, but there may be some aspect of the human manifestation of that form that will forever remain distinct to humans.

Of course, it is up to you how much you value the distinctness of that expression of the universal form. Catholic faith suggests that the particular distinctiveness of human expressions of these forms is "divine" in some sense. That is, it is our manifestation of the universal that is valuable, not the universal in and of itself.

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