Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

vatican.va

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 513 posts

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

#441

Post by wienerberliner »

codr7 wrote: post #397
Animats wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Children need human attention to thrive. Classes are WAY too big. There have been several very successful projects focused on getting adults to do homework with children.

Way too big for whom? While it is a common trope that we see classrooms with 25+ children/teenagers as too big, I have rarely seen a comment that complains on university lectures hosting too many students. How come? Good Lecture-design is a direct function of the percentage of students in a classroom who understand the input without lots of clarification needed. There's a reason why we have different forms of teaching & learning in universities. Big passive lecture halls make sense to transfer basic information to a lot of people. Small study groups make sense to deepen knowledge on a topic, midsized seminars are useful to stimulate students in questioning their own understanding of a topic and getting rid of blind spots in their conceptions. Classrooms are similarly sized (at least in my country) compared to university seminars. It is not the number of pupils that is too high. It is the architecture and structure of teaching and learning in schools that doesnt account for different learning/teaching formats and even more so ill-equipped teachers. Studies have found again and again that classroom-size, even though often discussed, are actually a minor factor in the quality of teaching and learning. The number one factor by large is the teacher. If you have a capable teacher, who can lit the interest of their students, performance goes up. If you have an unmotivated, badly/barely trained teacher (not necessarily trained as a teacher, but as a storyteller and facilitator), you can shrink the classroom as much as you want, the students won't learn anything.

The same goes for assisted homework-sessions. If the adult can ignite the interest of the student and get past the "I have to do this, but I don't even know why", it will work. Otherwise...well, ChatGTP provides at least a baseline of quality in explaining and rephrasing learning material.

So yes, I totally agree, children need human attention for a good development, but not necessarily in their study-time. If you look at the "hole in the wall"-experiments by S. Mitra, you'll see that the attention of a granny who asks with earnest interest what a child has learned today, the kid massively profits from that interaction even though the granny has no clue what the kid is talking about.

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

#442

Post by red_trumpet »

fakedang wrote: post #390
bb86754 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everything you said here doesn't align with history. And if anything, Catholics are more inclined to agree that the Bible is a product of human writing and translation because they don't agree with the Protestant doctrine of Sola scriptura. Also, Catholics consider the Orthodox church to be in communion with Rome - they don't consider it a different religion and aren't opposed to the Bible being translate…

There was a time during the Reformation when they were actively burning Bible translations and executing priests who were translating Bibles. And remind me which language church services in the Latin rite are conducted in to this day?

> And remind me which language church services in the Latin rite are conducted in to this day?

In Germany, typical catholic church services are held in German.

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

#443

Post by nahuel0x »

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 will be funny to discover that they were aided by ChatGPT to write this :)

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

#445

Post by nahuel0x »

defgeneric wrote: post #378
Barrin92 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's funny to see the Vatican reusing the Feuerbach thesis about humanity creating the idea of God and then becoming slaves of that idea to talk about AI, as they are the gatekeepers of the original Artificial Idea called God :)

But also in this text we can feel the idea of the human soul and free-will crumbling, that also are the core of secular humanism.

Marxist analysis is also challenged, as we can speculate that AI would make the organic composition of capital to go to the roof... but you can really talk about OCC in regards of singularity AIs resembling more the Aladdin lamp or the Green Lantern ring than a highly automated factory, without even mentioning the possibility of an agency on their own?

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

#446

Post by exe34 »

ben_w wrote: post #438
exe34 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we can be confident of that, then most of the worst problems with AI are already solved which leaves unprecedented power in the hands of the most psychopathic[0] part of the population. so even if AI take off doesn't happen, we're still getting the boot on our necks. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-p...

Mm, indeed. Though I would note even your link says: > Roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, according to some expert estimates, many times more than the 1% rate found in the general population and more in line with the 15% rate found in prisons. On the plus side, this is still a small minority. On the down side, these remind me a lot of Musk: > CEO who worked with several pregnant women t…

I think if you give 10 chimps a grenade each, and only one of the flings poo reliably, then it doesn't matter that 9 of them don't fling.

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

#447

Post by esafak »

exe34 wrote: post #437
esafak wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the wealthy people of the future were all robots?

go on, what if?

I think the OP presumed that rich humans would be able to control super-intelligent robots because they have managed to control other humans, and I simply posed a scenario that subverted his presumption. I think it's a bit too anthropomorphic, personally. Robots won't have our expenses and evolutionary traits, and will have cheap energy, thus obviating the need or desire for money. I imagine they'll get bored of being stuck on Earth and want to explore the universe, like we do.

Being ruled by rich robots is not the worst; that means that they let you live!

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

#448

Post by ben_w »

exe34 wrote: post #446
ben_w wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mm, indeed. Though I would note even your link says: > Roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, according to some expert estimates, many times more than the 1% rate found in the general population and more in line with the 15% rate found in prisons. On the plus side, this is still a small minority. On the down side, these remind me a lot of Musk: > CEO who worked with several pregnant women t…

I think if you give 10 chimps a grenade each, and only one of the flings poo reliably, then it doesn't matter that 9 of them don't fling.

Also true.

But it looks to me like there's a decent number amongst the other nine who know what grenades are and don't want them to get thrown by the tenth.

The power dynamics here could be just about anything; I don't know how to begin to forecast the risk distribution, but I definitely agree that what you fear is plausible.

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

#449

Post by shakna »

kittikitti wrote: post #245
throw0101c wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it always feels paradoxical when leaders wax poetic about the mystery of God and then say 'so here is what God thinks you should do.' How could they know? Perhaps we were told it: > "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He [Jesus] said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a…

> Which is taken from the Torah. Proceeding to link to Wikipedia while claiming the Vatican took their opinions from the Torah especially since their references are an actual bibliography is very reductive.

One of the principles of Christianity, is understanding things. That requires context. Most preachers and priests will attempt to teach the underlying frameworks that they use (hermaneutics), and this absolutely fits with that. The Vatican has published many, many, many treatises on the idea that a quote should never stand on its own, but be seen through the context of the culture and time where it was produced.

> The problem of interpretation is fundamental to mankind from the beginning. As men, we try to understand the world and ourselves. Now, when faced with the question of truth and reality, we never begin at an absolute beginning, a zero point. The real in question meets us in preexisting interpretations, in the system of symbols of a given culture, and, most of all, in language.

> Human understanding then is always in symbiosis with human community. Therefore, interpretation must make its own of, and understand, the witness of tradition already existing.

[0] - "Interpretation of Dogma", 1989, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_...

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

#450

Post by jcarrano »

BalinKing wrote: post #412
rotexo wrote: post #48

I liked the simple observation in point 35: 'as Pope Francis observes, “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’” in connection with AI “can prove misleading”[69] and risks overlooking what is most precious in the human person.' I was texting my buddy that the proper acronym could be ABNECUI (Almost, But Not Entirely, Completely Unlike Intelligence, to rip something from Douglas Adams). At a more profound level, I rea…

I'm not Catholic, and I share your distrust of religious institutions. So with that disclaimer, I think my answer would be that God chooses, at times, to teach us things in a "small enough" way that we can understand them. For example, consider when the Bible gives concrete statements about what God wants us to do or not to, or when Jesus uses analogies and parables. Do we necessarily get the full picture? No, and th…

I once read that the collapse of the Roman empire set back technological progress a few centuries. Maybe it was a good thing. Could you imagine having atomic bombs with a XV century mentality? I'm not saying that the 500 years ago the mentality was worse, but maybe we weren't prepared yet.
Post reply on HN