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

Guiding Principles for the Mormon Church's Use of AI

newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 82 posts

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

#61

Post by wwweston »

blackhawkC17 wrote: post #37

A bit off-topic, but can a Mormon explain the reason why Mormons have a lot of kids? The simple answer would be religion, but even mainstream American Christians don't have kids at that level. I know a Mormon tech tycoon with 10 kids and another tycoon with 14 kids, lol

10 and 14 kids are outlier numbers by late 20th / 21st century Mormon standards. 4-6 is more common and 2-3 aren't uncommon.

There's probably a bit of ag heritage at work here (though the mountain west has definitely been leaving that behind for the last few decades).

The religious narrative is that it's (a) it's part of God's plan for your personal development & happiness and (b) it's a duty to give a good spiritual home with a father and mother part of the true faith to as many of God's children as possible.

It's probably objectively common (though hardly universal) that people report parenthood to be a crucible of personal growth and a source of meaning and satisfaction, and it's certainly arguable it's evolutionarily adaptive to be that way, so (a) checks out pretty well (though it's a little less clear how well particulars like "marry at 21" serve people).

(b) is as unfalsifiable as any faith, but much in the way one can say a faith discouraging reproduction is likely to have a lifespan close to a single generation, faiths that encourage it are likely to have better internal replacement and growth rates, which might be especially important if you're a minority faith with modest conversion success.

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

#62

Post by camhart »

nabla9 wrote: post #52
camhart wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

Money&Power is attraction for smart and educated people to get deep into internal power struggles of the Church. The Church has $265 billion in assets. Their power and influence goes way beyond that. The Ensign Peak portfolio alone is over $50 billion and they vote in board meetings. They suck money from their members with annual tithing, but they are now so wealthy that the overall church’s investment income now exc…

I get the sense you have some anger towards the faith, so I hesitate to respond. I'm not trying to argue with you. But I do want to address your points at least from my perspective.

> Money&Power is attraction

The leaders receive an annual "living expense" stipend. It's not publicly available, but there have been data leaks. The last data leak puts it at $130k in 2014 (estimated to be $178k in 2024). See https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/comp/. While this is a decent amount of money, given the educational/business success of most of the leadership it's likely less than most would have made had they not given up their career. Does that justify it? That's up to each person to decide. But given that there are ~17 million members of the faith, and 117 people receive the stipend, I think there are more lucrative approaches for making money. To be clear there are other paid employees of the Church too, though no local clergy are paid. If you walk into a typical church meeting on Sunday not a single person there is being paid. The employees work in IT/accounting/etc type roles that a large organization would have.

> The Church has $265 billion in assets. Their power and influence goes way beyond that. The Ensign Peak portfolio alone is over $50 billion and they vote in board meetings.

Investing is a good thing. It's what creates more/better jobs. Why shouldn't the investment managers vote in board meetings? They're acting as a wise investor by doing so.

> They suck money from their members with annual tithing

Members willingly donate as an act of faith. There isn't a bowl/hat or anything passed around. Donations are made predominantly online now too.

> they give only tiny fraction of their income to humanitarian work

I would like to see overall humanitarian aid increased, and from what I understand that is the goal. For context though, they donated > $1 billion in 2022. And this doesn't account for the countless hours members volunteer for free. The money alone is more than what's donated by every country on the earth aside from USA and Germany. See https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2022-annual... and https://www.statista.com/statistics/275597/largers-donor-cou....

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

#63

Post by camhart »

wwweston wrote: post #59
camhart wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of this faith and I've never heard anyone describe it this way. Feelings are involved, but there's more to it. See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi... .

I'm also of the faith and of course we don't describe it that way in most church discourse because it'd lose one of the most valued functions: framing human experience in a sacred narrative and privileging LDS participation and perspective. Probably not correct to chalk all transcendent experiences up to that, and sometimes church discourse also steers towards real effort in genuinely engaging fine points of recognit…

> the quality of self-reported holy spirit guidance is best case bell-curve shaped and the lower 50% slopes crazy This made me chuckle :D.

I'm trying to help others understand that it's not simply intuition. There is a significant distinction, at least according to my experience. It's a disservice to try and pass it off as such.

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

#64

Post by nabla9 »

camhart wrote: post #62
nabla9 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money&Power is attraction for smart and educated people to get deep into internal power struggles of the Church. The Church has $265 billion in assets. Their power and influence goes way beyond that. The Ensign Peak portfolio alone is over $50 billion and they vote in board meetings. They suck money from their members with annual tithing, but they are now so wealthy that the overall church’s investment income now exc…

I get the sense you have some anger towards the faith, so I hesitate to respond. I'm not trying to argue with you. But I do want to address your points at least from my perspective. > Money&Power is attraction The leaders receive an annual "living expense" stipend. It's not publicly available, but there have been data leaks. The last data leak puts it at $130k in 2014 (estimated to be $178k in 2024). See https://wido…

It's the control over that sum of money and power that is intoxicating.

The assets not under their name does not matter. Just like politicians, they have wast control and power.

> Members willingly donate as an act of faith.

And I admire them for that just as much as I admire Evangelical TV-pastors and pyramid scheme marketers. Mormonism was invented by a conman, so it's not surprise that they are good cowmen.

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

#65

Post by pliftkl »

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…

I have a Mormon neighbor who did his missionary work in Thailand. My wife is Thai, so he came by to chat with us once with some missionaries who had visited us. I spoke to him for a while about his experience in trying to evangelize to a country that is 90+% Buddhist, and in which Buddhism plays a huge role in Thai culture. What I found fascinating is that in Thailand, a Mormon missionary was pretty much on a level playing field with any other Christian missionary. If a Thai person was considering a flavor of Christianity, the Mormon church isn't particularly "fringe" in the way it might be perceived by a Christian who is listening to a Mormon missionary in the US.

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

#66

Post by frognumber »

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 Catholic Church was the center of European scholarship and science for most of the past two millennia, roughly through the mid-1800s.

Modern genetics was invented by Augustinian friar and abbot Gregor Mendel (1822-1884).

Where do you think the robes worn at university graduations come from?

Supporting scholarship has always been central to its mission. The difference is that 1850 was around when other establishments had enough resources to pass it. You might say that the Vatican might have "plenty of money to acquire the hardware," but they can't come close to competing with Google Research or OpenAI (especially when so many other things are part of its mission).

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

#67

Post by frognumber »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #39
camhart wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

It seems similar to ordinary "best judgement", "careful consideration", "wisdom" etc wrapped up in some externalizing language for the most part. not to trivialize that, it is quite a feat if you can reliably cultivate those qulaities at scale

A good description of this is in Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. It's worth reading. His thesis is roughly:

1) We have a moral sense which goes against what we want to do.

2) That sense is how the Spirit speaks to us.

I might want to have an affair. I might know I won't get caught. I will have a sense that it's /wrong/ and not do it as a result. Where does that sense come from?

To be clear: (1) I'm not doing it justice (2) I know the trite atheist answers. However, it's worth reading and understanding (as well as similar texts from other religions) for at least two reasons:

- As with any polarization, it's worth listening to all sides to understand them and be able to empathize with thenm.

- It gives a sense of why and how religion is logical. It's as strong as any case against God which I've read.

Footnote: The latter is a plurality-style and not a majority-style argument. There are many good arguments in many (incompatible) belief systems. They're all worth studying.

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

#68

Post by frognumber »

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.)

A better argument: A future AI is the anti-Christ of Revelation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist

Writing a short story on this would be an awesome prompt for a pre-lobotomized GPT model, back when it handled creative writing well.

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

#69

Post by mrkstu »

nabla9 wrote: post #64
camhart wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the sense you have some anger towards the faith, so I hesitate to respond. I'm not trying to argue with you. But I do want to address your points at least from my perspective. > Money&Power is attraction The leaders receive an annual "living expense" stipend. It's not publicly available, but there have been data leaks. The last data leak puts it at $130k in 2014 (estimated to be $178k in 2024). See https://wido…

It's the control over that sum of money and power that is intoxicating. The assets not under their name does not matter. Just like politicians, they have wast control and power. > Members willingly donate as an act of faith. And I admire them for that just as much as I admire Evangelical TV-pastors and pyramid scheme marketers. Mormonism was invented by a conman, so it's not surprise that they are good cowmen.

The problem with that perspective is that there isn't a 'career ladder' here.

You don't volunteer for any position within the LDS church, you are 'called,' so if you happen to be pulled into the higher echelons, it isn't because you've followed your inner Wolf of Wall Street, but that your selfless service (i.e. no money or other reward) has been noticed and seen as a likely good candidate for even more selfless service of serving even more hours unrewarded.

There just aren't many people with a money or power motivated personality that would bother, and again, even if one had ambitions that way, there isn't a job application somewhere in the chain that gets you there.

Money in the Church is a spin-off of a highly educated membership (a large number of members, for instance, donate stock that they've gotten through work, and donate when it is at a much higher price than granted by their work,) with a large base in North America, that ended up with literally more money than they could spend based on their remit- that tithes goes to a narrow spectrum of possible uses. So they've ended up with a situation somewhat similar to the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth fund, where their rules of management of 'sacred' funds just starts adding upon itself faster and faster.

Charitable giving is supposed to come from a specific line item donation, Fast Offerings, and a very large amount of money does indeed go through that pipeline. There are a LOT of temples and chapels being built for the membership, and that has been made possible by the financial strength of the church, but it is a growing political problem that I will find it interesting how they deal with, but a much better problem than the near bankruptcy they had happen around the Great Depression that prompted a lot of the fiscal conservatism that ended up creating this situation.

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

#70

Post by lcall »

bedobi wrote: post #51
camhart wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

OK? Is this meant to somehow absolve mormonism's long and well documented record of being an abusive cult? (which the "leaders" are ultimately in no small part responsible for?)

Abusive is very far from my personal experience. It is the best influence in my and my extended family's life. Generally, it seems like those who are most happy and most educated are usually the most active. It takes a lot of work to build something that lasts across the generations. We are taught service to others, forgiveness, and kindness. It has brought me and my wife peace and a sense of security despite health and others of life's expected challenges.

There is more at my web site (in profile, tech-simple, nothing for sale).

Post reply on HN