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

71–80 of 82 posts

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

#71

Post by lcall »

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…

Members are taught to save "for a rainy day" (and to avoid debt, obtain education, and to be good to everyone, starting at home). The Church as an institution also follows their own advice. They have so many money-consuming projects going on that if there were serious economic problems, these resources would help it continue those efforts instead of having to dramatically cut back (feeding, employing, accredited global online higher-ed and English instruction and support to those who could not otherwise afford it, building programs, extensive welfare and humanitarian programs, etc etc). More info at the Church's site or my own (in profile).

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

#72

Post by lcall »

bee_rider wrote: post #8
andsoitis wrote: post #2

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

I’ll go out on a limb and guess: not in a way that can be measured by repeatable experiments.

Curiously, it is repeatable in my personal experience. I find everything goes better (and I mean everything), when I listen and don't stubborly do things my way. More at my web site (in profile, tech-simple, nothing for sale).

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

#73

Post by helpfulContrib »

pascal_blaze wrote: post #23
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 inconsisten…

[dead]

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

#74

Post by scrubs »

lcall wrote: post #71
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…

Members are taught to save "for a rainy day" (and to avoid debt, obtain education, and to be good to everyone, starting at home). The Church as an institution also follows their own advice. They have so many money-consuming projects going on that if there were serious economic problems, these resources would help it continue those efforts instead of having to dramatically cut back (feeding, employing, accredited glob…

The salient point isn't any of what you mention. Basic new testament teachings suggest outreach and help is the church's business: feed, cloth the poor. See also Alger's "Ragged Dick."

Leadership isn't stating an AI policy then putting it our for the world to see. It isn't having billions in cash and assets. Rainy day? You aren't guaranteed tomorrow. Maximal help today is indicated. Spend it.

I'm reminded of the lady who rolled into a TX legislature pushing for a Christian goal last year I think. The legislature guy (an evangelical himself) smartly didn't get drawn into silly arguments merely saying the church's business is helping people not pushing rules in public schools. The applicant had no reply.

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

#75

Post by krapp »

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…

That's silly. Setting aside just how many Christians will claim to be led by the Holy Spirit into nonsense like QAnon because the "Holy Spirit" is literally just vibes, deepfakes don't fool people because they're morally wrong, they fool people because they're subjectively indistinguishable from reality.

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

#76

Post by temporarely »

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…

> the wrong horse

Jesus -> illuminated Apostles: Church of Jerusalem -> takeover: new Religion of Paul -> takeover: Roman-Christianity -> secession: Judeo-Christianity

What horse? There was a cart and it has changed hands at least 3 times now. Christianity has always been mainly Paulianism. I mean, if you just read the Gospels and take your religion from the original source it is a different matter altogether from what is the bulk of the verbiage of New Testament, which was a new religion given by Paul, not Jesus.

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

#78

Post by javawizard »

mrkstu wrote: post #47
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 :-/

- Clayton Christensen - Seth Godin - Stephen Covey - Ray Noorda (Novell) - David Neeleman (JetBlue) - Ed Catmull (Pixar) - Nolan Bushnell (Atari) - Jon Huntsman Sr - Kevin Rollins (Dell) - J. Willard Marriot - David Cannon Evans (Evans and Sutherland) Just a skimming of some of the Mormon/LDS names in business/tech thought leadership...

One of the most relevant to the HN crowd: Yukihiro Matsumoto, a.k.a. Matz, the creator of Ruby.

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

#79

Post by meowtimemania »

camhart wrote: post #34
meowtimemania wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Mormonism the Holy Ghost basically equates to one’s intuition

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 this faith. I’m describing it in a way that others will understand. When I’ve described the Holy Ghost to non member friends, they usually end up on it being my intuition.

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

#80

Post by lcall »

scrubs wrote: post #74
lcall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Members are taught to save "for a rainy day" (and to avoid debt, obtain education, and to be good to everyone, starting at home). The Church as an institution also follows their own advice. They have so many money-consuming projects going on that if there were serious economic problems, these resources would help it continue those efforts instead of having to dramatically cut back (feeding, employing, accredited glob…

The salient point isn't any of what you mention. Basic new testament teachings suggest outreach and help is the church's business: feed, cloth the poor. See also Alger's "Ragged Dick." Leadership isn't stating an AI policy then putting it our for the world to see. It isn't having billions in cash and assets. Rainy day? You aren't guaranteed tomorrow. Maximal help today is indicated. Spend it. I'm reminded of the lady…

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. We believe the Church is led by Christ through his living prophets, who are not perfect, but whodefinitely seek his guidance for their decisions, many of which must be made unanimously by the 12 and the First Presidency. I believe it (or know it) because of the many reasons listed at my web site (in profile).
Post reply on HN