Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by throw0101c » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 3:59 PM UTC

progbits wrote: post #68

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…

> search of meaning or fulfillment---longings that can only be truly satisfied in communion with God This always annoyed me about religion. Such a lazy cop out no answer to such important question.

> This always annoyed me about religion. Such a lazy cop out no answer to such important question.

Religion, or at least Catholicism, recognizes four things that humans look to for happiness: wealth, honour, glory/fame/power, and pleasure.

* https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm

It concludes that these things can be good, they are not the highest good. The thing that will make humans most happy is love: love for one's neighbour, and love for God, who is Love:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_caritas_est

Or if you want to get more philosophical and less theological, Aristotle goes over why those four things are not ends in themselves, but means to an end:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomachean_Ethics

There is a growing amount of evidence that the need for love (community), which other people are needed for, is central to human fulfillment:

* https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8...

* https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/good-life

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

#92

Post by ta2112 » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #77

ta2112 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All three read the same to my own grammatical understanding.

Does "substituting x for y" mean "getting rid of x and using y instead", or does it mean "getting rid of y and using x instead"? To me, it means "getting rid of y and using x instead".

Oh that’s interesting. I can see your point. I guess it’s a bit ambiguous and can mean either thing. As the other responder mentioned, the backwards construction in the original sounds like 19th century literature, and from context I know they mean removing x and adding y. But in another context it could mean the opposite. Thanks for pointing that out!

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

#93

Post by achierius » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

lokimedes wrote: post #65

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…

My own reflection on this idolatry has been along the lines of how readily some people are at negating their own and humanity in general’s fundamental agency. Having AGI, SAI, etc. is completely meaningless if we as our own agents are not there to value it. In a sense, people preaching the coming dominance of AI are suicidal or homicidal, since they are pursuing their own demise by technical means.

Pope Francis talks exactly about this in the letter:

> 38. ... The Church is particularly opposed to those applications that threaten the sanctity of life or the dignity of the human person.[78] Like any human endeavor, technological development must be directed to serve the human person and contribute to the pursuit of “greater justice, more extensive fraternity, and a more humane order of social relations,” which are “more valuable than advances in the technical field.” ...

> 39. To address these challenges, it is essential to emphasize the importance of moral responsibility grounded in the dignity and vocation of the human person. This guiding principle also applies to questions concerning AI. In this context, the ethical dimension takes on primary importance because it is people who design systems and determine the purposes for which they are used.[80] Between a machine and a human being, only the latter is truly a moral agent—a subject of moral responsibility who exercises freedom in his or her decisions and accepts their consequences.[81] It is not the machine but the human who is in relationship with truth and goodness, guided by a moral conscience that calls the person “to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil,”[82] bearing witness to “the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn.”[83] Likewise, between a machine and a human, only the human can be sufficiently self-aware to the point of listening and following the voice of conscience, discerning with prudence, and seeking the good that is possible in every situation.[84] In fact, all of this also belongs to the person’s exercise of intelligence.

He even brings up x-risk at one point, which gives me some hope in this message reaching those members of the faith who have influence on the new administration.

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

#94

Post by StefanBatory » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

thrance wrote: post #28

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…

Singularitarianism [1] is a very real phenomenon, if a bit niche. I have seen some people online put genuine faith in AGI existing soon and solving essentially everything that is wrong on Earth and in their lives. I don't think this is harmful because it may be "idolatry", but rather because, like real religion, it is often a substitute for actually improving one's situation or fighting for a better world. The idea o…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God-Building

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

#95

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

belter wrote: post #49

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…

This just give me an idea for a Scifi short story, where a industrial society worships a just and fair god, that is nothing more than a lost AI driven probe, from a more advanced civilization a few parsec away...

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by svieira » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

progbits wrote: post #68

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…

> search of meaning or fulfillment---longings that can only be truly satisfied in communion with God This always annoyed me about religion. Such a lazy cop out no answer to such important question.

How is it a cop-out to say "the whole of human meaning and fulfillment is found in perceiving face-to-face the source and end of human meaning and fulfillment"? Are you complaining that the answer is too easy, too hard, or without further direction? (As I see it, "Come, follow me" is full of direction and while it's definitely not easy, neither is it impossible.)

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

#97

Post by achierius » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

boxed wrote: post #37

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…

It seems to me that a belief in god(s) makes you less prepared for a world with AI. In Buddhism the attitude is more sane: gods are just being that can be wrong too and ultimately suffer and cause suffering, the same as the rest of us. They might just be more strongly self-deluded (wink wink the pope wink wink)

It often feels to me that HN's view of Buddhism is "whatever bits of philosophy I happen to agree with". It's true that throughout history, there have been enough different expressions of Buddhism, practiced by at least a few people, that it's possible to say a lot of things 'are Buddhism', but it feels dishonest to me to rely on that in comparative analysis with a much more doctrinally stable religion. The difference is not fundamentally one of belief but of legibility of belief: with Buddhism you can get away with almost anything (did you know that most all modern Buddhists in Japan believe in the pure land -- for all intents and purposes heaven?), but with Catholicism there is but one creed.

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

#98

Post by chrsw » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

Does this mean that in the eyes of this Pope or this church, natural born biological humans will always be closer to God or have a higher degree of sanctity than artificial intelligence, any form of technological machine, and presumably artificial "life"?

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

#99

Post by p2detar » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

lokimedes wrote: post #65

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…

My own reflection on this idolatry has been along the lines of how readily some people are at negating their own and humanity in general’s fundamental agency. Having AGI, SAI, etc. is completely meaningless if we as our own agents are not there to value it. In a sense, people preaching the coming dominance of AI are suicidal or homicidal, since they are pursuing their own demise by technical means.

> In a sense, people preaching the coming dominance of AI are suicidal or homicidal, since they are pursuing their own demise by technical means.

Nope, that is an unsubstantial argument. Geoffrey Hinton, the „God father of AI“ is neither suicidal, nor homicidal.

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

#100

Post by glenstein » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

b450 wrote: post #41

This is a great demonstration of the fact that people coming from very different perspectives can, through good faith inquiry, find much to agree on. I think there are a lot of thoughtful arguments and conclusions in here even though I generally find the catholic church's metaphysical pyrotechnics to be fairly ridiculous. It goes to show that E.O. Wilson's concept of "consilience" can apply even outside of sciences -…

Yeah! Perhaps a bit naively, as a Highly Opinionated Person (HOP) on this topic I was ready for this to have something controversial to say about the nature of intelligence.

It's not out of the ordinary for even Anglosphere philosophers to fall into a kind of essentiallism about intelligence, but I think the treatment of it here is extremely careful and thoughtful, at least on first glace.

I suppose I would challenge the following, which I've also sometimes heard from philosophers:

>However, even as AI processes and simulates certain expressions of intelligence, it remains fundamentally confined to a logical-mathematical framework, which imposes inherent limitations. Human intelligence, in contrast, develops organically throughout the person’s physical and psychological growth, shaped by a myriad of lived experiences in the flesh. Although advanced AI systems can “learn” through processes such as machine learning, this sort of training is fundamentally different from the developmental growth of human intelligence, which is shaped by embodied experiences, including sensory input, emotional responses, social interactions, and the unique context of each moment. These elements shape and form individuals within their personal history.In contrast, AI, lacking a physical body, relies on computational reasoning and learning based on vast datasets that include recorded human experiences and knowledge.

I have heard this claim frequently, that intelligence is "embodied" in a way that computers overlook, but if that turns out to be critical, well, who is to say that something like this "embodied" context can't also be modeled computationally? Or that it isn't already equivalent to something out there in the vector space that machines already utilize? People are constantly rotating through essentialist concepts that supposedly reflect an intangible "human element" that shifts the conversation onto non-computational grounds, which turn out to simply reproduce the errors of every previous variation of intelligence essentialism.

My favorite familiar example is baseball, where people say human umpires create a "human element" by changing the strike zone situationally (e.g. tighten the strike zone if it's 0-2 in a big situation, widen the strike zone if it's an 3-0 count), completely forgetting that you could have machines call those more accurately too, if you really wanted to.

Anyway, I have my usual bones to pick but overall I think a very thoughtful treatment that I wouldn't say is borne of layperson confusions that frequently dog these convos.