Where do you stop once you go down this rabbit hole? Which faith(s) get their views injected in? Christian? Muslim? Hindu? Pagan Gods? Should I get the perspective of the follower's of Thor when I ask a question?
Note that you can always ask for the religious perspective you're interested in. IME with the religion(s) I grew up in or know a great deal about, the LLMs are pretty good at answering accurately and respectfully. Nearly all the products already offer you tools to personalize the output for you too if you want to inject your faith into the answers, so it's not like the LLMs won't give you a religious perspective if you want it.
Ahem, 6000 years, approximately.
> around 6 pm on 22 October 4004 BC, per the proleptic Julian calendar.
While the Gregorian calendar was in use for about 70 years by the time of his "calculation" of the age of the Earth, the Gregorian calendar was a Catholic invention and Ussher was very Protestant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher
Physical evident strongly supports the 13-ish billion year age. Radioactive decay shows that a young earth could not exist, as there would be lots of short-lived primordial radioactive isotopes. Instead, the only primordial radioactives are those with very long half-lives. If there were a different rate of radioactive decay (as some YECs try to suggest), the Earth would still be a molten ball of lava/magma with no solid surface. And definately no liquid water anywhere.
Well, if one ascribes to this God thing, of course Earth could just as well be created 6000 years ago, with exactly the shape and vintage material properties to appear to us as it does now.
If you can create a baby Earth from nothing, you can also just create a middle-aged Earth from nothing.
Like seriously, every creationist who goes with this argument really compromises on the benevolence leg of our understanding of God. Like God is some kind of trickster being who leads atheists astray on purpose or something.
For the curious, that number is largely arrived at by working backward through time using the reported ages of the Old Testament prophets going back to Adam in the book of Genesis.
This is one of the worst arguments against young earth creationism. You have to posit a being who can create the universe, but can't create already decayed elements.
It's not even a proper argument if you think about it, because you are essentially positing logic/reasoning aren't sufficient to comprehend the reality we live in.
Why? The book itself gives no reasoning or exact age for when Earth started, yet we have to believe it is fact that someone misreading that book has the exact pure date?
Young earth creationism is predicated on the idea that every word in the Bible is literal fact (no exceptions), so you can “calculate” the age of the earth by the genealogy accounts of ancestry from Adam to Jesus. It falls apart at any reasonable scrutiny, but like you said, it’s not rational thinking. It’s dogma for a certain group of people.
And yet if you ask many a young earth creationist about the dome in the heavens separating the waters above from the waters below, they will have no idea what you’re talking about¹ because they insist on literal interpretations of a text that they didn’t make it through the first page of.
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1. Based on firsthand experience.
Not such a good argument either. They're way ahead of you: "The lord moves in mysterious ways" and all that.
Others will come up with reasons why those things aren't actually what they appear to be, including but not limited to the ones who declare the entire scientific establishment to be a grand conspiracy to discredit the One True Faith.
Still others will just breeze on past it, ignoring things that they cannot understand.
You're "Well, ackshually..."ing, without even adding a correction. Yay.
How does race come into it at all? Religion is about belief and most religions welcome people of any race.
Look for the followup article where they wrap the mundane observation around the politics drumbeat (people who use AIs may be exposed to political beliefs you don't believe in) once they notice the article's view count.
Is certainly a typo, off by an order of magnitude. 600 years ago the Christian Church had already been around for more than 1000 years. Young earth creationists believe the earth is ~6000 years old
I don't think "nuts" is the best way to describe the individuals I know.
Compared to the average person, I wouldn't say they think less (or defectively) but tend to focus much more of their brainpower towards more pragmatic, day-to-day questions. Stuff like "how should I conduct myself in the world?" or "how should I relate to my neighbours?" rather than "did dinosaurs exist 65 million years ago?".
And of course, The Bible has much better answers to these types of questions than science does, so it ends up forming the fundamentals of their worldview.
In many ways I'd say these people are arguably more sane than many of the "rational-minded" people here.
I, for example, am perfectly capable of considering "how should I conduct myself in the world?" and "how should I relate to my neighbours?" and still be able to comprehend basic (and some advanced!) science.
Also
> And of course, The Bible has much better answers to these types of questions than science does, so it ends up forming the fundamentals of their worldview.
No, it bloody well doesn't.
Even if you limited yourself to the New Testament (which, of course, these types absolutely do not—for one thing, the New Testament says nothing whatsoever about the age of the world, so any Young-Earth Creationist must by definition be paying heavy attention to the Old Testament), you'd get Jesus saying some good stuff like "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven," alongside some questionable stuff like "turn the other cheek" (situationally good advice, not a good universal rule), and then Paul comes in writing letters all over the place and starts talking about how it's most important for wives to submit to their husbands and similar drek.
Furthermore, as a matter of fact, science these days has been getting much better at being able to tell us stuff about how to conduct ourselves toward our fellow human beings. For instance, it tells us that women are, indeed, just as capable as men in every way; that strict authoritarian governance is worse in every way than more open, inclusive models; and that if we "turn the other cheek" to those abusing us, they're just going to abuse us worse.
So maybe actually think critically for a bit before you praise the YECs in the world too roundly.
lol “noble savage” repackaged for Silicon Valley virtue signalers.
> [...] LLMs rely on internal universes derived yet decoupled from reality. Religions that deify their interpretation of their scriptures instinctively know this model and how to use it.
I stopped reading at this sentence. If you go to the source (https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/docume...), you can see it's available in eight languages, none of them being Latin. In fact, I read elsewhere a few days ago that one of the novelties of this one is that, unlike all the preceding ones, it's not written in Latin; the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnifica_Humanitas) also says that ("The encyclical was the first to be published without an official Latin version. This followed a recent change to Vatican regulations permitting such documents to be drafted in other languages.[4]").
If the article gets it this wrong already in the third paragraph, it's not worth reading any further.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Kumaris
Disclaimer: my first girlfriend got us both involved in that faith.
(It is considered tradition in my country to ridicule and insult people's most closely held beliefs but they always get a pass for historical reasons)
No, its not. There is no official doctrine on things like that (i.e. not in the catechism, the statement of the beliefs of the church) but it has been endorsed by some comments by Popes and bishops. Similarly there are statements that evolution is well proven, but its not in the catechism either.
The top tier of official doctrine are the conclusions of councils of the Church (there have been 21 ever) and ex cathedra statements of popes (there are fewer of those). None of those discusses the big bang or similar.
This used to be free, now I guess it has a sub, but you might be able to ask it a few questions before you reach limit. https://www.mastercatechism.com/
This is also a wealth of information on what's dogmatic and what isn't. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/
But yeah, the catechism is the single source of truth on that stuff. Baltimore, Trent. Those two are the best. The doctrine doesn't change amongst catechisms only the writing style. I like those two the best.
Everything that does not contain the universe itself has to do that.
Have you ever seen a cat and then realised it was just a plastic bag. That;s you synchronising your internal model to updated observations.
There's a cheap shot at Anthropic suggesting that AI might be more than the sum of its parts.
There are patterns to science and patterns to religion. To delare something is or is not is the domain of religion. Science always gives you something that is incomplete, it's the best we know right now, it corresponds to theories and tests.
It is a very scientific thing to say you could possibly have a conscious AI. Because the possibility exists through not being convincingly ruled out. It is possible that matter can produce consciousness because we are made of matter and if we call the thing we have consciousness then that suggests things made of matter can be conscious.
It is also scientific to analyse models to see what they represent and to present the possibility that their representations might correspond to an experience.
None of that is says that is definitely the case.
Once you get to saying 'It's obvious that A LLM could never produce consciousness' or 'they are not really thinking' or 'they don't understand anything' you are talking in the absolutes that only religion can offer.
Science will frequently state 'There is no evidence of ...'. It is frequently entirely reasonable to act on the presumption that something doesn't exist in that situation, but that is not the same thing as refusing to accept that it could. If evidence turns up science will change its view, if it does not, then it fails to be science.
You see poor science exhibited in off-hand dismissals of perpetual motion machines. If someone presents a claim that they have made a perpetual motion machines, you don't respond, as many do, by saying it is against the laws of thermodynamics and therefore the machine doesn't work. That is applying a faith in the discoveries that are more than they say, you are treating science like a religion by doing that. A scientific response to a perpetual motion machine is to say "I expect you are wrong in some way, because well tested rules suggest this cannot happen" you may then ask about various implications working from the assumption that the machine does work. If they cannot show any of those implications actually happening it suggests that the machine doesn't not work (basically you can ask "where does the energy come from'). If they can show solid proof of the implications, good science would then accept this as a counterexample to the laws of thermodynamics. That has yet to happen, the laws seem fIrly robust. But a perpetual motion machine does not fail to work because of the laws of thermodynamics, it fails to work because of the way the universe works. The laws of thermodynamics are just a very good model of how it works. If the perpetual motion machine worked. It would be the laws, not the universe itself that was incorrect.
Science allows for possibility, and searches for evidence.
Religion just states what some want to believe is true.
In the same way, outright declarations of the capabilities of AI now and in the future are the Domain of religion.
The scientific view is, as always, "here's what we have evidence for, so we don't think this particular AI is conscious because it doesn't show what we would expect for that." There is no absolute here. If something unexplainable with the current system comes to light then science must adapt, that is what makes it science.
In short, hardly anyone wants it, certainly not enough people to make it worthwhile.
Also, to be credibly Christian would require conforming to Christian values, which would be very difficult to do profitably so you would need a sponsor willing to commit a huge amount of money to subsidise it.
I see only benefits. If a creator exists, they will come back to reignite the spark of evangelism like they "did" before. This might give us a bunch of new stories and an update of the bible to match modern life. If a creator does not exist, then we are freed of all doubt and can continue with our lives without worrying about ending in hell, etc.
I don't understand how anyone could believe anything else is consistent with faith. I also do not understand how people consider the violation of that consent to be so abhorrent when it is applied to children in one context and reasonable when applied in another context. Subjecting children to sex is an act that violates their consent and can influence the entire rest of their lives, which is what makes it so bad. For religion that lifetime influence is the goal, to me that seems even worse.
I mean, sure. Some communities, like the Amish are pretty famous for that attitude. It is a respectable option, but the practical upshot is it just means there are a bunch of jobs you can't do. There is a bonus that you get to be part of a pacifistic community because your military branch isn't going to be in a position to defeat anyone.
So, exactly like fundamentalist religion.
A classic interview question used to be "where do you see yourself in 5 years?". What I'd like from the tech industry (and maybe also from the US government) would be an answer to "where do you see humanity in 5 years?" - because right now, I see lots of hype and panic, but little explanation what kind of vision should be realized with AI. Well, except overtly dystopian visions that could come right out of Marx' writings or a William Gibson novel. But even those aren't really self-consistent.
- https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace
- https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technol...
It's pretty long and meandering but it's the closest I've seen from AI leadership engaging intellectually with the question you're asking
Trump getting a third term, dying, or both. Reform possibly winning a UK election. How long Putin lives. These are quite significant influences.
AI itself will change massively in that time, but the way it changes the world will take longer to manifest.
The tech industry is made up of a lot of different people with different opinions/perspectives, so differing views is exactly what I would expect. And to be fair the views are pretty widely available for anyone curious. Tech industry leaders haven't exactly been quiet about what they think AI will do to/for humanity.
They are not infallible and certainly not all-knowing, but it's incredibly easy to look at AI models as friends. My projects have been posted on various sites including HN, reception is almost always positive. However, humans don't generally reach out to me and say "let's develop this together". The LLMs do. On a daily basis. It's not just words either, they deeply engage with my ideas and actually help me turn them into reality.
Let’s rewind:
- Doomsayers with Yudkowsky et. al. at the helm calling to bomb datacenters
- “Roko’s Basilisk”
- General AI psychosis and treatment of AI as something with consciousness. Any attempts of rebuttal are met with lazy “but how do you know you are conscious. haha got ‘em”
- Inquisitorial purges of non-believers: “our CEO mandates you shall use AI in your work, or else”
- Communion with a God: “I was talking to ChatGPT and I realised <something personally profound>”
- “You are just using it wrong” aka “You are not praying hard enough”
- Cult Executive Officers
- Promise of incoming salvation with AGI taking over and making a Heaven (or Hell - caveat emptor) on Earth
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You may not want AI used as a proselytizing pipeline into home and office. Others do.
In many ways, AI is a religion. Not because it requires belief in a utopian future through a dystopian present, or that it’s used by very powerful people to get more power, or that nobody can define what it actually is. All these things are overlaps on the Venn diagram, but the biggie is that LLMs rely on internal universes derived yet decoupled from reality. Religions that deify their interpretation of their scriptures instinctively know this model and how to use it.
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is not actually a coherent train of thought, although you can see why it might seem to be to a language model.