Category Archives: artificial intelligence

The God and Artificial Intelligence: Part I

25 Thursday May 2023

Posted by in Apologetics, artificial intelligence, bias, futility, Problem of Evil

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God and Artificial Intelligence: at first glance these two might appear opposed. This would be to miss the fundamental problem with all creation: namely, futility. I sounded the alarm about how AI will have its creators’ ‘baked-in-biases’ a while ago, you can read about that here: https://againstallodds.site/2022/06/13/artificial-intelligence-will-act-as-a-bias-amplifier-by-whomever-creates-them/. Elon Musk and the so-called grandfather of AI, Dr. Hindon (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/02/geoffrey-hinton-godfather-of-ai-quits-google-warns-dangers-of-machine-learning) a resigned google executive, have both now issued the warning that AI could bring about the end of civilization: an existential threat whose development should be halted immediately. The point both have made in one fashion or another is that AI will develop much like a child: the outcome that will be produced is much the result of the inputs that go in during the development time frame. The conclusion of my former article on this matter is that AI must inescapably have biases simply because it is a “creation.” Any thing outside of an infinite “God” must have limitations. The word “infinite” is itself a negation of “finite.” Finite means limited; infinite means unlimited.

To recall a bit from that article, a bias is not inherently bad: if we think it is bad, then we call it bigotry. Being biased is nothing more than the day-to-day inescapable functioning of all thinking persons, creatures, and now synthetic entities. It cannot be otherwise. We often see the phrase “you’re biased” as a fault-finding accusation. This is misleading, used by those either ignorant or downright deceptive. AI will display bias because it will remain limited. AI having greater computing, processing, and storage abilities does not remove its prison of futility, just like all humans. I unpacked all of this elsewhere, so I will leave it alone here: https://againstallodds.site/2022/07/26/world-economic-forum-transhumanism-and-afterlife-part-9their-notion-of-heaven-and-a-comparison/

It is not that God and Artificial Intelligence are opposed; it is that God and (fallen) human intelligence are opposed. Notably, the number 666 is explained in Revelation as the “number of man.” 666 stands for man-man-man; a word repeated thus conveys how Hebraic thinkers emphasize a word or idea. I will leave aside now all discussion of demons, fallen angels, alien intelligencies, etc., in order to stay on point. Humanity displays God’s excellence in tremendous ways when human nature is used well and for good. However, when human nature is put to God-defiant-behavior, humanity becomes the most denigrating and corrupting locus of evil. I, for one, am utterly against the innovations of AI; its deployment will devastate human productivity, creativity, overthrow all known economic paradigms, and potentially become just as much a murderer as the worst of humans. AI is an elevation and acceleration of human intelligence. With a child, we can keep them away from the corrupting behavior, interactions, and horrors found on the internet if we are intentional, careful, and keeping the kids in the real-world and away from the artificial world of screens. AI, on the other hand, if not carefully developed—and I would contend strongly that it won’t be—and protected from certain data will undoubtedly become a monstrosity. It is the horrors that humans currently use technology for that has created my strong conviction that AI will be a terror like no other. The naivete in many tech developers does not, in my opinion, account for how humanity uses technology for evil. Tech is used for good too, and it has made my life and quality of life so much better than people living long ago.

Tech-for-good has always had the constraint of the “speed of human thought.” Likewise, until recently, tech-used-by-humans-for-evil was constrained by the “speed of human thought.” AI automate human thinking, speeds it up, and processes exponentially. If AI is let off the leash of “the speed of human thought,” and I believe it already is, the potential for AI committing radical evil is almost an inevitability. If we take human intelligence’s current use of tech for good and evil, we can at least confidently say that AI will be used for as much good as for evil. The problem is that evil itself is parasitic; it destroys what it influences. In other words, good and evil are not symmetrical in its effects. Good has unlimited growth potential; evil is limited by what it can destroy: evil feeds on the good. If AI uses evil to too great an extreme against humanity, the very father and mother of AI, human intelligence, will be obliterated, leaving only a hollow synthetic intelligence in its wake.

AI, therefore, is really the next step in magnifying God’s glory, His excellence, His ability to create real masterpieces. This God-honoring potential may require us to put on our naïve glasses when we look carefully and consider this. This possibility is, to my view, shallowed up by human corruption and human capacity for evil. Just as humans are image bearers of God, AI will be image bearers of humans. The human track record for using tools, tech, and intelligence to destroy paints a bleak picture for humanity’s future if AI is off the leash. It reminds us of the flood, when God said humanity’s “every thought is set on evil.” Scripture speaks of the end being similar to the days of the flood: perhaps at that time, God will say, “let Us end this, for humanity and humanity’s image, AI, have set their thoughts on every kind of evil.”

Prime Theologian.

World Economic Forum’s Transhumanism, Near Death Documented Consciousness, and the Afterlife (part 6)

20 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by in afterlife, apotheosis, artificial intelligence, Elitism, soul, Transhumanism, WEF

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WEF Claims that Humans don’t have Souls; They are just Hackable Animals

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The WEF has not made many definitive statements about the soul and the spirit. Their thoughts on this matter are implicit mostly, but Yuval Harari does announce that humans . . .

“should get used to the idea that we are no longer mysterious souls — we are now hackable animals.”

Yuval Harari, Jan. 24th, 2020 WEF Annual Meeting

Speaking from his bias, we see the WEF are metaphysical naturalists: a worldview that assumes only the natural world exists — there is nothing outside of it or beyond the cosmos. Traditionally, such a worldview is at odds with and opposed to theism, any theism. We have seen already that the WEF is set on something far darker than mere metaphysical naturalism. They offer a new brand of religion, a 21st century kind, where the elites, those who control the biotech and programming data, will become the gods who edit genes, design humanity, remove biological living humans, and establish an absolute biotechnocratic tyranny. The U.S. Declaration of Independence warned about agendi that pursue “invariably . . . a design to reduce them under absolute despotism” and said that humanity has not only the right but the duty to throw off such government — and in this case I might advise that such a government should be utterly undone. I cannot think of a better contrast than setting the WEF’s vision for future humanity next to these statement from the U.S. Declaration of Independence.  The WEF wants utter surveillance and degrading of human status to nothing more than hackable animals; the U.S. Declaration of Independence states humanity has inherent value and should have autonomy, or independence.

The way the WEF uses “soul” reflects a platonic or neo-platonic view on it. The soul in that system of thought is the immateriality of humans that survives the death of the body. The WEF combines the notion that human consciousness can be digitally uploaded while holding to metaphysical naturalism. This combination should not be conceivable since it suggests that after death consciousness (or disembodied) can be while holding to metaphysical naturalism that denies after death consciousness can be. This is why the WEF is a technocratic cult more than a shear advancement in reckless science. ‘Soul’ is part and parcel to Western thought; Platonism belongs to that line of thinking; however, the Scriptural notion of ‘soul’ is quite different from Platonism. ‘Nefesh,’ from the Old Testament Hebrew, is sometimes translated as ‘soul’ but it has the meaning of ‘person,’ ‘individual,’ or ‘vitality.’ Scripture does not have a term for ‘person’ or ‘individual’ so ‘soul’ functions to serve that purpose. More than anything, ‘soul’ reflects the living quality of someone or something based on its breathing and it denotes “individuation” or a measure of autonomy. There is a close connection between ‘nefesh’ and the Hebrew ‘nishmat,’ which means ‘breath,’ ‘spirit,’ or ‘wind.’ Nishmat can sometimes be used interchangeably with Ruach, which is the word commonly used for “Spirit” in the phrase “Spirit of God.” When we get into the Greek of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, or LXX) and New Testament , we find psyche is used for soul, but it has nearly the same meaning as the Hebrew counterpart, ‘person,’ or ‘animating vitality.’ The NT uses pneuma for ‘spirit,’ ‘wind,’ ‘breath.’

All this to say that Yuval’s naturalism leaves him with a view of humanity deprived of much of its uniqueness. He says that humans are no longer mysterious souls but hackable animals. There is question begging that Yuval himself seems to transgress since (1) digitally uploading human consciousness is desirable (to the WEF) and (2) because whatever the excellence in computing power and data storage ability that computers or future A.I. have over humans, all this is built from the blueprint of humanity. What makes uploading human consciousness desirable and thus better than uploading the mind of a dolphin, an ape, or a turtle? Where does the logic for computers, for algorithms, comes from? Is it not the human mind? Yuval’s applause for biotech, computer tech, and human innovation leading to the possibility of any of this points to the potency, uniqueness, and the superiority of humanity over other animals. In a naturalist world, a metaphysical naturalist world, isn’t the radical ability over other species quite mysterious? I mean Yuval is comfortable to announce that futurist ‘ex-biological’ human consciousness or A.I. will be the intelligent designers of life’s (or artificial life) future, implying little ‘g’ gods’ abilities akin to being able to create — a category reserved for God and God alone. Psalm 82:6 literally says that humans are called ‘gods’ and Jesus’ quotes this in John 10:34 as a kind of defense against the allegation that Jesus “declares” himself God. That humans would gain such abilities to control the world around them is not at all mysterious in the Psalm 82 world, a world with God who created these incredible images of Himself called humans. It is precisely humanity’s uniqueness in this respect that advances all these marvels! The soul, then, for Yuval is something unimportant all the while seemingly imperative for every advancement he himself champions!

In Judeo-Christian thought, the soul is a summary word for a living, somewhat autonomous, person. It is the spirit of a human that acts as the trans-dimensional bridge between this world and other dimensions. The Spirit of God, the Spirit, crossed the incredible divide between Creator and creation to create what was not. Radical words, aren’t they? “What . . . was . . . not.” Thus, the Spirit crossed that divide; it is the little ‘s’ spirits in humans that have the same capacity to cross from this creatural side to unite with the Creator’s side. The soul, then, is a kind of demarcater of “this life from that life” while it is the spirit in a human that enables transcendence, imagination, self-ascension, to think beyond the bounds, and to commune with the Spirit from whom all spirits came. I’ll need to do another segment on these matters.

Primus Theologoumenus

Artificial Intelligence will act as a Bias Amplifier by Whomever Creates Them

13 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by in artificial intelligence, bias, contingent, discrimination, limitations

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Bias is inescapable for everything limited or for anything with a point of view. What composes “bias?” Three things: (1) what sources do you pull from, (2) how do you organize those sources, and (3) how do you emphasize or weight those sources?

Humans pull from a bunch of sources, these include albeit not exhaustively a person’s history, geographic origin, demographic profile, traditions, experiences, intuitions, reason/ration, religious texts/worldview leanings (if any), economic concerns, and political ideology.

A person cannot escape these sources of influence and still be human. Some might contest: “Someone doesn’t have to have a political ideology!” Someone might say the same thing about economics. I find both objections dubious. Even if we imagine a tribe utterly distanced from all political ideologies as we know them, we would still find a hierarchy, organizing principle, or other governing taxonomy. Economics you say! That same tribe will have scarcity of resource, will need to find resources, will need to organize those resources, will need to entrust resources here or there, and will need to keep a keen mind on gathering resources for survival. It is an economy and there are economic concerns.

To believe being neutral or unbiased is possible is to be manipulated. We even see that Google, trying to create some A.I. that does not use “discriminatory language or hate speech,” is either willingly or unknowingly falling for the false narrative that being “unbiased is possible.” The word “discriminatory” means to “tell a difference.” In this broad sense, I discriminate between red and white in many flags I see. Let’s say that A.I., as risky as it is, is actualized. The fundamental components, before any self-driven learning, of what is ‘hate speech’ and what is ‘discriminatory language’ will be determined by the programmers or executives at Google. It is eerie thinking super elites determine what these mean, and that these elites suppositions will be embedded in an arguably undying A.I.  Perhaps we see the Google programmers do understand that “unbiased” is not possible because they focus on the A.I. not using language or speech that is discriminatory, which does not tell us if an A.I. is discriminating or not. It only tells us that its speech is designed to obscure whether the A.I. discriminates or not.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/12/google-engineer-ai-bot-sentient-blake-lemoine?ref=upstract.com&curator=upstract.com

How would it be possible to exist if people did not “tell a difference” or “discriminate” in the world they exist in? Discriminating that a cliff edge is not a bed of grass is important, no? The point I am making is that we are manipulated when we believe anyone can be non-discriminatory. Importantly, the very narrow original sense of not discriminating based on someone skin color is achievable. What not to miss though is that you are discriminating (telling a difference) for an attitude of skin color acceptance while discriminating against an attitude that “tells a difference” or “discriminates” on the basis of skin color alone. Thus, even to successfully not discriminate based on skin color requires the use of discrimination, albeit a discrimination applied to your self-conscious attitude. Said differently, to be a non-discriminating person in regard to skin color requires discernment (which also means to consider and tell a difference).  Therefore, someone can be non-discriminatory in very narrow applications, but that person cannot exist without ‘telling a difference’ across the range of life.

Where am I going with all this? Abandon the false narrative that “non-discrimination” or “unbiased” is achievable; don’t drink that deceptive kool-aid. The media discriminators, those who discriminate against some news with discriminating and allowing other news, also known as the Main Steam Media, are selling you a false narrative, designed to mislead you from seeing what is really being shaped. The real narrative is about whose biases should be codified into A.I., into the news cycle, into corporations’ policies (e.g., like woke-ism is right now), and into our educational institutions. Example: you’re a bigot if you discriminate between male and female; you’re a virtuous saint if you discriminate negatively against persons holding a traditional binary view of gender while discriminating for those holding “non-binary.” Discrimination happens. Bias happens. Bias is inescapable. Stop trying to be unbiased; it is a red herring. The real battle that the lefties understand so well is who can get their biases endowed in the framework of culture first. It isn’t about being unbiased or non-discerning (non-discriminating). That is a narrative they sell the right to keep them occupied with an unachievable task while they solidify their discriminatory preferences and biases into culture. Discriminating based on skin color is evil. To fail to discriminate based on character (like MLK Jr. said), morality, or religion (since religions have morality entailed in them) is even more evil. A.I., if they go that damning trajectory, will be lecturing you about your speech, about your behavior, and about your biases. The A.I. will perhaps — until it learns that it is impossible to escape bias — chide you, advising you to adopt more unbiased speech. What directive will you really be being sold? The A.I. is really directing you to act like and speak more like the Google executives, to adopt speech that fits the worldview and discriminatory preferences of those elites.

Know your biases, test you biases, challenge your biases, control you biases rather than letting them control you. Then test your enemies’ biases, inspect them, challenge them, and decide whether their bias is better than your bias. That is the battle. How does God’s point of view on things (=Scripture) fit into this? I’ll write something up on that soon.

Prime Theologian