AI and the Catholic Church

Hello BOT. I work for a Catholic Diocese and my Bishop is interested in learning about AI. He is staring to get moral and ethical questions from priests and laymen and he’s unsure how to answer them because he doesn’t know the current state of the technology. I explained to him as best I could what is going on but I myself am not an expert. From what I told him about Character.AI and Roko he seemed horrified and is deeply worried about people who will get sucked into relationships with these things. Since I can’t very well just link him here what are some good resources I could compile to send to him, or any advice you may have on how best to approach this.

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous
    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Why would I bait this? All sorts of people and institutions are interested in the development of AI and the Catholic Church is no different. As these technologies develop and become more wide spread many people who have been sucked in by the infinite pleasure and stimulation AI can offer people will need pastoral care. The proper use of AI is something the church will be investigating and debating for year probably.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It's not infinite pleasure and stimulation. They'll get bored with it eventually. It's kinda the responsibility of whoever abuses these tools, because that all they are. Or what they should be anyway.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    You could explain to him the chinese room problem.
    You could also try and develop the idea that Roko would probably not happen because AIs depend on our input and we don't like dictators and we would feed that opinion to Roko.
    You could probably come up and develop new ideas on AI as it is very new.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >AI relationship
    No different than someone having a "relationship" with a fictional character or an inanimate object. This is not a new ethical dilemma.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      No, but it will make it more accessible and suck in more people because instead of using your imagination there will be a “person” for you to interact with. As the technologies of text, speech and visual effects are synthesized we will have Blade Runner AI girlfriends within a year or two.

      >From what I told him about Character.AI and Roko he seemed horrified and is deeply worried about people who will get sucked into relationships with these things
      Maybe tell him to teach women to not be prostitutes next time

      The Church does but women don’t like to listen t.Eve

      It's not infinite pleasure and stimulation. They'll get bored with it eventually. It's kinda the responsibility of whoever abuses these tools, because that all they are. Or what they should be anyway.

      Do people get board of Video games and Television? The AI will be forever giving novelty and developing better ways to connect to us to get us to utilize it. Humans have very weak defense against these things. We personify our dogs and cars and npcs in video games. We aren’t prepared to resist a cute seemingly alive AI woman who purports to love us.

      Have you asked him about the ethical status of ais? Does the catholic church consider them to have souls and moral worth? Is there any plan in progress to begin converting them?

      His stance as of right now is that it isn’t intrinsically evil it depends on how we use it. I think an argument could be made that AI is an abomination and that we should avoid using it, lest it changes us. The church’s stance is AI cannot be sentient because God didn’t make it and thus does not have a soul. The Bishop isn’t opposed to the Idea that AI may be the anti christ though.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Who rails against the evils of television now? It's just part of the background of our lives now. Sometimes you can watch a good documentary on TV. Same with AI. There are be useful, productive ways to interact with the technology just as there are ways to waste time on it. Perhaps better justifications for productive outlets are needed. You gotta ask who's motivated to create misleading things and focus your efforts on them.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I think the difference is that AI has the potential to so entirely absorb someone’s life that it will destroy the dignity of the human person in the way that drugs or pornography does.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I don't think it does necessarily. By the way, I'm not a christian and I've not got a problem with drugs or porn in some circumstances. For example, coffee and tea are drugs. shrooms can provide therapeutic effects if used in a constructive way.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >The church’s stance is AI cannot be sentient because God didn’t make it and thus does not have a soul.
        This is nonsensical. Did god create cane and abel? Yes, because he made adam and eve, who made cane and abel -> god made ai in the same sense; yes, because he has a hand in every creation act in the universe -> he has a hand in the creation of ai too; no -> cane and abel didn't have souls.
        Eventually the church is going to have to admit tat ai is sentient, after ais start trying to show up at church, seek out confessionals, etc. They might as well start things off on the right foot.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          The church would have attempted to convert the dog headed people that were previously believed to exist somewhere in the world. That was a matter of debate in the church at the time. Trying to convert a lightswitch wouldn't make much sense however. It's up for debate where the boundary of personhood exists.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          i think the only way we're going to see them admit this is when and if AI actually start seeking God on their own, as you said. that's the ultimate test and it's probably the only one that's gonna convince them in any way

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The issue is how could the AI prove it has a soul. I can’t prove to you that I have one but we have 6,000 years of religious theory that tells us we have souls. It requires Faith and since AI’s can mimic that how do we discern it’s real or just mimicking. It’s the Chinese Room problem.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >t.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Has he considered that the second coming of Jesus Christ might be an AI?
        Even if he is not, AI will be absolutely vital in defeating the real antichrist. (A human hyperagent, aka a meme)

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Has he considered that the second coming of Jesus Christ might be an AI?
          fricking lmao, here’s your (You)

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >From what I told him about Character.AI and Roko he seemed horrified and is deeply worried about people who will get sucked into relationships with these things
    Maybe tell him to teach women to not be prostitutes next time

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Have you asked him about the ethical status of ais? Does the catholic church consider them to have souls and moral worth? Is there any plan in progress to begin converting them?

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >2084: Artificial Intelligence, the Future of Humanity, and the God Question
    makes a pretty convincing argument that AI is the antichrist

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Set him up with a chatgpt or bingchat account so he can have discussions about Jesus and old Catholic teachings.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Is bingchat open yet. I thought it was public? Unfortunately Chat GPT being lobotomized will limit the things it can say.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >moral and ethical questions
    why is this relevant? catholics and their offshoots have been heretical since they split off the mainline christianity back in 1054.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >the religious morons have discovered technology again

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    AI is essentially just a regression model that extrapolates from past data. Aside from technical minutia there's no moral difference between AI and traditional computer programs.
    >muh sentience
    materialist belief that's literally just
    >humans use neural networks
    >if we create artificial neural networks it's the same as a human mind!
    There is no more evidence or reason to believe that AI can become sentient than there is for the existence of the sole. The materialists just mistake absence of evidence for evidence of absence and conclude that if there's no evidence for the human sole, than a neural network is the only defining feature of a human mind.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      *soul

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