Today’s update is considerably shorter than yesterday’s, despite the fact I have extensive thoughts swirling around in my head. Something’s off. I feel as though my t-shirt is choking me; it’s not, but there’s an uncomfortable feeling of tightness around my lower neck. I’m having some minor difficulty breathing and I’m a bit lightheaded. Put it all together and I’m having some difficulty stringing words together.
An interesting article appears in the online edition of the New York Times (I can’t find it in the print edition, but it could be in section C) that asks the question, “Can God speak through AI?” The article is totally benign and nonsectarian, as one might expect from the Times. Rabbis, Imams, and pastors are experimenting with AI writing and sometimes delivering their sermons. There has always been some wrangling required as religion wrestles with any new technology going all the way back to the printing press. The question inevitably asked comes down to whether the voice and inspiration of a deity can flow through something other than a human hand or voice.
The question raised in my sloggy excuse for a brain is how long will it take before AI becomes the deity? After all, we’re dealing with mythologies as the source material. While current experiments use a leader’s previous material to fashion new sermons or worship experiences, we’re not that far away from AI being able to translate and interpret the original languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. In fact, AI may produce the most accurate translation yet as it would likely have the ability to reflect tone and usage common to the authors. Put it all together and we may not be too far from Lifeway Press marketing a 52-part Sunday morning package to small churches who can’t really afford a pastor. From there, it’s a short step to AI taking over religion.
Think I’m crazy? Look at how the printing press ultimately participated in dividing Christianity. Catholicism reigned supreme as long as only priests had access to Bibles. Gutenberg’s invention changed that, eventually allowing for there to be a Bible in the hands of every parishioner. People started interpreting scripture for themselves and as they did, differences in those interpretations resulted in the splits and fractures we now recognize as different denominations. There are still millions of people who believe that the King James version of the Bible is the only one actually inspired by God.
Understand, when it comes to the topic of what is or is not ‘inspired’ we’re not dealing with reality. Faith is in no way moored to fact. The vast majority of believers in any religion are dependent on what is said by the leaders. Scriptures in ancient languages with references that no longer apply are practically impossible for even a reasonably educated person to decipher. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that only 38% of North American Christians have post-secondary degrees, the level at which one might begin to understand the intonation of the original texts. Among Hindus, that number is only 6%. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. The dependency on the presumed knowledge of religious leaders is the glue that holds most religions together. Begin replacing that dependency with AI and the potential for the whole thing to go off the rails becomes immense.
Once again, I’m limited in my concern. I doubt I’ll be alive with the First Church of OpenAI starts accepting new members, or requiring devotion and tithes. I do wonder if ChatGPT or something could be trained to write my morning updates. I know it could summarize the news. Could it know how I’m feeling without waking me up? If AI can speak for God then what’s stopping it from speaking for me?
Hmmmm … is there an AI model fueled by coffee?
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Tik, Tik, Boom.
As easy as it is to blame governments for all our problems, the glaring truth is that much of the responsibility for what we currently experience is our own fault. I know, that doesn’t sound like a friendly way of starting the morning, but the truth is that what I’m seeing between the various ugly and disgusting headlines is a clear message that we could have stopped a lot of this but chose to go ahead anyway. We choose who runs for office. We choose how we spend our money. We choose how we spend our time. When we do not make responsible choices, we pay the consequences and, to a large extent, that is what is happening right now.
A shocking tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City, Kansas area is frightening, but it can be easy to stop if people in the area make the right choices. Washing your hands, covering your mouth when you cough, and staying home when you’re sick are all things that keep TB at a minimum. TB is one of the world’s biggest killers, though, and winter is a great time for it to spread. Make wise choices.
Reading skills among US children are diminishing, and their math scores are horrible. Blame the schools all you want, but it’s mom and dad who are responsible for setting up a child’s brain to read. We ‘read’ to infants with picture books because it helps develop an association in their brains between symbols and words. As they get older, their brains develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between letters, numbers, and the world around them. All five of my kids were reading at some level before they started kindergarten (sometimes creating difficulty in an unprepared classroom). Parents set their kids up for success or failure on this front and we have to accept the responsibility for the outcome.
Then, we discover that the ‘Doomsday Clock’ broke a two-year stagnation and moved a second closer to human annihilation. One of the primary reasons for the move is rhetoric, the spreading of misinformation regarding who is going to do what to whom. How we perceive someone else’s willingness to engage in nuclear battle is based largely on the talk that is perpetuated through social media. The spread of disease and our lack of cooperation in global medicine also increase the chances of a pandemic wiping out large numbers of people. These are all things that we control and can adjust.
No, I’m not dismissing the fact that the current US administration is pure evil and that Republican governors are making the situation worse by forcing local law enforcement to cooperate with federal thugs. We need to be up in arms about the signing of the Laken Riley Act as it allows people to be detained and deported without a trial, in violation of the Constitution. Action needs to be taken to stop the use of military bases in Colorado as detention camps. And don’t even get me started on the dismantling of DEI protections. We need to be willing to go to war over that one.
I’m also concerned that the top headline from Reuters this morning was ‘Alibaba releases AI model it says surpasses DeepSeek‘ and right under that was ‘Dutch chip firm ASML sees flood of orders amid AI boom‘. Despite all the billions of dollars in investment, the US is losing the race on AI, which means that not only are our kids less intelligent but so are our computers. DeepSeek’s new AI chatbot and ChatGPT answer sensitive questions about China differently, among other factors. AI developers have the ability to rewrite what we know about history, skewing our view of the entire world.
Today, we can ill afford to put our heads in the sand and ignore everything going on around us. We are responsible. We are also response able. We are not helpless. We are not without voices. We are not without agency.
Together, let’s fix this.
Share this:
Like this: