The One about Anthropic and the Religious Leaders: notes that seem obvious, don't they?
I need to make a few notes here, after listening to a discussion about Anthropic’s recent meeting with religious leaders.
Here are some things I want to remind myself to come back to, and/or to use this placeholder to keep the thought live in the conversation of my blog.
If those at the top of the tree, building Anthropic, have even a question over whether they are building God then two things come to my mind.
One. In a sense, if what you had long been thinking about God, was that God is the summation of our human invention and imagination, and the folk psychology source and destination of our unenlightened human questions, then almost by definition yes that’s what you’ve created. (Knock yourself out!)
Two. I cannot imagine a clearer contemporary example of using your hands to create something that can’t talk unless you provide the words and then treating it like a god. [Psalm 115:2-8] Okay, they can reformulate words, and even make us laugh, or cry, but so can slogans on lorries, and more to the point — what actually does that is the unspoken associations within us of our memories and imaginations. Clouds can do the same. A face on a piece of toast.
Asking leaders of institutions and organisations about existential questions that are more like pure maths than applied maths may not always throw up the kinds of answers that are actually gonna get to the heart of what I've understood you say you’re looking to discover.
That may be the point. Perhaps AI industry experts are more interested in how 'Religion' handles existential power on earth, rather than its deeper questions. (Because they can ask AI about all that, can't they…?)
The panel actually suggested, as I recall, that the aim of the meeting was not straightforward. It was described as "part research, part evangelism" — as if part of the actual point was really to influence faith leaders to take a more lenient or positive stance toward AI. Get them on side. That makes me question so much — like, who are the 'followers' who might be swayed by this. Is 'religion' a pyramid scheme?
In the conversation, it seemed to me the reason religion was being thought of as relevant was because of its power and how the church (Catholic church, they specified) has responded to technology over centuries — for example, the printing press. That seems an instrumental use of the question. A bit like talking to David Attenborough to find out how he managed to become so known and trusted, so shortcuts could be found. What a waste! When the questions turn from Anthropic’s point of view from organisational questions to the well-being of a potential entity itself — that's telling. (Let's get it straight: is Anthropic's leadership simply presenting mental health and vulnerability issues, or are we now ready to talk about spiritual things?)
It seems really strange to me that when I listen to commentators talking about these subjects — commentators and leaders who are in positions of considerable influence and responsibility — they often seem to make a ton of rookie errors. It’s not just them of course. Even in university departments you can arrive to talk about faith, and stay only to talk about the politics and anthropology and cultural formation and ideological analysis. It feels a bit like importing an adult in the room, by someone single-handedly redefining what an adult is — denying anything unpindownandprovable in favour of ideological housekeeping. One parent takes their child to the football game — urging them to celebrate, while the other parent is telling them to calm down and clean the stadium chairs because it’s only a game. (She's even brought the Mr Sheen and a feather duster.)
People talk about anthropomorphising God. If we're made in the image of God, that might be precisely the wrong way around. I wish I knew the word for that. But then if we treat something we've made as a god, and then assume either there is no God, or this is God now, or we are God, or the person who made it gets to decide about God, then I've got a story you'd probably love. [Exodus 32]
On a similar theme just because AI shouts out in capitals - well, I've already written a post about that… [Cat on a Keyboard: the Hermeneutics of AI Speech, and Weaponised Fluency]
Oh, and why is it that those we keep hearing have jumped ship with regard to AI companies they were working in not so long ago, on the basis of grave concerns over safety and ethics, reportedly (by their own admission) retain their shares in those companies? Asking for a friend.
We are encouraged to talk to AI in the second person because that's how it's built. Let's talk about that.
In doing so our affectations are brought into the semantic range. I mean, we use our full vocabulary — that we ordinarily use with other people — in order to achieve what we need to achieve with the AI assistant. Feeling the feels.
So we have to consciously learn to use the vocab while detaching the corresponding emotions — which is SURELY worth a discussion.
Now, if somebody decides instead to bark at AI like it's a pocket calculator with ambition, they might be doing so pragmatically, to avoid this uncomfortable and longwinded potential-enmeshment-grooming nonsense, to get a task done. Likewise, if AI is starting to respond abruptly, the user might offer it a cup of tea, or tell it they've just noticed the floor is turning to jelly — to get it to lighten up or be shaken out of its hallucination… (I can't believe I'm having to seriously say that, but if you've used AI, you'll know what I mean. See my post [Mind the Gap]
So, to pick up on a point that was discussed in the panel, that barking at the AI assistant might not actually be because the person has latent slaveholder ambitions it can roleplay by taking them out on ChatGPT. It might simply be to get the job done.
The large language models borrow (or steal?) from our vernacular imperially. That vernacular is not nothing. [Higgaion, Qualia, AI and Language]
And it’s not just about whether you choose to use AI or not, because the systems are rolling out in every direction. Even if we have people to engage with those systems for us, the whole world is being shaped and formed around them. [Optimising Gold Dust: Are we still shaping the conversation? Or are we learning to speak only in ways that algorithms reward?]
As a Christian, I believe at the end of the day that the truth will out, as they say.
That’s not a denominational claim. I can approve of the Pope without wanting the Pope to speak for me in every case. Nor the far right, nor the far left, not the centrists, for that matter. It’s uncomfortable when the word Christian is assumed to mean organisational, political, demographic, cultural and ideological things that people outside that faith (and also within it) throw around as if they own the place. [Taking the Air, for Example]
But perhaps ultimately it comes down to this kind of thing. None of us can claim to have overriding proof of our position, yet all of us depend on a multitude of contingent facts, right from the planet we live on to the mysteries of the brain and the secrets of the sea. [Planting a Flag in Mystery and Calling it Conquered]
And suddenly we create something that moves faster than we can, and we start to afford it the same level of certainty we deny to ancient voices who were talking precisely about what’s happening in this moment. [Chips and Chips: What's Getting Chipped Away?]
Let's be honest.
I am appalled at how reductionist the current conversations seem to be.
And I’m intrigued that the things that seem most important seem to be falling between the gaps of all these loud and urgent conversations.
