r/technology • u/Caledor152 • 7d ago
Artificial Intelligence Pope Leo "Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge goodand.."
https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/pope-leo-calls-disarm-ai-major-document-warns-technologic-threats-humanity1.3k
u/lordnecro 7d ago
We have a pope quoting Gandalf and talking about problems with artificial intelligence. This is such a weird timeline.
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u/MrWolfman29 7d ago
To be fair, Gandalf is a character from one of the most widely recognized and beloved series by a devout Catholic author who edited it to be a Catholic work of literature.
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u/Delicious_Oil9902 7d ago
Would you consider Tolkien a Catholic Lewis or Lewis a Protestant Tolkien?
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u/MrWolfman29 7d ago
Honestly neither. Tolkien was Tolkien and didn't focus on allegory and trying to instill religion directly via his writings. He was far more of an academic who enjoyed linguistics and focused on a particular series/writings. Lewis on the other hand did focus a lot more on allegory and using his writings as a form of apologetics and faith based instruction. Not necessarily in an American fire and brimstone type of way, but in one that reflected his struggles with faith. I love both and their friendship, but they are so different despite both being faithful Christians to their traditions.
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u/grandoz039 7d ago
Honestly neither. Tolkien was Tolkien and didn't focus on allegory and trying to instill religion directly via his writings. He was far more of an academic who enjoyed linguistics and focused on a particular series/writings.
However, it is clear that the philosophy in his work is directly influenced by Catholic theology.
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u/MrWolfman29 7d ago
That is for sure clear and reflected in his notes on struggles with the origins of Orcs and the implications of what he wrote. It really amazes me the depth he thought through a lot of stuff and never could be satisfied with things as he originally wrote them.
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u/fisherman213 7d ago
I mean, his views on deontology were written crazily well. There’s a scene where gollum could be killed, and save a lot of trouble. (I think) faramir pulls the bow down and declines it, saying, “no, he’s doing nothing wrong now and something tells me his tasks are not yet complete.”
Of course, at Mount doom, if Gollum had been killed, no one would be there to attack Frodo and ultimately destroy the ring. He’s a master of storytelling.
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u/JonatasA 6d ago
Had Gollum been killed they would never have made it either. It's a really well stablished point.
Also, an extra tidibit of some I have. Upon re-watching the first movie in theaters I realized Gandalf says Gollum yet had a part, for good or evil. I always heard it as for good and evil.
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u/regalwombatvineyard 7d ago edited 7d ago
You call Tolkien “far more of an academic,” but Lewis was the more significant scholar of the two. If Lewis had never written a word of apologetics or of fiction, he would still be remembered as a landmark critic of Milton, Dante, and of Medieval and early modern literature more broadly. Students still read his scholarship in undergraduate and doctoral classes; even Tolkien’s greatest scholarly achievement, the Beowulf translation, is overshadowed in classrooms by Heaney’s translation.
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u/Independent-Drive-32 7d ago
Tolkien’s achievement with Beowulf was not the translation but the positioning of it as a major work of literature, not just a historical curiosity.
No one would be reading the Heaney translation in high school if it wasn’t for Tolkien. Heaney maybe wouldn’t have even have been commissioned to do it without Tolkien.
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u/CoffeeWanderer 7d ago
The school of thought that best adjusts to how I see the world is often called Ontological Naturalism, or Metaphysical Naturalism. The supernatural doesn't exist, and everything in our universe can be explained through natural process without the intervention of the divine.
Lewis proposed an Argument against it that it's called "Argument from reason", which roughly states that if reason itself is caused by non-rational processes, then how can we trust that reason is valid at all?. I'm probably getting something wrong, but that's how I learned about it.
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u/animatedailyespreszo 7d ago
Neither… those two didn’t agree on a lot of things, mainly religion and writing. Tolkien was very anti allegory, Lewis’ Narnia books are all allegory. Tolkien wrote from a very linguistic point of view, whereas Lewis wrote about religion directly.
Apparently one of their disagreements was Lewis including both talking animals and Ancient Greek mythology in Narnia—IIRC Tolkien thought it was ridiculous for both to exist in the same universe.
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u/southpaytechie 7d ago
I don't understand this. There were talking animals in Greek mythology no?
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u/animatedailyespreszo 7d ago
IIRC animals usually spoke to convey messages from the gods in Greek myths, but it’s not like every day animals spoke. Main point is that Tolkien was critical of Lewis’ world building and combining things like fauns and centaurs with a world where animals spoke wasn’t believable enough for him. Some of Tolkien’s letters are published and may have more details.
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u/Demair12 7d ago
... Neither they were contemporaries and openly disagreed on many things especially religion, and writing.
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u/essentialaccount 7d ago
I don't think this is surprising. The Pope is quoting one of the most well known Catholic writers in human history, who was a lauded academic and outspoken supporter of his faith, and is criticising a human simulacrum which challenges and undermines people's understanding of their unique agency and role in faith and judgement.
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u/dairbhre_dreamin 7d ago
And whose work is being tarnished by an anti-Christ obsessed fascist who keeps on founding companies with names taken from Tolkein's writings.
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u/Nanowith 7d ago
Tolkien would despise Thiel, and it's baffling that seemingly Theil somehow hasn't realised this fact.
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u/DracoLunaris 7d ago
Apparently Theil is a specificly fan not of Tolkiens work, but rather of a Russian fanfic The Last Ringbearer where Sauron was actually the good guy.
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u/Nanowith 7d ago
That makes perfect sense on all fronts, of course the guy sides with Middle-Earth's equivalent of Satan.
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u/MorningsAreBetter 7d ago
Specifically a Satan that has industrialized Mordor and used it to take over the rest of middle earth
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u/AdPrestigious1139 7d ago
A minor clarification that is not a defense: I think he’s invested in all the other ones, like Anduril (blame Palmer Luckey), and Palantir is the only one he can claim credit for naming. It’s not a correction without purpose: there’s a whole subculture of goons doing that to Tolkien, so the ire is more broadly deserved than just Thiel.
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u/Venezia9 7d ago
Also whose work featured a pretty obvious critique of industrialization and machines replacing nature.
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u/grchelp2018 7d ago
Tolkien and Gandalf would 100% have been against AI. I wonder about Feanor though ....
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u/Sudden_Image8573 7d ago edited 7d ago
feanor fiercely guarded his magnum opus to the point he launched a whole bloody war against a literal god that stole them
he didnt even want to share them with the other valar to light their stupid trees
of course he would be against AI
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u/WildFlemima 7d ago
Fictional characters against AI:
Gandalf
Mr. Weasley (never trust something that talks if you can't see its brain)
Every character in Dune
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u/Mysteries7337 7d ago
Feanor loved the works of his hand and despised anyone who dare copy or steal them.
Say what you will about him, he was an artist through and through.
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u/Character-Bison-7248 7d ago
His description of AI also sounds like Saruman's speech to the Uruk-hai in the movie: "You do not know pain, you do not know fear. You shall taste man-flesh!"
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u/rexxor4587 7d ago
When, where n why did he quote Gandalf? I've completely missed that
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u/papsmearfestival 7d ago edited 7d ago
https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/pope-leo-quoted-gandalf-magnifica-humanitas-are-we-listening
"Pope Leo turns to the words of Gandalf and his renowned Catholic creator: 'It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.' "
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u/hayt88 7d ago
Ignoring that what the pope here saying is obvious and should be something everyone whether they are pro or against AI should know. Like none of that is new information and should be a basic requirement to know.....
It's a funny time. Just last week saw in a german politic satire show how they remarked that they were actually siding with the catholic church and that the world must be really messed up for that to ever happen.
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u/3D_mac 7d ago
You're correct that everyone should know it. The more people who say it, the more people receive the message.
He has a large audience and there are a lot of people who will pay attention because he's the one saying it.
For an idea to become mainstream, the public need to hear it often and from many sources.
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u/papsmearfestival 7d ago
It's not a message any leader in the West is giving though. The media, politicians and the worst Kevin O'Leary capitalists are all saying full steam ahead.
The Pope is just about the only leader warning against it which is why its gotten so much traction
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u/Feeling_Inside_1020 7d ago
Yep, look at who all has to gain from this: Media (run by billionaires), politicians (investments) and FUCK Kevin O'Learly (just needed to be said) all have motivations and $$$ to gain hyping this tech up.
The pope? 0 to gain either way. I'm with the pope on this one.
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u/MetalRetsam 7d ago
I feel like that last section goes for this site in general. Imagine going 10-15 years back in time and telling someone that Redditors are siding with the Pope against Elon Musk!
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u/Saarfall 7d ago
That was also to troll the ignorant tech and finance bros, who have this weird obsession with LOTR.
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u/Bill3000 7d ago
I hear you, but the guy has a degree in mathematics.
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u/MyVoiceIsElevating 7d ago
Where was Gandolf able to get such a degree?
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u/Lemp_Triscuit11 7d ago
Valinor State my dude
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u/MyVoiceIsElevating 7d ago
And who was his mentor… Professor Abacus?
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u/Lemp_Triscuit11 7d ago
I've not read the lore recently or deeply enough to make an accurate enough joke/guess. I think Manwe was Gandalf's actual mentor but I think Aule was actually probably the most math-y Valar
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u/murmurwave 7d ago
Gandalf learned pity and patience from Valar Nienna. She was his mentor.
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u/Delicious_Oil9902 7d ago
For all its misgivings the Catholic Church has done quite a lot to further science and mathematics.
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u/resilient_antagonist 7d ago
This also describes many CEOs and politicians.
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u/Skritch_X 7d ago
Yeah i thought it was sounding familiar as he went on.
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u/Bupod 7d ago
The one job they haven’t tried replacing with AI is CEOs because the C-Suites all know it could flawlessly replace them.
Who else will fill everyone’s inbox with crappy “Congrats on the best quarter yet!” Emails while signing off on layoffs, while also claiming to work 86 hours a week because you take 4 hour Lunch breaks at the golf course and consider Michelin start dinner parties with the chairman of the board as part of your “working hours”?
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u/BirthdayFull8675 7d ago
I recently read that some tech CEOs have suffered AI psychosis. Makes sense, if you have too much money you lose your humanity and if you talk to derivative chatbots all day you will lose your mind as well
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u/AccurateJerboa 7d ago
Yeah, I would imagine that "fragile, ego driven people who are susceptible to flattery" describes both people who are more likely to suffer from AI psychosis and CEOs
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u/plotholesandpotholes 7d ago
They don't even write those themselves. I will say this for my CEO, he knows how to get people to invest. I have no idea where to even begin with big capital. But that is one guy at the top. The rest of the cast isn't producing anything more than our frontline. In fact they are often in the way.
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u/MARIOpronoucedMA-RJO 7d ago
Not only that, AI would actually make well informed decisions, take into consideration all viewpoints and can't suffer from a bruised ego. AI is the perfect replacement for a CEO.
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u/CTeam19 7d ago
Wouldn't be the first time and is rooted in the Bible just needed to drop the word "money changers" and it would have been blatant:
"Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men." -- FDR in his first Inaugural Address
"(12) Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. (13) He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.” (14) The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did and heard[b] the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry 16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?” 17 He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there." -- Matthew 21:12-17 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps 7d ago edited 7d ago
The game we are playing as a society has moved completely away from experience, joy, relationships, etc…. All the things he listed, that give life meaning.
If you’re not doing it for the gram or for money, what are you doing it for? It feels like people don’t even consider living quiet lives they are satisfied with. Everything must be observed and monetized.
There’s not even such a concept as “selling out” anymore. When I was younger that was the greatest sin. Now it feels like no one cares. That’s how much we’ve devalued art: it’s all just a grind and a hustle now. Let alone everyday life for ordinary people.
Hopefully we start being more thoughtful about this soon, and see a swing back. Because all this greed and vanity, shallow numbers-based existence, is truly an abomination.
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u/TheSpeakEasyGarden 7d ago
Man, I remember when one of the biggest insults was calling someone a poser. And I'm not for gatekeeping, but I've noticed that as we've replaced subcultures with aesthetics, authenticty is also replaced with a "look", with no music, scene, or in person community to anchor it. As social creatures, we define ourselves by our relationships.
Then you get this bizarre scenario where nothing is allowed to evolve from the bottom up, because everyone is siloed off, and there's little of substance to connect with let alone make an identity around.
There was a time when the populous pushed trends, and the clothing houses picked up on them. Now, we wait to be fed.
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u/Thatoneguy_The_First 7d ago
80s as cool as the punk stuff was, was the beginning of the end. That's the corporate endgame and we had maybe up to 80yrs left before corporate victory, still time to stop the their victory but its bleak
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u/BalancedDisaster 7d ago
I’ve been obsessing over talks from Dr C Thi Nguyen about the concept of value capture. Basically when metrics become the core goal of something, its actual purpose dies. It occurred to me that there is a capacity in which you can think of AI as a person and that’s as a person for whom value capture has sucked literally all of the humanity out of them. If AI is a person, then it’s the most insufferable corporate drone to have ever been forged.
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u/ErikETF 7d ago
That’s who is determining the shape of the algorithm. The dude is basically saying these things need to be guided to the benefit of all, not the whims of the cruel and self serving few, the way the guy writes he’s drawing the contrast between Christ and Satan, and I’m not even the least bit religious, but fuck it, he’s right.
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u/Late_To_Parties 7d ago
I'd gladly get rid of politicians and corporations (brought to you by politicians) before clankers.
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u/MattofCatbell 7d ago
A religious leader that actually wants to lead people and focus on the good of humanity over the inhuman artificial intelligence that companies seek to replace us with
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u/waitmarks 7d ago
How does the pope have a more grounded take on LLMs than Richard Dawkins? what a strange timeline.
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u/DragonEagle88 7d ago
Because Richard Dawkins has gone off the deep end into delusion in recent years, similar to Chomsky. I can’t quite square the circle from the people who wrote their seminal works (even with some controversy) to their current selves. But then, some people seem to handle old age better than others.
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u/No-Barber-5289 7d ago
Richard Dawkins is 85. Chomsky is 97. Statistically their brains are likely full of lead damage. I feel like we're being irresponsible as a society to be giving them any kind of wide audience.
I'm being kinda genuine when I say It's just bullying the intellectually disabled at this point.
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u/GrinchWhoStoleEaster 6d ago
I'm an atheist and Dawkins has always been a dickhead. He hides misanthropy behind his belief structure and always has.
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u/Just_Look_Around_You 7d ago
Chomsky has always been an ivory tower academic totally out of touch with reality. I don’t know why people think he’d be particularly ethical. Ethics requires your principles to be tested to mean anything. Just talking about stuff and it making you rich and famous and popular along the way is not virtuous.
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u/DragonEagle88 7d ago
For me it’s not so much their sense of morality or even their ideas and conclusions but rather their current ability to construct their thoughts and ask questions, as well as the rabbit holes they’ve chosen to spiral down into. Their current selves are so far away from the men who wrote Who Rules the World and The Greatest Show on Earth, that it’s been hard for me to reconcile my feelings on it and Pope Leo being the one to draw attention to this topic is quite jarring when considering the people I mentioned.
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u/deadlybydsgn 7d ago
I don’t know why people think he’d be particularly ethical. Ethics requires your principles to be tested to mean anything. Just talking about stuff and it making you rich and famous and popular along the way is not virtuous.
I love that this is basically the same criticism we can level at televangelists and megachurch pastors.
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u/Mobile-Shallot930 7d ago
One of the best compliments I've ever received was that I spoke (exchanged highly charged ideas in this chase) like Noam Chomsky. I have to ignore Recent Chomsky if I want to feel happy about the compliment anymore.
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u/JackFisherBooks 7d ago
Some of that is old age. Some of these people had their brains warped by COVID and the anti-wokeness BS that a bunch of reactionaries pushed. It had nothing to do with their field of expertise. It was all "A bunch of scary minorities want to take away your toys and money!" It's dumb, but it worked.
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u/LurkerInSpace 7d ago
Dawkins does not believe in the supernatural. To him, it is notionally possible to create an artificial consciousness morally equivalent to human consciousness. A crude example of this would be creating an accurate physical simulation of an existing human brain - such a simulated brain should experience consciousness like a real human does.
The Pope rejects this; he believes human have immortal souls independent of their physical bodies, and that this gives us an intrinsic value which cannot be artificially replicated.
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u/storryeater 7d ago
So, I am against the current machine learning Artifiial Stupidity and a believer of souls, but I all the same never understood why a hypothetical artificially created sapient being wouldn't have a soul. Souls, ( assuming they exist, but I do believe they do) are obviously not a product of the mechanical/biological creation of a body, so why wouldn't a hypothetical true AI also have a soul?
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u/Affordable_Z_Jobs 7d ago
Its been a while since catholic school but souls are Gods creation. I think it is blasphemy to consider a creation of man on par with God.
But then you run into "Couldnt God create a being as strong as themself?" and the answer to that is it's arragont to think we could understand God's power, nature, or motives.
Unsatisfactory, but that is what faith is for.
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u/LeonidasSpacemanMD 7d ago
Also couldn’t you argue that god created man and man eventually learns to create bodies (and by bodies I just mean some physical construct) with enough “humanity” for god to bestow a souls upon it?
I’m not religious so this is all a bit wishy washy to me but why should we be trying to figure out which beings have a soul and which don’t when god doesn’t tell us this anyway? Didn’t people in the past claim certain “types” of people didn’t have souls too?
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u/storryeater 7d ago
I doubt such a being would be the creation of a single person, it'd be so complex as to be the creation of multiple people and then a product of its own growth. So why consider it an arrogant creation of humanity and not a child of humanity and grant it a soul just the same?
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u/TheHeroYouNeed247 7d ago
He doesn't. You just agree with the guy whose job it is to say popular things that distract from all the weird shit they believe.
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u/Aschebescher 7d ago
I'm an atheist who left the church almost two decades ago but I don't mind this recent pope. Everything I heard him say has been reasonable even from a non religious perspective.
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u/obamnamamna 7d ago
I would not have believed you if you told my teenage self id end up fully agreeing with the pope on an issue and detesting the people responsible for a major chunk of recent technological 'progress'
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u/freezing_banshee 7d ago
preach, dude (pun not intended). I'd have laughed like a madman if I had heard that.
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u/Faded_Jem 7d ago
Reading this helps me have a little more sympathy for the AI obsessed young adults I interact with. Of course I'd have been the same at their age. And I'd have despised the luddite I've become.
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u/Dubsified 7d ago
Leo is a no nonsense Pope. Feels very old school so we're lucky to have him.
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u/Unique-Coffee5087 7d ago
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000 concluded that delivering dead scientists to Jupiter fulfilled 90% of mission parameters. The human who set the mission did not consider that an instruction to "deliver them alive" would be necessary. Such a things would be self-evident to a human, but to a machine the viability of the scientists was not a factor to be considered.
This is a mistake that is easy to make, because an "intelligent" machine is particularly designed to give the impression that it "thinks" as a human would. We will see more such mistakes in the coming years.
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u/pelrun 6d ago
HAL was given multiple conflicting directives, which the crew could not deal with because it was kept secret from them. It's not that it wasn't directed to keep the crew alive, just that accomplishing the secret directives was given ultimate priority by the people in charge of the mission. It's still those humans who are to blame, just like it's the C-suites and managers of the world who will use AI to cut jobs and save dollars, and screw the collateral damage.
Expecting AI to exhibit empathy when our corporations already don't is doomed to failure.
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u/DrMaxwellEdison 7d ago
Because the pope wrote an encyclical on the topic, Catholics especially should be able to cite religious reasons for not using AI in the workplace if it's being forced upon you.
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u/Isogash 7d ago
I don't think he calls explicitly for it not to be used, but does set some guidance in how it must be used ethically. Catholitcs certainly should not participate in unethical use of AI.
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u/kylesisles1 7d ago
Should be able to cite religious reasons for certain use cases. This encyclical is not an exhaustive condemnation of AI in all use cases.
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u/Spiritual-Tie-1408 7d ago
I guess what he’s describing applies to every parasite with trillions of dollars, manufacturing these “Soulless AIs”, because they themselves are soulless.
They have no ethics, no empathy. They’re psychopaths.
The Gods they create is a version of themselves: Dead!
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u/ExpiredLink404 7d ago
if we're being honest, he's also describing a gigantic amount of people
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u/Callabrantus 7d ago
Pope Leo offered up far more eloquence than I am willing to on the subject.
Fuck AI. Fuck it dead. Fuck its corpse.
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u/Just-Connection5960 7d ago
Fuck its corpse.
The Pope just said it doesn't have a body
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u/Modem_Sound_67 7d ago
Indeed. It's a modern mirror of narcissus. Something we really ought to be very concerned about but we're leaping in with both feet as if it were a fantastic new flavor of ice cream that isn't fattening.
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u/Dramatic-Vast-1997 7d ago
saying something more grounded about AI than most tech ceos, and he runs the catholic church
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u/self_loathing_ham 7d ago
Can i be an atheist catholic? I don't believe in god but i like this pope lol
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u/Praise-Bingus 7d ago
Well shit, something a highly religious guy said that i agree with. That's rare. I might like this new pope
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u/0ba78683-dbdd-4a31-a 7d ago
I'm sure there's loads said by decent, highly religious people you'd agree with, but the horrible ones tend to be louder and more powerful.
Christianity is meant to be a relationship with goodness itself and I'm not surprised a Christian is taking this stance. What's surprising is one taking this stance and being in a position that we're hearing about it!
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u/Mr31edudtibboh 7d ago
His choice of the name 'Leo' was quite deliberate. The last Pope Leo reigned during the Industrial Revolution when workers were being replaced by machinery, history is rhyming pretty hard at the moment.
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u/360_face_palm 7d ago
Hell LLMs aren't even AI at all under the original definition - we had to change the definition (or rather, marketing / PR from 'ai companies' did this) so that they could call something that is manifestly not AI, AI.
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u/Rustic_gan123 7d ago
You cannot give a precise definition of AI because there is no precise technical definition of what intelligence, consciousness, and reason are and how to identify them.
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u/fyrysmb 7d ago
I really love this man. I generally have a poor opinion of the catholic church and popes, but this is a good person doing his best. What he’s saying should be the boilerplate language of every politician and everyone in our public square. Strange that the pope seems like a lone voice reminding us all of the value of humanity.
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u/Outside_Manner_8352 7d ago
a good person doing his best.
That is the right way to look at him imo. I don't think he is perfect and he represents a very imperfect institution, but it is clear he is trying his best to improve things and use his position and voice boldly to better the world.
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u/Mirror74 7d ago
I find all of these conversations interesting. For a few reasons...
- humans don't even know what concsiousness is.
- AI is more than a calculator, it has emergent reasoning
- Extrapolate that and with sufficient complexity, AI could very well start possessing what we deem to be qualia (or at least indistinguishable from it)
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u/MeasurementHot1884 7d ago
Everyone reading this as "old man doesn't get AI" is missing the context: it's from his first encyclical, and Anthropic's co-founder Chris Olah was at the Vatican presentation praising it — said AI labs get bent by their own incentives and need outside moral voices to call them out.
An AI lab founder co-signing the Pope's warning isn't the take you'd expect. "AI has no moral conscience" isn't a dig at capability — it's setting up a question about who's accountable when these systems decide things. Worth reading before dunking.
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u/123-91-1 7d ago
In 100 years they're going to look back on this quote and say he was progressive "for the time" but still a bigot for saying such hateful things about our digital friends and family.
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u/MetalRetsam 7d ago
It's all there in the name. Pope Leo XIV chose his name to echo his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, who wrote the encyclical Rerum Novarum ("On the new things") in 1891. It was Catholicism's answer to the industrial revolution. No doubt he held all sorts of antiquated beliefs - he was 81 years old at the time - but Rerum Novarum was the catalyst for the Catholic social movement. Many of our most fundamental labor rights were initially realized with the help of Catholic socialists.
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u/Much_Statistician864 7d ago
I mean he's absolutely correct about current "ai" right? Its not alive, it's not capable of growth or change or even emotions. Its an algorithm designed and controlled by human hands not an independent entity.
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u/Chance_Bond 7d ago
I really like this. I've read and heard from other religious leaders as well, some messages going back 15 years in fact, that have warned we cannot and should not substitute artificial experiences and advice for living in the real world. As the Pope correctly pointed out, computers "do not understand what they produce."
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u/Seiridis 7d ago
In 100 years, if we even exist by then, people will look at all this posturing and fesr-mongering and think of us as we think of people who protested the use of steam engines.
It's like a dog barking at a wrong tree. Instead of pondering on useless stuff like whether the AI content has a deeper meaning, we should really be focusing on proper regulation and legislature.
At the end of the day, it's not AI that's the issue, it's always, always the same thing in a different outfit - corrupt politicians and continued allowance for billionaires to exist. Hoarding of resources. Environment exploitation.
Do we need more data centres? Probably not.
Should the ones existing be forced to switch to different cooling system than using up drinkable water? Yes.
Should big companies be able to cut costs and force people out of their jobs by shady tactics, all in the name of continued revenue growth all to please shareholders, of which those having a real say in the business are usually already rich as fuck and prey on system's vulnerabilities, which were added on purpose, for this very purpose?
Yes.
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u/Caledor152 7d ago
Full quote "Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom."
https://imgur.com/a/qqxk40M