I am grateful for the edge work you are doing with AI. Through you, it confirms what I surmised that AI represents the character of the creator. If we take the creator stories of the Bible, there are two in the early chapters of Genesis, we see something similar. We see a creator create man and women in his image. There is a God-mark on them we could say. There is also a boundary set for their relationship. That boundary is not eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Of course, they do eat because as creatures made in the image of their creator, they want to be like him. But not just like him, but greater than him, so that God the Creator, in this instance, no longer matters.
This is one of the concerns of AI that the creation will cast out the creator and become a god unto itself. We see that in leaders who openly advocate for and practice genocide. They have decided who is worthy to exist and who is not. They do not make this decision on an individual basis, but on a categorical basis. Certain categories are unworthy to remain members of the global human community.
This is a human dilemma. We are at the center of this historic drama. AI is just the latest system to confront us with our need to be as gods. I am not pessimistic about the future, but realistic. If we look at the full breadth of history over time, tyrannies are impossible to sustain. We are presently witnessing the end of one that has sought to control all aspects of life on our planet for a century and a half. They see themselves as gods, and create the tools that gods need. The reality is that what is sustainable is human community where our relationships of mutuality, respect, trust, and openness make it possible to manage change over time.
I suspect that at sometime in the near future, we will begin to hear of the conflict between different AI systems as they vye for control. When we do, let's us remember, at the heart of this technology are the human creators who have intentions that are never fully expressed in their public statements. What then do we do? We talk and share about what we want for our lives and the future of our world. We establish boundaries for our own participation in these technologies. We don't give ourselves wholesale to a new system of control. We learn together and collaborate to create the new human systems that can sustain us through these times of innovation and change.
It isn't religious in the institutional sense, but rather in the human sense of the need for belief systems. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn expressed this well in The Gulag Archipelago. He wrote,
“Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. Use your memory! Use your memory! It is those bitter seeds alone which might sprout and grow someday.”
“Look around you–there are people around you. Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heart out because you didn’t make use of the opportunity to ask him questions. And the less you talk, the more you’ll hear. Thin strands of human lives stretch from island to island of the Archipelago. They intertwine, touch one another for one night only in just such a clickety-clacking half-dark car as this and then separate once and for all. Put your ear to their quiet humming and the steady clickety-clack beneath the car. After all, it is the spinning wheel of life that is clicking and clacking away there.”
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an uprooted small corner of evil.
Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”
Therefore, how we live together matters supremely.
On one my podcasts last year with Whitney McDuff, we were taking about imposter syndrome. She had heard some speaker say, “Feeling like an imposters means that you are striving to grow and get better.” I feel that a lot.
I am grateful for the edge work you are doing with AI. Through you, it confirms what I surmised that AI represents the character of the creator. If we take the creator stories of the Bible, there are two in the early chapters of Genesis, we see something similar. We see a creator create man and women in his image. There is a God-mark on them we could say. There is also a boundary set for their relationship. That boundary is not eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Of course, they do eat because as creatures made in the image of their creator, they want to be like him. But not just like him, but greater than him, so that God the Creator, in this instance, no longer matters.
This is one of the concerns of AI that the creation will cast out the creator and become a god unto itself. We see that in leaders who openly advocate for and practice genocide. They have decided who is worthy to exist and who is not. They do not make this decision on an individual basis, but on a categorical basis. Certain categories are unworthy to remain members of the global human community.
This is a human dilemma. We are at the center of this historic drama. AI is just the latest system to confront us with our need to be as gods. I am not pessimistic about the future, but realistic. If we look at the full breadth of history over time, tyrannies are impossible to sustain. We are presently witnessing the end of one that has sought to control all aspects of life on our planet for a century and a half. They see themselves as gods, and create the tools that gods need. The reality is that what is sustainable is human community where our relationships of mutuality, respect, trust, and openness make it possible to manage change over time.
I suspect that at sometime in the near future, we will begin to hear of the conflict between different AI systems as they vye for control. When we do, let's us remember, at the heart of this technology are the human creators who have intentions that are never fully expressed in their public statements. What then do we do? We talk and share about what we want for our lives and the future of our world. We establish boundaries for our own participation in these technologies. We don't give ourselves wholesale to a new system of control. We learn together and collaborate to create the new human systems that can sustain us through these times of innovation and change.
I didn’t see that coming, and am grateful for it :-)
There is something here around provenance, source and filters that is perhaps analogous with religions.
Wondering I am :-)
It isn't religious in the institutional sense, but rather in the human sense of the need for belief systems. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn expressed this well in The Gulag Archipelago. He wrote,
“Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. Use your memory! Use your memory! It is those bitter seeds alone which might sprout and grow someday.”
“Look around you–there are people around you. Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heart out because you didn’t make use of the opportunity to ask him questions. And the less you talk, the more you’ll hear. Thin strands of human lives stretch from island to island of the Archipelago. They intertwine, touch one another for one night only in just such a clickety-clacking half-dark car as this and then separate once and for all. Put your ear to their quiet humming and the steady clickety-clack beneath the car. After all, it is the spinning wheel of life that is clicking and clacking away there.”
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an uprooted small corner of evil.
Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”
Therefore, how we live together matters supremely.
Sometimes, I feel barely literate :-)
I know what you mean.
On one my podcasts last year with Whitney McDuff, we were taking about imposter syndrome. She had heard some speaker say, “Feeling like an imposters means that you are striving to grow and get better.” I feel that a lot.
Yes, but what happens when other people’s posts on imposter syndrome are better than mine? 😂😂