Essential difference

When GetReligion closed in Feb, I missed a favorite reading place on the web. I didn’t recognize, or maybe I didn’t remember, that Religion Unplugged is basically the successor. Warm weather opens my mental pores. Found it again today, and it’s still a good read, with most of the same writers and features.

This article cites a survey of Christians who correctly recognize that AI is not a neutral or good influence.

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Most, 68 percent, don’t believe AI could be used to enhance their spiritual practices and thus promote spiritual health; 58 percent don’t believe the technology could aid in their moral reasoning, and 57 percent don’t believe AI can produce a sermon as well-written as a pastor’s original work.

Thirty-seven percent of responders would even view unfavorably a pastor who uses AI to prepare sermons, researchers found.

“The question for church leaders becomes not whether the church will embrace AI, but how the church will embrace AI,” Nieuwhof and Jahng write. “History would tell us that ignoring technological revolutions probably isn’t the wisest choice and AI is no exception.”

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Strong point! Rome lost a big battle when it ignored Gutenberg. Later Protestants gained massively when they learned to USE radio (eg Norman Vincent Peale or Aimee Semple McPherson) and TV (eg Billy Graham or Tammy Faye.)

The article doesn’t catch one essential problem with AI, which goes beyond the simple technical process of using complex software to generate predictions. I’m pretty sure most people, especially religious people, understand that the evil part is WHO OPERATES AI. So far all of the systems are run by and for Gates and Zuck and Altman, and the inputs to the system are strongly biased in favor of the Tech Tyrant’s all-destroying all-consuming Libertarian viewpoint.

Building a parallel AI from a non-Tyrant base would be prohibitively expensive. If I had the job, I’d start by restricting the input to text written before 1946. Using the ‘full view’ parts of GoogleBooks would draw the line at 1927, which might be a bit too strict; but it would be technically feasible without special insider access.

Printing and radio and TV are neutral technologies. A printing press isn’t shaped by a preselected mass of manuscripts. You can write your own work and reproduce it on your own press, or pay a print shop to reproduce it. The result won’t be distorted by the millions of pieces previously published.

If you own a radio station, as Aimee did, or a TV network, as Tammy did, you can say what you want, limited only by the overall rules of FCC. Aimee’s content didn’t automatically “stand on the shoulders” of HL Mencken and Sinclair Lewis and Thomas Huxley.