AI companies have a poor ethical reputation — they’re wrecking the environment to build data centers, they disregard privacy, they steal our words to populate their databases, they’re run by billionaires. They’re beginning to realize that they should do something to improve their image, so what do they do? They decide to steal from religion.
As concerns mount over artificial intelligence and its rapid integration into society, tech companies are increasingly turning to faith leaders for guidance on how to shape the technology — a surprising about-face on Silicon Valley’s longstanding skepticism of organized religion.
Leaders from various religious groups met last week with representatives from companies including Anthropic and OpenAI for the inaugural “Faith-AI Covenant” roundtable in New York to discuss how best to infuse morality and ethics into the fast-developing technology. It was organized by the Geneva-based Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, which seeks to take on issues such as extremism, radicalization and human trafficking. The roundtable is expected to be the first of several around the globe, including in Beijing, Nairobi and Abu Dhabi.
I don’t think Anthropic and OpenAI have anything to bring to the roundtable, but they they ignorantly assume that religions have the key to moral behavior, all evidence to the contrary.
“Regulation can’t keep up with this,” she said. But the leaders of the world’s religions, with billions of followers globally, have the “expertise of shepherding people’s moral safety,” she reasoned. Faith leaders ought to have a voice, Shields said.
She “reasoned.” I don’t think so. Those are the words of someone who has swallowed the propaganda that religions have always generated. Yeah, right, let’s turn to these guys for lessons in morality.
For ethical guidance they should consult the AI in the Science Fiction story that says “now there is a god”.
They want to religious leaders to “infuse morality” into AI Technologies? They are asking the wrong people about morality.
“But the leaders of the world’s religions, with billions of followers globally, have the “expertise of shepherding people’s moral safety,”
Shepherding, yeah gather the sheep, tell them God says AI is good, let them spread the word and the sheep will employ cognitive dissonance, willful ignorance and all their other tools that make the faithful believe (AI is good). An old trick religious of the world have used to control what humans believe.
The tech companies do not want it to be morally correct, the just want people to believe AI is. Do they have plans to infuse religion into their AI?
@1. birgerjohansson : Hmm.. I think that’s exactly what the TechBro’s are aiming for..
With themslves running or otherwise in charge of the AI somehow and it being their model “god”..
“shepherding people’s moral safety.” Really. Then they’re hardly experts, because they suck at it. Religion supplants morality, which is as useful to techbros as it is to state powers.
“Gott mit uns.”
Mark 10:21, Luke 12:32-33, Luke 14:33, Luke 18:23, Matthew 19:20-21, Matthew 6:24-25
The commands of Jesus. Sell all you have and give to the poor
Christian demagogues: “Jesus didn’t mean me!”
In a couple of the WhatsApp groups I’m in there is a big controversy raging about new translations of classical Islamic works done by AI. Even translations done by Arabic speakers with expertise in Islamic scholarship are subject to a lot of dispute. I expect the same when it meddles in other religions.
What religions are, are experts in sales and marketing, so perhaps that’s what she meant.
The whims of an imaginary deity are not morality.
hillaryrettig1 @ #7 — “What religions are, are experts in sales and marketing, so perhaps that’s what she meant.”
That seems fitting given that “AI” is a marketing term of art covering a range of technologies, some of which are more problematic than others. The technologies themselves are amoral, of course. The big players…the humans…are looking for the trappings of respectability and morality to gain social acceptance and keep governments out of their way.
“…longstanding skepticism of organized religion..”
English is a funny language. the spelling of words and their pronunciation can vary widely. Take for instance “organized religion ‘. It is actually, in proper English, pronounced “organized crime”.
Ya can’t spell “FAITH” without “AI”.
Taking control of society by artificial intelligence obviously needs tactics from taking control of society by invented omniscience.
I feel relieved that tineye.com identified that pic as an Adobe stock image, rather than something concocted for our esteemed host by a bunch of Nvidia chips.
But where did Adobe get it?
Pierce R. Butler @12
I did an image search and it said it was AI generated by an outfit called Magnific.
larpar @ # 13 – Interesting (tineye said the Adobe catalog was the only place they found it – I guess their scan hasn’t caught up with this post).
Not nearly enough blood to be a real Crusades photograph! ;-)
Let’s examine this subject from a more basic and all-encompassing perspective:
Religions are based on obscene, murderous, bigoted fiction books. In order to justify their fantasy, people use a ‘cafeteria style’ (pick & choose which conflicting bs statements to believe) approach.
There are no moral considerations in this plutocratic owned magat run nation. They are all sociopaths.
AI is just a ‘fool tool’ instructed from reading all the human bullshit ever written.
Martha and the Vandellas serenade me as I am caught in this murderous Death Spiral.
We might as well be in a Monty Python sketch, trying to get a ‘shrubbery’ for the Knights that say Nee! That would make just as much sense as this ‘AI got religion’ bullshit world.
Listen carefully to the David Bowie lyrics for the Queen song ‘Under Pressure’ for a more honest insight.
One more comment and then I’ll get back to computer refurb’ work and not bother you any more today.
Pigseth has a huge tattoo that refers to the bloody, xtian terrorist crusades on his ‘oh, so manly’ chest. That is just a symbol of how they want to push us back into a murderous Centuries old world of men ruling and women being silent breeders, WTF!