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Way of the future, or artificial intelligence as a religion

The biggest issue with AI would be AI that don't share our goals (like an AI supposed to detect nuclear missiles going "nope" when it does detect the missiles). As long as their goals align with ours, we can work with them.
 
kay said:
... I'm not a church type but I'd rather just go back to an Episcopal church than bother with an AI church. After Mass cookies and doughnuts:)!!!! If it was a donuts and cookies AI church, ok, maybe...
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And coffee.
Can't forget the coffee.
What would Coffee Hour be, without the coffee?
 
Sabrina said:
Aren’t religion and science mutually exclusive?
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Here's my theory: Science and religion are two ends of a half-built bridge. One day, the vast chasm between the two will be built and then we will all smack our heads with our palms and say, "Ah! So THAT'S truth!"
 
Katleya said:
I believe there's a fiscal motivation behind a lot of organizations establishing their group as a religion, but I may be wrong. If anybody can confirm/infirm, feel free to jump in.
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Absolutely. Countless organizations which are nothing more than country clubs, but designated as religious institutions for tax purposes. I used to insure some of them. Constantly bickering with the insurance agents who would argue that their country club was just a "church", subject to a much lower rate in premiums. :rolleyes:
 
Judge said:
Absolutely. Countless organizations which are nothing more than country clubs, but designated as religious institutions for tax purposes. I used to insure some of them. Constantly bickering with the insurance agents who would argue that their country club was just a "church", subject to a much lower rate in premiums. :rolleyes:
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the bible about applying for a 501(c)(3) incorporation (not-for-profit educational or charitable institution, for those outside the U.S.), even though that's what most of the institutional churches do.
 
Beguiling Orbit said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the bible about applying for a 501(c)(3) incorporation (not-for-profit educational or charitable institution, for those outside the U.S.), even though that's what most of the institutional churches do.
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That's when it pays to empha$ize a separation between church and state. :p
 
I believe that even if useful tech is developed from this pursuit, there will always be a glass ceiling to practical AI. The Fountain of Youth, Holy Grail and cold fusion in a bottle will be discovered first.
 
It is pretty obvious that AI will become more and more advanced as time goes by, perhaps even surpassing human performance, but I don't understand why that would mean humans would worship AI.
 
Mia said:
Interesting Gracey, we are in a sense parasites of the planet. Something that's not occurred to me before.

Yet they would be originally programmed and created by us, with human influenced data. When our creations evolve, they wouldn't require food or water, only energy of some sort to function. Unless of course they become able to create their own energy.
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Wasnt it Elon Musk who said that the universe is likely a simulation?
 
Binary processors running standard artificial intelligence programs as we know today can't possibly do anything except what they're programmed to do even if they appear to, but what if we rebuild a working brain that works using something similar to neurons as it does in nature? Would that brain become conscious? Well to answer that question we have to understand what conscious is and of course we only have a very limited understanding at the time of writing.

Rebuilding a brain isn't as far off you might think however, they are already emulating part of a bee's brain and using it to fly drones, it's called The Green Brain Project and is being conducted by the University of Sheffield in the UK, if they go on to emulate the entire bee's brain it will react exactly like a bee in every respect including behaviour, of course this could then go on to emulate more complex organisms and perhaps eventually even man. Despite acting identically the an organism's brain this technology would always still be just an emulation, but could it still feasibly become conscious? Well I think it's unlikely as it's just a traditional processor or processors running a complex emulation program and even if they did improve the processing power of the system by many millions of times to run a fully mapped human brain, surely an emulated human brain is likely to function unexpectedly without consciousness (or what some people may call a soul)? Or would it?

In 2015 however scientists discovered a way to build artificial neurons that are capable of mimicking the function of an organic brain cell, please click here for more. They are working on shrinking the technology so it can be implanted into humans which could effectively allow them to replace damaged nerve cells and develop new treatments for neurological disorders, such as spinal cord injuries and Parkinson’s disease. Of course one day the same technology could be used to totally recreate the human brain, it will likely take many years, but it is nevertheless feasible. This technology is much more than just an emulation since it works in a very similar way to nature itself and in my opinion has a better chance of inducing consciousness in future. Consciousness may simply appear or enter the working system, or we may not even be close to achieving it and it may be impossible to achieve consciousness in an artificial life form without fully understanding exactly what consciousness is along with a lot more detail about it. In fact we may even have to understand consciousness to a level of being capable of fully manipulating and controlling it, this is in my opinion a much more likely requirement. If we did fully understand consciousness we'd most probably also fully understand death including what happens to our consciousness when we die (something that may never happen in living human existence), we may even be-able to scientifically manipulate what happens.

The problem is even if / when they do have a fully working artificial human brain, how will they know whether it is truly conscious or not? Well unless the system obviously doesn't act human it will again be almost impossible to know unless we understand consciousness much better than we do today. Even if a man made android appears to love and show compassion, is it just a machine that is programmed to do this or is there actually an individual consciousness seeing through the android's artificial eyes?

PS: Regarding the new religion, well in my opinion their belief that AI will eventually surpass humans are premature at best and it's probably more of a way to bring the founder fame and even more fortune. I'm not saying it definitely won't happen, but I still think we are quite a few decades away even if there is a chance.
 
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Fridgemagnetman said:
Elon Musk who said that the universe is likely a simulation?
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He reshaped something someone else said to this:

The strongest argument for us being in a simulation, probably being in a simulation is the following: 40 years ago, we had pong, two rectangles and a dot," Musk said. "That is what games were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it's getting better every year. And soon we'll have virtual reality, augmented reality, if you assume any rate of improvement at all, the games will become indistinguishable from reality."

From the original statement:

British philosopher Nicholas Bostrom in 2003

According to the hypothesis, one of the following three cases is true:
  1. We're literally living in a computer simulation
  2. There is a strong aversion in advanced civilizations to making "ancestor simulations"—that is, highly evolved civilizations have no interest in making what are essentially video games of their past
  3. Something destroys all civilizations before they're able to advance to the point where they are technologically capable of simulating consciousness

Disagree.
 
Mia said:
He reshaped something someone else said to this:

The strongest argument for us being in a simulation, probably being in a simulation is the following: 40 years ago, we had pong, two rectangles and a dot," Musk said. "That is what games were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it's getting better every year. And soon we'll have virtual reality, augmented reality, if you assume any rate of improvement at all, the games will become indistinguishable from reality."

From the original statement:

British philosopher Nicholas Bostrom in 2003

According to the hypothesis, one of the following three cases is true:
  1. We're literally living in a computer simulation
  2. There is a strong aversion in advanced civilizations to making "ancestor simulations"—that is, highly evolved civilizations have no interest in making what are essentially video games of their past
  3. Something destroys all civilizations before they're able to advance to the point where they are technologically capable of simulating consciousness

Disagree.
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I know one thing.

You're less lazy than me. :)

Thanks for posting this. Yes
 
Mia said:
Have seen the movie several times, found it interesting as well as tragic. Especially the child with emotions. Other movies with similar plots come to mind, Blade Runner, I Robot.
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This makes me think more of books by those scifi authors, those really probed the subject hard:

-Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
-The Dune trilogy
-Frank Herbert's lesser known Dosadi trilogy

Naturally I'm skeptical of any timelines presented and am unsure of just how it will come about or what it will look like, if it is even possible or probable. In the case that an AI oriented future indeed is on the horizon, my stance is to be open-minded and cautious.

The OP hit it on the nail inasmuch as a driving factor is commercial interest. In a world with multiple different superior intelligences those minds will have been designed by groups with competing commercial interests that may come to have social and political motives at variance with one another. It may even come down to an intelligence arms race.
 
sounds like "mark of the beast" to me, IOW one will have to swear fealty to this and accept an indelible mark of some kind as proof, in order to buy or sell anything. a choice of that, or starvation.
 
IMHO it is not about "staying in the boat." it is about having to be WORSHIPPING something other than GOD. aside from this I generally will not proselytize.
 
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