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Posted by teleforce 2 days ago

An ex-Intel CEO's mission to build a Christian AI: Hasten the return of Christ(www.theguardian.com)
44 points | 36 comments
thhoooowww0101 1 day ago|
I don't understand two things:

1. Why do some humans want to "hasten the coming of Christ’s return"?

2. Why do some humans think that an all powerful God needs their help to do what he wants to do?

ntkhan 1 day ago||
1. This is usually linked to dispensationalist theology which results in the rapture of the faithful in Christ. 2. Very few do. Most think God allows His creatures to participate in His plans and is pleased when do so in a virtuous way.
SpicyLemonZest 1 day ago||
The Bible, which Christians believe to be divinely inspired or even divinely authored, instructs humans to do this in 2 Peter 3:12.
pohuing 1 day ago||
How does it do that? It just says to keep calm and carry on because hecklers will not understand that God wants everyone to have a chance. Or am I missing context, it's been a couple of years since I've been in church(and a reformed protestant one at that)
SpicyLemonZest 1 day ago||
A number of translations specifically say "hastening the coming of the day of God" (https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/2%20Peter%203%3A12). You may have one of the ones that doesn't; there's an underlying dispute about the meaning of the Greek verb σπεύδω that I'm not qualified to weigh in on.
pohuing 1 day ago||
Mine indeed does not contain a similar phrase, it says pretty much the opposite. I guess Luther wasn't interested in the end days much.

But then if the first flood came after excessive sin, is the way to hasten the arrival of the end times another time of sin? That explains a lot ig

shaggie76 1 day ago||
My first thought was this blog article I saw on HN a while back:

https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/should-we-use-llms-for-ch...

He argued, persuasively I thought, that "this is an area where truthfulness is of paramount importance" and consequently would be extremely ill-suited to AI.

eviks 1 day ago||
But this is not an area where truthfulness is remotely important, let alone paramount, so well suited?
giraffe_lady 1 day ago||
That's such a good article. I think because I didn't need convincing on this I didn't seriously evaluate its argument the first time around but like you said it is quite solid. Thanks for bringing it back into the conversation it's a really good read along with this one.
danans 1 day ago||
In his commentary on Gen AI, Yuval Hariri points out that the initial type of publication that proliferated after the printing press was not scientific, but instead witch hunting manuals.

Perhaps Intel's ex CEO isn't attempting to incite oppression of non-Christians through AI, but his references to bringing about Christian Judgement Day as his main goal suggest exactly that.

After all, why would God need his help through technology (whether swords, ships, or AI) to hasten the second coming?

quantified 1 day ago|
It is just as likely that this is to help humans, especially those who control or profit from the AI. The faithful and the gullible will see the output from hidden weights as being the word of god. When you look at those who bring this word to wide audiences today, you see a lot of grifters, not to mention predators.
pixelready 1 day ago||
Which Christ is he trying to summon? Actual man-of-the-people Jesus from the bible, or the corrupted American-style supply-side Jesus of the prosperity gospel?

https://imgur.com/gallery/gospel-of-supply-side-jesus-bCqRp

krapp 10 hours ago|
Obviously not the former. That guy wanted his followers to give their wealth and possessions to the poor, feed the hungry, care for the sick and elderly, forgive debts and treat foreigners and aliens with respect and dignity. To practice empathy of all things. Like some kind of beta male Marxist soyboy cuck.
aquir 1 day ago||
Humanity will get to the next level when we leave all organised religions behind. Faith is something that is only between you and the entity you believe in. Organised religions are just another face of politics.
scrubs 1 day ago||
This is hilarious ... you know you're lost when religion (one of the most protected institutions in the US constitution) pursues AI/tech to advance its message. Sticking with the Christian theme I predict that well before the 2nd coming God will send a prophet to the Christian world who's message will essentially be: What are you clowns doing? The fundamentals require faith, then works consistent with that faith. And that's done in the real world of person v. person. Prophets are God's corrective action.
quantified 1 day ago||
Ask the AI for all the falsehoods and contradictions. Ask it how you can tell a false prophet from a real one. This Christianity stuff has poetry in it but the religion and the texts are far apart. Exactly which laws of the Old Testament were voided? Or must Christians abide by them all? Was the Tower of Babel's destruction just a fleeting tantrum? Who did Cain marry if there were no other women? How did Noah get all the scorpions and biting insects? Thanks for the bedbugs and typhoid, dude. Generally an incoherent scheme.
rightbyte 1 day ago||
> Who did Cain marry if there were no other women?

Like, stuff like that doesn't matter. It is not the point of the story. I don't think the oral tradition cared about plot holes at all.

quantified 1 day ago|||
If the religion is just some fallible oral tradition, it is no better than an institutionalized TV show. Its claims for humanity are far too important for that.

Remember, the Gospels weren't written contemporaneously. Only after something like 4-5 generations. And when have we heard of people changing or faking history to suit their own ends?

The Judeo-Christian god is a nacissistic, somewhat sadistic mob boss. Way too human.

ntkhan 19 hours ago||
4-5 generations is a stretch, though it depends on what you mean by generation. Most New Testament Scholars including atheists agree that the New Testament was written while the some of the 12 apostles were still alive.

For example, agnostic atheist Dr. Bart Ehrman (Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary) states "Critical scholars are widely agreed that the earliest Gospel was Mark, written around 70 c.e.; that Matthew and Luke were written some years later, say, around 80–85 c.e.; and that John was the last Gospel, written around 90–95 c.e."

The historical record also has the disciples (St. Clement, St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius) of the apostles quoting the Gospels or referring to the letters of the apostles shortly after those dates ~90-108 AD depending on who you ask.

Regarding "faking history to suit their own ends", it is hard to imagine what gain the early Christians got by faking history. Some of these people were tortured, crucified, and fed to wild beasts by members of the Roman government because they were making these claims. Not exactly a racket.

quantified 18 hours ago||
Thank you for the detail. I had a more loose understanding of "about 100 years" after. If a generation is 20 years (at that point in history), that would be 5 generations. 25 years per, 4 generations.

The fact that many details of his actions are shared with other legends/traditions sure makes it look like he existed as a person and had lots of stories attributed to him.

The Councils of Nicea and Trent could not have been free of politics.

Those who were told falsehoods and believed them might well hold firm. Let's be real, evidence for the theology around the stories is lacking. This god does not show any influence of existence for a very long time. It's just people doing what people do.

ntkhan 17 hours ago||
You're welcome. The details shared with many other legends/traditions claim is also usually incorrect, particularly "god x was also crucified, rose from the dead, born of a virgin, had twelve dsiciples" etc. Usually these types of claims can be tied back to very specific films/books etc. For example the film 'Zeitgeist' makes wild assertions about Jesus & Horus sharing key details which have been debunked many times over. This is so common that there is a popular YouTube video that satirizes the concept called 'Horus Ruins Christmas' by LutheranSatire.

I agree, no Church council was free of politics. Not an issue for me though: the Church's stated mission is to teach the nations to obey all that God commanded. (Mat 28:19) That sort of mission is going to get political one way or another.

I don't find the evidence for the theology to be lacking at all: the eucharistic miracles in Tixla, Mexico and Legnica, Poland happened this century. There was also the miracle of the sun at Fatima. Daniel 2 was written hundred of years before Christianity and predicts that the Roman Empire would be absorbed by the kingdom of God. That same kingdom which would start small and slowly cover the earth: this fits basically exactly with the transformation of the Roman Empire into a Christian state and now Christianity covers the globe. That's just one of many fulfilled prophecies. I don't see how a naturalistic explanation is adequate for repeated knowledge of the future over the course of hundreds of years or the repeated eyewitness testimony of people seeing these miracles.

Coffeewine 1 day ago||||
Of course it doesn’t. But there is a difference between treating the story as an oral tradition and the explicit and unerring word of god.
CamperBob2 1 day ago|||
It should certainly matter to fundamentalists, who have an outsized influence in politics. They regularly pick the most questionable translations of the most vague and obscure verses and ram them down everyone else's throats.

It doesn't matter to them, but it should.

8note 1 day ago||
why didnt noah talk about how much more dangerous the bugs and animals in austrialia are? or say he put all the dangerous animals there? a bit of warning woulda been nice
indolering 1 day ago||
I guess the "build it and they will come" fab investment policy was faith based all along!
gdulli 1 day ago||
The 2010s were the rise of ad tech for products and services, the 2020s are essentially LLMs creating ad tech again but for ideas.
cyanydeez 1 day ago|
Including the funny money circular wash trading of investment.
lolc 1 day ago|
I wonder how these Gloo guys want to serve a fractured user base. People make fun of Google generating images with diversified Nazis, but imagine serving flocks that have these diverse expectations. Is it going to tell people to stone someone, or slap their kids? Probably not. But where do they draw the line? Domestic violence? Too bad divorce is not an option. Or is it?

Going to be a wild fun ride talking to these indoctrinated bots. Like browsing the Conservapedia of old.

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