Dear Pope: If you’re willing to fight alongside an agnostic; I’ll help. It’d also be super cool if you would bless my music, poems & art.

Pope says: “Fuck Clankers”

Based pope

I’m glad the pope is anti-AI and all, but it hardly makes up for everything else the church is responsible for, no?

Of course the catholic church is against A.I. it could very possibly become a powerful God that is visible and tangible to people, as opposed to one that is just said to exist, needs a system of believe to exist, and nothing can be directly attributed to. Any positive or negative act that is brought upon the world as a result of an A.I super being will be measurable, visible, and able to be witnessed by all those affected.

Sounds like a pretty big threat to the existence of all religions to me.

“…A.I. it could very possibly become a powerful God that is visible and tangible to people…”
“…an A.I super being will be…”

My brother in machine-Christ, you need to take a deep breath, go outside, and touch some grass.

Not LLMs. I am talking about if all agents connect globally and all information can be accessed instantly at once. Listen to what the actual experts are saying, not what the corporations are saying.

I am talking about if all agents connect globally

What agents?

all information can be accessed instantly at once

In the 80s there were AI researchers who believed that once all of human knowledge was stored on a computer system, it would spontaneously become intelligent. This, of course, was magical thinking, and no such thing happened.

It still won’t happen.

Listen to what the actual experts are saying

I do, and the actual experts all understand that the current generation of machine learning models are optimization algorithms that have been refined to locate specific areas of large datasets based on input prompts. They’re fancy search query tools, nothing more. There’s no “intelligence” at work.

When you have a “conversation” with an LLM, and it gives you a seemingly-intelligent response, what you’re getting is a dump of some copied text that is related to the input you’ve been feeding the text entry field. The “intelligence” that you perceive in the response is actually that of the human who made the original writing that was scraped for training data.

Keep your credulity in check. The algorithm has no understanding of what it regurgitates, no comprehension of the information it handles. It does keyword association really really well, and it can sift through lots and lots of data impressively fast. It’s a great, big, environmentally destructive Chinese room.

Do you really, honestly believe that’s pope Leo XIV’s underlying reasoning here?

Why wouldn’t it be? All decisions are about the preservation of the church.

Because it’s really daft on a number of levels.

Firstly there’s no evidence what so ever that the current generation of AI is a pathway to a general intelligence or anything god like.

Secondly it seems to me that most decisions are about preserving money and traditions and positions of power - faith in “God” is a different thing entirely and maybe the church wouldn’t be so awful if they were focused on that.

Finally I don’t really think the emergence of a man made god-tier intelligence would really challenge believers in “God”. As in, I can see the connection logically but any Christian will tell you their belief is based on faith - it’s not logical.

Jesus… Wow, what a shit take

Im not referring to LLMs numbnuts.

Oh you’re referring to a mythical super intelligence which will surely emerge after the next round of funding?

Just one more data center bro, promise

People like you are so annoying, why can’t you just be happy about small wins?

Because being a victim of bigotry and abuse sucks.

I want you to look at what instance I’m on, use your brain a little bit, and think about why a trans person might not be fawning over the head of the Catholic Church just for opposing AI.

See the good. Yes, the church has a past (and present) fraught with problems and unforgivable acts, but if you think one person, even its supreme leader, can stop it during their lifetime, you’re overly optimistic. Do you think replacing the president will fix the US? Do you think Japan is unlovable now because of what they did in the past?

He claims to be the literal voice of god but can’t change the church’s behavior? I guess that god isn’t so omnipotent after all…

He got the voice but not the balls.

Quelle surprise… It’s good business reinforcing the belief that he is, though. I recommend the book God’s Bankers by Gerald Posner. A lot of interesting insight into what works less as a religion and more as a nation state.

Never thought I would agree with the church.

The church has been right on a lot of stuff. Against Usury, helping the poor, protecting the environment.

Not so much on the raping young children part though, I, in mine own opinion, do not believe they were right about systematically running a global child raping organization.

And all the racism and bigotry.

What’s a residential school(and associated mass grave) or ten between friends?

I get bigotry, why racism?

Sideing with the church on this one

Though the cynic in me believes (at this moment) the church might actually think “AI” is some omnipotent all powerful artificial intelligence, and not just some LLM “word spaghetti generator”.

Probably afraid that people might start treating it as some kind of all knowing “higher power”. (Who needs God if you have AI kind of mentally?).

People are sadly already treating it as such. "But ChatGPT said" "but Claude did this instead" is what I hear from 1/3 of people at the very least...

Don't get me wrong, LLMs can be a great tool - if you know how to use them. They're great for research, because they can formalise a half-assed question into a proper query, provide extra terminology you can include in your search terms and so on. But you have to keep in mind that it's not a super-intelligent all-knowing thing. It is at best a thesaurus. And you have to use it accordingly.

Sadly most people think of it as a direct search engine.

Ma man needs the fediverse, like all really goood people do! I’m start feeling my catholic roots if he do.

Well, now artists literally have the power of God and Anime on their side

Religion making vague allusions to things that don’t exist, as usual.

I never thought I’d die fighting side-by-side with a pope.

I agree with the figurative image of the spark to describe something gen AI-produced slop lacks.

Figuratively, because we all know you’re actually being literal and make it about that bullshit you call “soul”. Sorry Christians, this still doesn’t exist.

Frankly I’m fine with the alliance, and fine if their motivation is believing ai art is bad because it didn’t originate from a “soul”. Like fine. Believe what you want.

Now go destroy some data centers (in Minecraft ofc)

Honestly, if I was the leader of a religion, AI would seem like a great tool. Create an agent with live voice chat that is prompted to give all of the religion’s fundamental ideas. A single religious leader could create the app, and millions could use it. The leader could assert that the app is designed exactly the way that ${deity} told the leader to design it, so that the followers are essentially talking with ${deity}. It would be just like THX 1138.

You are a very bad villain, let me explain.

Religion is about control. Your idea is giving away the only leverage you have at controlling people to the A.I.

What happens when the LLM bullshit a section of your bible that contradicts the “real” foundations of your religion? That’s the God’s AI as it intended’s voice against yours…

Good luck not ending on a stake ;)

Speaking from experience? I know my religion is doing just fine. Wanna hear about it? Comes with a free vacation.

Great film!

I’m not sure what the term is for when “the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but that friend is also a lesser enemy” is. But fuck it, I’m on team Jesus apparently

A Catholic Church that defends artists as policy is a win in my book.