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Welcome to Varied Expressions of Worship

Welcome to Varied Expressions of Worship

This blog will be written from an orthodox Christian point of view. There may be some topic that is out of bounds, but at present I don't know what it will be. Politics is a part of life. Theology and philosophy are disciplines that we all participate in even if we don't think so. The Bible has a lot to say about economics. How about self defense? Is war ethical? Think of all the things that someone tells you we should not touch and let's give it a try. Everything that is a part of life should be an expression of worship.

Keep it courteous and be kind to those less blessed than you, but by all means don't worry about agreeing. We learn more when we get backed into a corner.

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Opus 2025-054: But Should We?

The president announced that he was going to initiate a $500 million investment in AI.  That’s what the Clickbait said.  I have not yet read in depth about what he is proposing.  I’m not excited about spending more federal money to subsidize private industry.  Private industry does very well on its own if it’s worth doing.

That is a different issue than I want to address now.  I want to look more into that well-known phrase, “Just because we can doesn’t mean that we should.”  What I’m looking at here is the whole question of AI.  I can’t think of any other topic that generates so much concern and even fear in the general population.  I’m talking to those who are actually think about consequences not just the woke groups that don’t know how to think.  We are going to be moving forward into investigating the potential of computers.  That is inevitable.  While we are looking into the technology of it, we also need to consider the ethics of it.

We were involved in a war for survival when the Manhattan Project produced the atomic bomb and opened up nuclear holocaust to the world.  I’m not sure we had much choice at that point about whether we went forward with it.  There have been a lot of people looking back and second-guessing the decisions of the time and asking, “Should we have developed the atomic bomb?”  This is a question that should’ve been asked before the question of, “Should we use the atomic bomb?”

We tend to ignore the philosophical and ethical questions of our advancements.  While it may be true that we are going to advance whether we talk about philosophy or not, we still need to get in the habit of looking into the consequences of what we do.  AI in itself is simply just developing technology to be more efficient and more effective.  When asked about AI and whether it’s dangerous, the most intelligent answer I’ve heard is that it depends on who develops it and what their goals are.  Any technology can be used for evil.  Any technology can be used to benefit mankind.  The big question is which direction will this go.

In one sense I am not afraid of AI.  I understand the limitations of computer programming.  Did you hear about the self-driving car that plowed into a parked fire truck?  The programers never told it not to run into parked fire trucks.  I don’t think that we will ever get to the point where computers will be like the robots of Isaac Asimov.  It’s a nice dream in science fiction, but I somehow don’t think that will develop in the real world.  Of course, that’s based on my review of men being created in the image of God.  I am more worried about the motivation of the programmers.

Can computers be developed that are so strong and so fast that they are very effective in limiting our freedoms?  How can we keep them on a leash?  These are questions that need to be asked.  They are really future molding.

It needs to be asked loud and clear and repetitively.  We need to hold the developers feet to the fire and have open and frank discussion about what the real goals are.

homo unius libri

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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.