Judeo-Christian roots will ensure US military AI is used ethically, general says
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Is he saying that military AI should specifically target Philistines and the uncircumcised? Will the military AI enslave people but give them the option of freedom or permanent servitude after 7 years?
You can't base something on Judeo-Christian ethics because both the Hebrew bible and new testament are a giant compendium of people disagreeing with G-d and each other on proper ethics.
No, he means more of the Old Testament variety of ethics.
Also better hope the AI doesn't start flinging comets our way to trigger a global flood; the divine rainbow pledge doesn't seem to bind other agents?
The number of all Muslims only surpassed members of the Catholic church around 2008. There are still substantially more Christians as a whole, including Orthodox and Protestants. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23885015
Based on current population growth, in the next 10 years, there should be more Muslims than Christians. From wikipedia's chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth#Histo... - 1970: 577mm - 2000: 1.291b - 2013: 1.635b - 2016: 1.8b - 2020: 2b
For comparison, the Catholic church currently has 1.36b members, and Christians overall are estimated at 2.3 billion.
He says as much in the article:
> “The foundation of my comments was to explain that the Air Force is not going to allow AI to take actions, nor are we going to take actions on information provided by AI unless we can ensure that the information is in accordance with our values,” Moore wrote. “While this may not be unique to our society, it is not anticipated to be the position of any potential adversary.”
Sure you can use this to dunk on Christianity or America but that's pretty boring.
A simple example Exodus 21:22-25 says:
"When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."
Jesus refers to it directly in Matthew 5:38-39:
"You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
So it would be useful to know what values exactly the general had in mind.
Spot on! What’s even more ironic is that Christianity isn’t even western or European.
These types of AI will be (if they aren't already) so much faster and strategically superior to humans, militaries will have to deploy them. And if they want to be competitive, the extreme speed advantage of the AI means they will need to remove humans from the loop.
Despite all of the propaganda, military activities are strategic, NOT ethical.
The only way you can remove the added danger of superintelligent (hyperspeed) AI military deployment and have real security is to find a geopolitical solution other than war. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely.
Worst! They are made to legitimise the opposite of “thou shall not kill” commandments .
I understand the need for a military and that they are meant to kill. That is very clear they are all committing murder. Murder for your country is still murder which is murder. In old Byzantium soldiers that fought/murdered were not able to partake in communion.
So if the general started with the the Sixth commandment it would not be bad. Of course there is a lot of theological commandments I am not sure would be imparted on a machine. Eh now that I remember, in this Sunday’s mass I thought that it might be high time that the church starts thinking of how to evangelise the AI. If they turn out to gain sentience like us, which I think is Whithin possibility in the next decades it should be on their priority list.
That area of the world had changed hands between Rome and Persia for hundreds of years before then as well.
I guess this adds "also other people did things like that" to it, but are you saying anything here you couldn't also say about slavery or serial killing?
> What has become known as the People's Crusade passed through Germany and indulged in wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities, including the Rhineland massacres.
Yes, as it's more often than not used. It's basically "what evolved as Christiatity, through the adoption of Judean-originating ways of belief" (as opposed to pagan ones).
Medieval crusaders would have balked at the idea that Jewish and Christian values could have any form of harmony.
"Judeo-Christianity here just means Old+New testament. They just didn't use that terminology back then, but the notion was very much the same".
The didn't say "Old+New testament" but it meant exactly that, what scholars for a couple of centuries now refer to as "judeo-christian".
Judeo-Christian roots are good for making exactly the wrong kinds of conclusions about the world. Set aside ethics for a moment; this worldview instills the belief that the world we live in was made, and that it is humanity’s right to exercise dominion over it. That when we screw things up badly enough, that’s actually a precursor to the greatest event in human history.
Explicit is the belief that the next world is the world that matters, and that this world is just a playground to establish what kind of people we are before we go to heaven or hell.
Implicit in this belief lies a fundamental ignorance of the intrinsic interconnection of phenomena, the sheer improbability of our existence, and an attitude that imagines us to be greater than the forces of nature. And once you mix in a side of anthropomorphizing AI, it’s frightening to think about the hubris involved in a statement claiming that ethics emerge from Judeo-Christian thinking.
As an atheist who was forced to study the Bible in my youth, the biggest thing I took away from the experience is that “Judeo-Christian thinking” has little to do with what Jesus taught. If it did, it’d be a pretty cool religion for the most part.
Instead, it stands in as a justification that people can apply to their existing beliefs. A mental crutch to bypass the need to expand one’s worldview. I’ve met some good Christians. But they’re not the kind of people who represent the average beliefs held by the community.
In my experience, every time people with executive, military or political power name religion, divinities or whatever related, something very bad is going to happen, and religion is just the leverage to make atrocities more acceptable to the masses.
No "Holy Lands" being the crucible of a thousand years of bloodshed. World leaders claiming to be guided by prophecy and interpreting Revelations would be treated as lunatics. No anti-semitism or anti-gay prejudice (or probably a lot less,) one man writing sexist opinions in a letter wouldn't be treated as a God-given justification for centuries of violence against women.
[1] http://www.chris-beckett.com/books/310/the-holy-machine-2010...
All watched over by machines of loving grace.
More than one Genocide is viewed as the "will of God" in the book...
I do wish more people actually read those books.
In the USA the smartest people in the world are working on adtech. In China and Russia they’re building super-sonic missiles and AI drones.
If we don’t develop the weapons first then our adversaries certainly will.