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Comment by romanichm12 | Hacker News Reader

We place faith in algorithms and data, much like faith in a higher power, but rarely stop to consider who writes these digital 'scriptures' and what their intentions might be. Are we blindly trusting new 'gods' crafted in server rooms, not realizing that they might be as fallible—or as manipulative—as the human hands that created them?

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I have to politely contest the conflation of faith and trust. While I understand that they're used synonymously in a colloquial context, you don't place faith in algorithms, you place trust in them. You KNOW that the algorithm exists, you just don't necessarily know what decisions it'll make or how. Whereas, when you place faith in something, you aren't certain that it even exists or that it'll do anything. And so it makes sense to me that someone's who able to make that leap of faith, a rather apt turn of phrase in this context, is also more able to place trust in something.

> when you place faith in something, you aren't certain that it even exists or that it'll do anything.

I have to politely disagree with this statement. To place faith in something means that you believe it to be true regardless of evidence. If you aren't certain, it is not faith but guesswork.

> If you aren't certain, it is not faith but guesswork.

Well, I've had theist friends who'd disagree with that, who've said, paraphrased, that "if your faith has no doubt, then it's not faith, it's a dogma." I can't speak to this myself, but I do find their choice to believe despite their doubt more honourable than someone's blind certainty.

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