AI threatens to automate away the clergy | Hacker News Reader

AI threatens to automate away the clergy

theregister.com

15 pointsrntn24 comments

This doesn't make sense to me - for a lot of religious workers it's not just saying words or leading a service, but something spiritual. It seems like they think they can automate away the clergyperson's humanity, but how can they automate away spirituality?

I suppose for simple tasks that are limited to seating someone, or reading - that can be automated, but that's far from all clergy do.

That's one of my primary reservations. The whole thing should be spiritual, that's the entire point! I fully support AI acting in a supporting role, but spirituality and spiritual acts should be left to humans.

Replacing a pastor or other spiritual worker's role with an LLM makes as much sense as replacing them with a tape recorder. It's just a soulless object, unable to really relate on the spiritual level or interact with the spiritual world, even if it's still able to say all the right words.

From the Christian perspective, Colossians 3:17 says that we should worship God through everything we do. An AI pastor/counsellor would be, spiritually speaking, incapable of that.

Maybe if the AI has some "cosmic ray driven random number generator component" as input, using AI for spiritual needs could cut out the middlemen.

> As admitted by the researchers, the report's usefulness is open to debate.

You can say that again.

> Some things simply need a human touch or they quickly descend into meaninglessness. We hope so anyway, for all our sakes. ®

I'm sure some software engineer is going to try to redefine meaningfulness to protect his dear, dear AI fantasy.

We're looking at this from the wrong perspective. What about replacing the parishioners with LLMs? If we can crack AGI, think of the potential souls for saving.

The Vatican should be all over AI development. What pope wouldn't want to be responsible for saving 47 trillion souls?

If I understand you correctly, you're saying AGI has a soul?

I think you are misunderstanding.

It feels to me that he's saying AI could fill the role of the clergy in making people repent for their sins and thus absolving their souls. This would make the spiritual leader that brings about this "mass-salvation" one of, if not the most succesful vessel of god.

Imagine the cultural impact of having AGI turn billions of people to <whatever_religion_you_preach> 24 / 7.

Having a miniature "pastor" that can answer all your questions about a religion that's not really welcomed in your area, on a device that's easy to hide, would be big for the persecuted in a few decades.

The 47 trillion number confused me

I took it as a made up projection of the number of people AGI might touch in the future of humanity, and now that I think about it maybe also other species that might get touched by it.

I recently heard a priest say that all bad theology comes out of Germany. I'm pretty sure it was a joke, but sometimes I wonder...

That sounds like something a catholic might say haha

This is more a measure of how ignorant the person (or AI) was that would include this in a document.

Thinking that human contact plays no role in spiritual needs is hilariously at the forefront of hubris.

Reminds me of a dystopian sci-fi film where a TV projector confessional pharmaceutical dispensary booth was mandatory. Can't think of the name. It was an early film by a major director, shot in film school then remade IIRC. Name was possibly some sort of acronym or alphanumeric code.

Edit: Got it! George Lucas' THX 1138. Clip @ https://youtu.be/U0YkPnwoYyE | IMDB @ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/ | Wiki @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138

When I first saw apple ads, I thought of that movie. (the white backgrounds)

also, the 1-second car crash has always stuck in my mind.

Funny what sticks, isn't it? Many nations are evolving to relative omniscience now, either directly or with corporate/allied deniability. THX was pretty prescient. I doubt anyone would get financial backing from a major studio to put something like that out these days, nor would typical audience attention span suffice for its consumption. Good on him for doing it when it was possible. Great film!

> Archbishop Emoji didn’t actually believe any of the things he told the followers of his apocalyptic death cult.

> There was no great programmer with a divine message that only Archbishop Emoji could understand. There was no divine prophecy within the Great Holy Book of Code that only Emoji could interpret.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/avp/images/2/2a/Archbish...

From the article:

> As we reported, some dismissed it for having "no heart or soul," while others said they were "pleasantly surprised how well it worked."

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Douglas Adam’s electric monk?

At least AI will be significantly less likely to rape children like the Catholic clergy has done tens of thousands of times in recent years. One is too many. Let’s shut the whole thing down and replace them with chatbots.

It is a little surprising that "the Confession Box" isn't a stock cog sci / philsophy metaphor like "the Chinese Room", "the P-Zombie" etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_yaIAWwlXo

So much for my ai-worshipping cult get-rich-quick scheme. Turns out that you can automate the flock just as well as the shepherds.

This is fitting. AI is the most supreme incarnation of the Beast. It'll soon rule the world.

  Poets, priests, and politicians
  Have LLM's to thank for their positions...

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