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by netcan 20 days ago
It's kind of worth reading. Not to learn about AI. But... it is an interesting/historic intersection of religion and technology.

Side note: (a) This new pope is very good at "political rhetoric" and (dare I say) polemic. He's a lot more relevant than recent popes. (b) There seems to have been a vibe shift, re: secular sentiments towards religion.

There is potentially a lot happening at this intersection... say catholicism and AI.

For example... LLMs make scripture a lot more accessible. That tends to be impactful, historically. It's Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza and Schmidt. This kind of thing is a niche interest... even among the faithful, but an important niche. And... it just answers your questions, patiently.

It's also a therapist, confidant and advice giver... potentially a confessor or priest. Talk of "making an AI god" got a little stale, but... there are many ways that LLMs might take god-like roles in people's lives.

Predictions are futile, but I suspect we are going to see AI encroachment into religious/spiritual domains. I further suspect that good, natural, conversational audio is the bottleneck.

Personally... I'm curious about this Pope/AI thing. I find it interesting.

2 comments

I'm an atheist, but I have to admit the previous guy was pretty dope.
> re: secular sentiments towards religion I'm not sure if we are talking about the same phenomenon here, but I have certainly seen indications of something I would describe in similar words. I have heard a lot of people recently think along the lines of appreciation for religion without really believing it. People that are skeptical whether Noah's ark ever really happened but that still think that the story is metaphorically wise enough to be counted as true in some sense.

Maybe it is just that I am getting older and wiser and projecting my own spiritual development on the people around me, but I think this general view towards religion seems to be gaining a lot of traction.