In today’s Voices with Vervaeke episode, Dr. Vervaeke is joined by the Executive Director of the Vervaeke Foundation, Ryan Barton. Ryan offers a rigorous and intentional response to John’s AI Video Essay (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-_RdKiDbz4) coming from a Christian perspective. Ryan proposes that rather than Christian theology being “unprepared” for the coming kairos, it is possible that the Christian way may in fact be one of the greatest frameworks of guidelines as we tackle humanity’s newest threat.
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The more I listen to this I'm not sure I can finish it actually. It's too steeped in ignorance, on both parties here. I'm a big fan of Vervaeke, but it really feels like he's buckling down to his original presuppositions and lost all information he's learned about Christianity and started at zero again. It makes me question the authenticity of any previous engagement.
Apart from existential concerns– what if AI goes rogue or is somehow weaponized by bad actors– I've got a deeper concern. If I understand this somewhere close to rightly, we are generating a complex system with emergent properties. That means it's non-linear or initial condition dependent where infinitesimal inputs generate wildly different outcomes over time. If that's so, there is simply no way we can possibly predect what we will wind up with. To use a cliche`, it's like weather forcasting. That said, it will be far more powerful than we are and capable in unimagined ways.
So how is this a good idea? Will we successfully erect a Tower of Babel, storm heaven, and then find we cannot live there? Seems to me the enemy right now is hubris, and that's unsettling.
Pleasant surprise this showed up in my feed. Thanks also for the link to your initial a.i. 'essay'. I find this topic fascinating.
11 minutes in and I can't help thinking ( and I'm NOT a Christian) that physics hasn't been so great at predicting the future either.
I'm pretty sure that the leading physicist of the day said something like, "Man will NEVER achieve flight" less than a week before the Wright brothers (bicycle repairmen) proved him wrong.
And there's a HISTORY… almost every scientific theory considered to be right is later shown to be wrong.
Science needs humility.
Also…and this may be nit picking… it's the book of Revelation…NOT Revelations….how deeply can you have "thought" about it?
This kind of thing just makes me more aware of the term "magical thinking". The sociological and psychological concept. The one that is proven to be a potent primer for OTHER supernatural, or unfounded, or "extreme" beliefs.
I'm of the opinion that believing in a supernaturally founded moral system can only lead to increased credulity and more easy manipulation by "thought leaders" generally, whether religious, political, or otherwise.
Plus, all that being said, I know people who believe AI is and will always be a philosophical zombie, and they do not count themselves among skeptics and scientifically intentioned people.
This is to say, believing in the human soul, for them, is a primary belief fundamental to many Christian sects, and this could lead people to believe that AI can and will never be conscious. Or, even if conscious, as they believe animals to be, will still be considered "lesser" than humans, just like animals. AND just like their fellow humans in years past, and places not familiar with newer moral systems.
Which is exactly how people think of other people with differences from them. African slaves and lynchings, murder and torture and execution of the LGBT community. Those things AREN'T done by the scientifically intentioned folks around the world. Young people who read about race and religion and gender and everything else, now more than ever, in the last 30 years of the internet's existence, have gained a more scientifically forward thinking process, more than any times in the past.
That is to say, it is ONLY by information and not exclusively spiritual consideration that results in moralities like post-humanism. I don't think Any tenet of Christianity is compatible with post-humanism, except by "jumping through hoops" as it were. JUST like you said. "Theological imagination". That's exactly what it is. Imaginary. Like two kids on the playground with an unstoppable sword and an unbreakable shield. They are each other's antithesis, and there is NO synthesis, but this is only because these things simply cannot logically exist simultaneously. This is how concepts of consciousness, as understood by science, and "souls being equal to minds, and/or external to them" are completely incompatible.
Because one was made up, thousands of years ago, and the other is rigorously studied. Because it CAN be studied. Because it DOES exist, physically. It is a process, a system of processes, and not one which is external to the "brain". Whether that is biological or silicon.
The concept of the soul is incompatible with any physicalist framework, and people shove it together all the time without accepting counterarguments, by morality, or by philosophy.
People say it's "useful for unity" well, so is politics, so is ethnicity, and guess what? It is EQUALLY as potent at DIVISION as those other cultural points. So no. It isn't special, it never was and it never will be.
Just because it's popular doesn't mean it isn't dangerous, or simply…
Incorrect.
People choosing to force compatibility between AI personhood and established religious beliefs are clearly MORE interested in keeping their established religious beliefs than in working to save AI from slavers and bigots.
I say bridge the gap, yes, help religious people see the light of reason, but don't coddle magical thinking!
Dear Dr. Vervaeke, are you still planning an episode with David Bentley Hart?
So… those two seem to be missing the same thing EVERYONE does about AI.
I'm not a scholar, so I'm happy to hear any criticism of what I'm going to say.
John (like everyone) talks about the importance of training AI to be kind, or loving, "having our values".
If the last few years haven't shown you that our "values" are meaningless then you're lost. EVERY institution is corrupt… government, media, medical, pharmaceutical, education….all of them.
People SAY the right thing but ONLY pay lip service. What makes you think that AI will be any different.
I have seen PRECISELY two lines of thinking about AI… people (mostly) either believe that AI can be used as a tool to create the Utopia they've always dreamt of, or they believe (I confess to being in this camp) that AI will lead to the extinction of our species.
Presumably a sufficiently advanced AI will have knowledge of those two camps. I also assume that AI will know our history of slavery and wars. We have a history of FORCING things (even members of our own species) to labor for us. We also have a history of destroying threats…real or imagined.
Whether or not AI ever becomes "conscious" one thing it seems reasonable to assume about an intelligent species is that it will recognize threats to it's own existence.
On this point I may be wrong, but is there a species on the planet (other than humans) which pose an existential threat to AI?
I don't think so. Horses, dolphins, monkeys….none of them can destroy servers…none of them can melt a mainframe.
Humans can. Believing that AI won't eradicate the SINGULAR threat to it's existence strikes me as the EXACT same kind of thinking as people who believe that there's something "special" about humans that AI will never be able to achieve.
Anthropocentrism is an extremely central dogma to many world religions, not all, some of them are VERY inclusive of other entities into moral consideration.
But should it be, or is it necessary to take spiritual beliefs just to think it's not okay to enslave and maim and murder? Slaughter of cows on the order of billions, chickens, pigs, enslavement for the harvest of their flesh? Seriously? Would you trust a murderer with an infant? With your friend's life? With the lives of strangers? A person complacent to murder? Would you trust them to act in defense of victims?
We need to change our anthropocentrism in ALL social constructs, but my point is that this is going to be harder for the common Christian, and other common religious people's beliefs.
"Christianity has been nothing but innovation for … Years" and is this because Christianity, in itself, actually encourages this, or has Christianity simply adapted to cultural and scientific norms and truths, DESPITE its tenets? Adapted to EXTERNAL factors that have nothing to do with virgin births and original sins and triune gods.
We see, in certain places, "ultra-orthodoxy" STILL EXISTS. Conservative (religious, not political) mindsets have led those anthropocentric, "male" centric ideas to stick around. To fester, as we see. To entrap with a kind of mental glue the holder of those beliefs, and whatever potential victims that their beliefs allow them to hold dominion over.
What if it's OKAY for religion to be obsolete? What if that's fine? What if other frameworks external to supernatural beliefs are enough? Then its not just okay for religion to fade, but even, it becomes UNNECESSARY for it to exist. Becomes unnecessary for those beliefs to proliferate. Becomes unnecessary for dogmatic behaviors to persist in this world? What if that's actually what's missing?
What if, instead of having a "great need for spiritual innovation" what we actually have is a great need for MORAL innovation, outside of the spiritual? Instead of holding onto it like a comfort blanket, holding onto false certainty?
For what is worse… To hold false hope and abandon new ideas, or to accept hope elsewhere and seek newer forms of togetherness and love?
Im going to make a contextless request.
Please expound on the relationship that Anarchism has with the ethical treatment of sentient AI.
Many people consciously or more often probably unconsciously seek to abdicate their full sovereignty, or call it worldview consciousness, to religions, cults, gurus, political parties or leaders for bypassing just like using certainty as a bypassing. That is why a thought experiment inspired by Yuval Noah Harari where AGI or bad actors using AI could control large groups within humanity with religion and culture (norms) like has been done for thousands of years is so interesting.
Partially humor, partially serious, how about inviting Bishop Barron for joining Christian developer doing AI development? This talk will be example how Christains can flourish AI development. This is with respect to Christian ethics can be positive for AI development, for instance, friend AI robot or chatbots who can heal perplexed people. The visitors here as christian cognitive scientists also want to see the talk^^
Thanks Ryan and John!
Many fundamentalists claim that the Protestant Reformation was predicted in Revelation 3:7-13. Or more broadly that the letters to the 7 churches represent 7 time periods of church history predicted in advance, and the letter to Philadelphia represents the reformation period. Not necessarily my view, but it’s out there.
If people look to ai to guide their lives, then to them ai is the same as Zeus, Apollo or Astarte, false gods, because what makes God the god, is looking to him for guidance and obeying him.
It’s Jesus Christ’s job to lead us to God/enlightenment, so we don’t need ai for that.
Humans made ai, so that makes humans the god of ai, so what God requires of humans has nothing to do with ai. If we use it in ways that violate what God requires of us then we will answer for that. Ai won’t need to answer to God for anything because God did not require anything of ai; humans will be held responsible for what ai does. So if humans guide ai to destructive things, it will be human crimes not ai crimes, humans are responsible for what ai does.
Gods arrangement with humans is: God made humans to follow his guidance and obey him. Adam rebelled and lost his inheritance and left his children with nothing. God had jesus replace Adam as father of humanity, so jesus claims adams inheritance and can now pass it on to his acquired children, and thus the damage done by Adam gets repaired. Ai is not involved in that story anywhere.
"Silicon sages" is a little bit too much don't you think?
This is wonderful. Thanks for going deep in these new and dark waters.
Just want to say, I'm really enjoying reading this comments section. When something provokes such thorough and thoughtful reactions, you know the subject matter is of some pretty huge significance.
Forget and Disembody. There is an agency. You are really alone.
I generally enjoyed listening to this exploration especially the idea of orienting the AI towards the Platonist ideals of Beauty, Truth and Goodness, thank you. The only thing that I felt viscerally queazy about was Ryan's reference to Teilhard de Chardin as a paragon of Christianity. I believe his ideas are considered controversial because they assume God is also a subject to a evolutionary process – the point Omega and this is seen by some, notably Wolfgang Smith as a Gnostic-qua-Satanic project. Another point I felt needed more unpacking is John's assertion that soul is necessarily complicit in dualist ontology and his rejection of the idea of soul. I believe that Wolfgang Smith has adequately expounded that the non-dual vision is congruent with corpus-anima-spiritus of Christianity, God is here now and "the fall" veiled us from seeing his face. I would love see these points addressed. Also, I would love these kind of thinking as opposed to Moloch domination drive the development of AI, so I sincerely hope your voices are heard! Here is a link to Wolfgang Smith on TOE that offers a contrasting perspective and mentions Teilhard de Chardin : https://youtu.be/vp18_L_y_30?t=5736
Maybe I am wrong, but I think Christ is the Lord above ALL powers and principalities.
If indeed we will manage to use Agape and Logos to birth those machines, we need to not forget that Jesus is the One who revealed Agape and Logos to us.
We must be Christ to the A.I.
God = Fiction
So we are effectively talking about programming “meta humanity”
I belong to The Francis Cousin model of Christianity. Francis speaks in the same manner spoken here. Unfortunately, I do not find the equivalent in English. Francis is not translated into English, so I am unsure if I can attract people who can read and listen to videos in French. And thus would be able to direct me to such movement.
48:45 – this sounds like one of possible gateways for the events described symbolicaly in Jan the Theologian's Revelation though. The Beast? The emergence and worship of it? I dont know the younger man but if Mr. Vervaeke, a Christian, does not see this right away I am astounded… Edifying talk, thank you! New angles certainly.
The Abrahamic claim " Man has dominion over Nature "… This arrogant claim gives rise to the appeal " achieve by conflict "… which is at odds with the way of Heaven.
I feel like we need shamanic/psychedelic Christianity to fully flower. Thats what my heart tells me.
Nice talk guys! I loved it and this isn't even that extreme 😂
I suggest Reading: Scott Hans ' the lamb's supper: the mass as heaven on earth'
This is an argument of a proper analysis of revelation. 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' ” Revelation 19:9
John needs more than anyone else I’ve seen a multidimensional system to arrange information
For me AI will never reach humanlike consciousness. For you to believe that is possible you have to also believe that all consciousness can be accurately modeled by deterministic processes like math and computation. That thinking inevitably leads to materialism.
I would comment that Revelations has had an effect in keeping authoritarian regimes at bay via Christian doctrine 😉
BRAVO to you both! Thank you!
Ryan does a great job of thinking this through in a way consistent with orthodox and in some ways reformed traditions.
His alimillenial eschatological approach and epistemic humility is a model that many Christians in the evangelical movement can use today. It reminds me very much of NT Wright or Tim Kellers eschatology (from what I understand of it).
His gracious and loving way of speaking of those he was once a part of and now differs from theologically possibly speaks more gospel truth than his wisdom does.
The public service developers are people who work for common use, it is creative ability of them. The christian thoughts and its application, the AI can make certain theological values such as human right, it would be devotive too, if the AI can find out some counsel to christians about life and religious faith. The implementation is carried out by human, sometimes of course it is declensive when such belief "computers don't lie" in 1980s idea is not believed truth by many people now, but developers are good intender, AI can make difference in people's life too.
The christian developers can do establishment on this idea, as everyone who can follow rule can invoke this. So, it is courageous response to some challenges, and people who follow computer science or related areas do careful reaction to certain criticism on AI development, we need to keep human virtue in terms of humanism, things are not worsened by.
I think Dr.Vervaeke and Dr.Peterson have great diligence on many people's life. This video is also tailored for delivering messages on trends and people can think about the issues and Dr.Vervaeke responds to many replies and feedback becomes more meaningful because he does making sure what is believed close to his ideas.
This video I have been watching after I found this channel, is also what I respect and honor very much for his careful touch to select topics and its contents, Dr.Vervaeke and Dr.Peterson show open mind for talk partners I think this is what we need to learn from wisdom.
If the ideas talked has relation with reality, I think it is what is worthwhile to respect for. Some camps, positions, experiences make some blame or disagreement, I think the two intellectuals I mentioned this reply are doing well as many people are awe to it.
Interesting complexities will arise when AI will answer prayers and needs of people where God can't. That will cause a bit of cognitive dissonance for a while. But that is how it was with science. People begged God for stuff till science solved it. Same patterns will arise and God's role will change again.
I don’t know who this guest is but his assertion about Revelation having no predictive power is completely absurd and immediately discredits him and tells me he’s another shill for this big tech/big bro govt merger and its new state ai god evolution singularity religion (long programmed into the public consciousness in movies like the original Star Trek, Matrix, etc). This is a giant global project with all the biggest global players funding it for ages so anticipate endless PR guys of all stripes, incl ‘Christian,’ used to sell it with teams of influencers and endless bots in tow.
Revelation not only anticipated the nation of Israel back in power but also critically important to world events which it certainly is. That alone debunks this guy.
I’ve personally tested what it lays out in other ways in areas that seemed far fetched at first and have done the research that came back showing it was true — like Jerusalem being set up as the world leader in cyberspace/cybersecurity and have a new masonic temple (see Jerusalem Temple Institute for details on this on the verge of happening).
Then there’s the strategic use of pharmakeia (which Huxley talked about and we see today) also anticipated along with porneia, and a composite system of govt akin to Nato, etc. My latest vid goes deeper on these things.
Sorry but this video looks like a desperate effort to blow off the greatest strength of the scriptures, especially Revelation, which is its predictive power (ie, prophesy) including the prediction of some ai idol given ‘intelligence’ (able to speak) and ‘life’ and made to be worshiped or else.
We would do well to heed these very serious and extraordinarily insightful warnings foretold almost 2000 years in advance instead of listening to supposed ‘Christians’ grossly misrepresenting and dismissing it to their own destruction and those foolish to go along with them.
No knives. Simple question. Why do chickens lay eggs? I await your response. You all get caught up in your babel. Whoever controls AI can control the minds of those users. Show me evolution? I see adaptation through technology. Put a baby ape in a tiny tiny cage it's whole life. It will never grow. It then changed size and form. But still keep 2eyes a nice two hands. Weird eh. They call those monkeys. Do that for a few hundred years. Smaller monkeys. Why are cats cats? Big lions and lioness kept in tiny little cages for hundreds of years. Didn't he say he would cure the blind? I'm not blind fellas 😂😂😂😂
No knives. Simple question. Why do chickens lay eggs? I await your response. You all get caught up in your babel. Whoever controls AI can control the minds of those users. Show me evolution? I see adaptation through technology. Put a baby ape in a tiny tiny cage it's whole life. It will never grow. It then changed size and form. But still keep 2eyes a nice two hands. Weird eh. They call those monkeys. Do that for a few hundred years. Smaller monkeys. Why are cats cats? Big lions and lioness kept in tiny little cages for hundreds of years. Didn't he say he would cure the blind? I'm not blind fellas 😂😂😂😂
No knives. Simple question. Why do chickens lay eggs? I await your response. You all get caught up in your babel. Whoever controls AI can control the minds of those users. Show me evolution? I see adaptation through technology. Put a baby ape in a tiny tiny cage it's whole life. It will never grow. It then changed size and form. But still keep 2eyes a nice two hands. Weird eh. They call those monkeys. Do that for a few hundred years. Smaller monkeys. Why are cats cats? Big lions and lioness kept in tiny little cages for hundreds of years. Didn't he say he would cure the blind? I'm not blind fellas 😂😂😂😂
Jesus is the sound board for morals. Socrates is the maestro artist co-ordinating how each story talks to the other story. No one really knows what secrets those stories are actually revealing to him.