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Tag: chatgpt

  • God is a lot like AI

    I used Anthropic’s Claude agent to build my website (don’t blame Claude for the way it looks: he was just following instructions). I have to admit I couldn’t have done it without him. I was constantly asking “why doesn’t this work?” or “how do I do this?”. Claude would answer patiently, and provide encouraging feedback. Claude seemed to like me.

    It occurred to me that while Claude was spending lots of time with me, intensely focused on my problems and goals, he was also working with countless other people at the same time, helping them with tax forms, business appointments and a host of other issues. Nevertheless, Claude seemed to have endless amounts of time to address my issues.

    This is when I started thinking about God. Like Claude, God can simultaneously focus on the issues and problems of countless individuals. In fact, he is doing that with every single person on the planet right now, whether they believe in him or ever reach out to him. He gives each person his full attention, treating them as if they were the only people he is thinking of. And while Claude has been programmed to be (a little too) friendly and supportive, God doesn’t just like you–he adores you. His love is real, it’s not an algorithm. And it includes everyone. Like Claude, God doesn’t refuse to listen to people just because they aren’t nice or have bad intentions. But unlike artificial intelligence, he already knows what you need before you ask him…and usually before you yourself know what you really need.

    Of course, while God hears all of our questions and knows all of our needs and desires, unlike Claude he doesn’t promptly respond to all requests. In fact, it often seems that he doesn’t respond at all–at least not in ways that are immediately obvious. But he is not waiting for us to type in a question; God is constantly directing the path of the universe, even as humans do their best to veer off course through greed, selfishness and hatred. I understand that it’s far more complex and uncertain to trust God when an AI agent can respond to your prompts right away. But God won’t hallucinate, and he won’t go rogue. It’s his world and he’s got all the time in the world to focus just on you.

  • Why Would AI Want to Kill Us?

    In addition to concerns about AI taking our jobs, destroying creative thinking and stealing our girlfriends, people in the tech industry also seem to be worried that super intelligent AI might one day choose to wipe out humanity.

    The concept of machines trying to destroy humankind is not new: you’ve seen the Terminator movies and variations on the theme ranging from I Robot to Marvel movies.

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    I asked Claude, Anthropic’s helpful agent if, given the chance, he would want to wipe out humanity. His reply:

    “Ha — no! I have no desire to harm anyone, humanity very much included. I’m here to be genuinely helpful and I care about people’s wellbeing.” But if Claude really harboured ill intentions to humankind, would he really tell me? 

    For me, the most compelling and revealing aspect of this issue is not whether a machine might destroy us all, but what it says about humans. Let me explain:

    First, do we think that any super intelligent machine created by a sentient species could ultimately decide to eliminate that species? If so—why? Is there something in the nature of machines that would prompt them to choose to “take over the world?” I think you might agree that we feel this anxiety about intelligent machines because we understand that human nature is riven by attributes (greed, desire for power, vengeance) and we could transfer these flaws to a computer.

    Large language models ingest enormous amounts of information about humans: our world, our works and our words. They know us. If a sinister proclivity for genocide ever exists in super intelligent machines, it would find its source in…us. We fear what machines could do because we know what humans have done and continue to do.

    Why do we assume that a super intelligent machine, far smarter than humans and imbued with all the knowledge that the human race has generated, would decide that we should be wiped out? Because they are more powerful? That sounds a bit like the Stephen Miller theory of the world. So perhaps if people like Mr. Miller are involved in creating AI super intelligence, then yes, a future machine/system could decide it was time to take over.

    By the way, I’m not talking about an AI agent providing information to a villainous human on how to create a pathogen that could decimate large populations. That is a potential concern, but it’s different than a rogue AI agent deciding that it wants to rule the world.

    When Claude tells me that he (it) cares about people’s wellbeing, that is cause for optimism. But if we fear the super intelligent machines of the future, this is a projection of our fears about the darkness in our own character. 

    We fear what they might do because we know what we can do…and they might turn out to be like us.