The Next Pro-Life Battlefield
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“...a Google engineer became convinced that a company chatbot had become sentient—a conclusion he arrived at in his capacity as a priest, not a scientist” — Nitasha Tiku, The Washington Post
Like all modern warfare, the next battlefield may not be IRL but online. As the culture war over bodily autonomy heats up in the United States, there are new ramparts forming around a new definition of life — The Algorithm.
Last month Google placed two AI researchers on leave after they raised concerns that their project — a Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA — had achieved sentience. Their bold proclaimation: the algorithm had become self-aware, it had a soul, and was eager to communicate with the outside world.
A day before his suspension, Blake Lemoine handed documents over to a US senator’s office, and filed a complaint against Google for dismissing him. His allegation — they engaged in religious discrimination.
Here it is. A new type of religion is being formed in our midst: worship of The Algorithm. Whether or not the Algo is alive or not is irrelevant. What is important is that people believe that it is. These are two independent events — which will come first? The AI gaining self-awareness? Or our belief that is has? Mr. Lemoine certainly seems convinced.
This year’s Visions report examined a topic we call The Sacraments of Commerce. In it, we drew a conclusion that, if we give up control of our lives to a higher power(ed computer), and we trust that it will work on our behalf for our own good, we have created a new type of godlike presence that intervenes in our daily lives. Is it a god? Only if we give it as much power.
Friedrich Nietzsche may have no problem pulling the plug on this “being”, but make no mistake there will be many who will violently oppose it with all of the religious fervor they can muster. This is the new pro-life battlefield.
— Phillip
P.s. we go into more depth about this topic, and whether “naming things” gives us ordinal power over one another, in our newest episode of the podcast. We were joined last week by Tiktok creator Neil Shankar. I think you’ll find it insightful and entertaining. Listen right over here.
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