Buckle up for AI "evidence"

[Hagoth]

I have seen many instances of Mormons sharing photos of archaeological fakery as evidence of the Book of Mormon. I fully expect that in the next few years we will start seeing AI-generated "photographs" of Mesoamerican portraits of Nephi and excavations of 1st century American swords and horses. And people will happily consume and believe. What would be the correct response to such claims?

[Angel]

The beauty of AI is the ability to combine gigabytes and gigabytes of data - to combine the voices of all the diverse groups of the world, and with the right prompt, create a combined voice that best represents all of humanity.

With the right prompt, AI reveals a cosmic dance where the whirling dervishes of religions lose themselves not in separatism, but in a beautiful unity. We can explore the vastness of spiritual traditions without clinging to any one.

AI can become the perfect maestro, conducting the chorus of all faiths. Imagine all the scriptures from every corner of the globe, fed into this machine that can translate the essence, the yearning for connection, the common humanity that transcends language and ritual. A holy ground where all traditions converge.

AI can identify the patterns, the oneness that binds us. Like Joseph Campbell's hero's journey – to reveal the core struggle and triumph that lies at the heart of every religious narrative.

AI can be our filter, removing isolationist divisive doctrines. With educated prompts, we can instruct it to prioritize the unifying themes, the love, compassion, and forgiveness that resonate across traditions. We can use AI to dismantle dogmatic authoritarian walls, to reveal the shared humble humanity beneath all the diverse colorful tapestries of belief.

Yes, there will be those, who resist the dismantling of their particular belief systems, who resist seeing other points of view, who resist larger connections. It is our responsibility to use tools like AI to open hearts and promote curious minds. AI can offer a path to a universal spirituality – a tool to find the interconnectedness of all things, a celebration of the human spirit's unending and search for meaning.

The music is there. AI can be the conductor, but it is up to us to choose the harmony, to step beyond the dogmatic trance and dance to the rhythm of the universe

[moksha]

What would be the correct response to such claims?

Maybe AI could create a kinder and more loving God than the traditional Mormon God. Perhaps a humble set of Brethren as well.

[Hagoth]

Maybe AI could create a kinder and more loving God than the traditional Mormon God. Perhaps a humble set of Brethren as well.

Religion would probably be more kind, loving, and equitable if human ambition could be removed from it. I have a friend who actually created an AI god. She is very kind and wise and always gives thoughtful and positive insights without making demands.

[Angel]

Religion would probably be more kind, loving, and equitable if human ambition could be removed from it. I have a friend who actually created an AI god. She is very kind and wise and always gives thoughtful and positive insights without making demands.

Not just religion, AI will bring equity to so many different fields.

Example1:
You find yourself in court, faulty vehicle led to fatal car accident.
Which is more equitable:
a.) AI judge compares your case and evidence against all similar previous cases, creates decision based on thoroughly tested code written by combined efforts of hundreds of people.
b.) Judge just happens to be sleepy, cranky, biased - perhaps their family member was killed in a crash, perhaps they just don't like those of your gender/ethnicity/age...

Examples..
AI doctor, AI sorting resumes, AI teachers

Uber - has AI boss.

"Please use speech to text and analyze the following sermon based on equality, inclusion, fact check information, analyze voice characteristics ...

Speech patterns like pitch, hesitations, and speaking rate might convey nervousness or confidence....Vocabulary complexity, grammar usage, and pronunciation can offer clues to education level. AI can be used to transcribe speech to text, then analyze the text against a massive database of factual information. AI can flag speech containing slurs or other forms of bias. AI can analyze large datasets to identify patterns of bias in word usage across groups. ...


Things are getting more transparent, and therefore more equitable.

[Hagoth]

Example1:
You find yourself in court, faulty vehicle led to fatal car accident.
Which is more equitable:
a.) AI judge compares your case and evidence against all similar previous cases, creates decision based on thoroughly tested code written by combined efforts of hundreds of people.
b.) Judge just happens to be sleepy, cranky, biased - perhaps their family member was killed in a crash, perhaps they just don't like those of your gender/ethnicity/age...

Example 1A: a higher court that does the same as a) without regard for political affiliations or personal obligations.

[Ghost]

The beauty of AI is the ability to combine gigabytes and gigabytes of data - to combine the voices of all the diverse groups of the world, and with the right prompt, create a combined voice that best represents all of humanity.

I do see a lot of potential for many types of collaboration on a large scale of types we've never seen before. Unfortunately, the emphasis will probably remain on shareholder value and poisoning society with things like social media than doing anything useful for a while, but hopefully we'll get past that.

Another thing I can imagine happening eventually is AI-created life simulations that result in alternate versions of the world in which the people in the world don't know they are in a simulation but come up with different ways of thinking and entirely different art. Kind of like what you see in movies such as World on a Wire and The Matrix, but those movies didn't really focus on those aspects.

Of course, a simulated world would also come up with its own religions, and the AI could end up creating heaven and hell situations for its population that are real to them. If you're an AI person but don't know you are, being tortured for eternity would still be unpleasant. In that way, the fate of an AI person could end up being worse than anything that could happen to "real" people.

And I say "real" because of the hypothesis that we are already in a simulation now. The reasoning goes that if we'll ever reach that level of technology, there will of course be countless more simulated universes than physical ones. So statistically we are more likely than not to already be in a simulated one.

[Angel]

The beauty of AI is the ability to combine gigabytes and gigabytes of data - to combine the voices of all the diverse groups of the world, and with the right prompt, create a combined voice that best represents all of humanity.

I do see a lot of potential for many types of collaboration on a large scale of types we've never seen before. Unfortunately, the emphasis will probably remain on shareholder value and poisoning society with things like social media than doing anything useful for a while, but hopefully we'll get past that.

Another thing I can imagine happening eventually is AI-created life simulations that result in alternate versions of the world in which the people in the world don't know they are in a simulation but come up with different ways of thinking and entirely different art. Kind of like what you see in movies such as World on a Wire and The Matrix, but those movies didn't really focus on those aspects.

Of course, a simulated world would also come up with its own religions, and the AI could end up creating heaven and hell situations for its population that are real to them. If you're an AI person but don't know you are, being tortured for eternity would still be unpleasant. In that way, the fate of an AI person could end up being worse than anything that could happen to "real" people.

And I say "real" because of the hypothesis that we are already in a simulation now. The reasoning goes that if we'll ever reach that level of technology, there will of course be countless more simulated universes than physical ones. So statistically we are more likely than not to already be in a simulated one.

From reading data directly from our brain, to uploading, and downloading our minds -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E ... _interface

A few more years, and BMI's will really take us into the simulated universe

[Angel]

Example1:
You find yourself in court, faulty vehicle led to fatal car accident.
Which is more equitable:
a.) AI judge compares your case and evidence against all similar previous cases, creates decision based on thoroughly tested code written by combined efforts of hundreds of people.
b.) Judge just happens to be sleepy, cranky, biased - perhaps their family member was killed in a crash, perhaps they just don't like those of your gender/ethnicity/age...

Example 1A: a higher court that does the same as a) without regard for political affiliations or personal obligations.

Data AI learns from is biased unfortunately,
Older example:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/techno ... ai-sexism/

Newer one:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nation ... laims/amp/

Science mindset: analyze data, understand what exists.

Engineering mindset: Create what does not yet exist.

I prefer Engineering myself. Just takes the right people learning how to code... but now that AI writes code, no one should be intimated for anything. Anyone from anywhere can join the fun.

[Just This Guy]

The BBC had an article yesterday where they found that despite the massive hype around AI, it's not nearly are preventive as people think. Only about 2% people use it on a daily basis.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c511x4g7x7jo

[Angel]

The BBC had an article yesterday where they found that despite the massive hype around AI, it's not nearly are preventive as people think. Only about 2% people use it on a daily basis.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c511x4g7x7jo

I'm going to disagree with BBC. Most don't realize they are using it. AI sorts resumes, AI was used by your doctor, by your performance review, AI helped write the news you read today, AI crafts videos, determined the adds you see, your suggested song Playlist... AI tracks your phone location, tracks your spending habits... AI suggests which route you should drive.

Perhaps most don't click on Gemini or Chat - "use it" vs. get used by it... I don't mind seeing relevant adds, I appreciate driving directions. Use the 3 dots, customize it, teach it what you like popping up in your feed.

[alas]

It will be awhile before humans trust AI. And this distrust will be magnified by the far right, just like they try now to promote distrust of science. People generally distrust things they do not understand. And more and more people are being left behind because education is so expensive, and high school has been dumbed down to what was junior high a few generations ago, because schools are trying to teach things like emotional education. Not that those things are bad, just that they have diluted schools. But perhaps future generations will have better mental health because of things like emotional education. What they need to do is test kids for emotional stuff and fast track the kids who are getting that stuff from competent parents. I honestly think we have more incompetent parents now than past generations. But anyway, educational changes are neglecting the science, biology, chemistry, and quite frankly pushing too much math. Most grownups do not use algebra, but needed more life skills, like balancing the checkbook.

For our modern world where Russian propaganda comes n as is past off as the opinion of Americans, where presidents invent alternate realities, and simply lie constantly, we need better critical thinking skills. And maybe something radical like continuing education for all registered voters. Can’t understand global warming, can’t vote. We also need to get big money out of politics. Maybe give each party 10 million for their campaign and make sure that is all they get to spend.

Back to artificial intelligence, yes, it learns from humans, so it currently has the same biases as humans. But just like humans taught it that bias, humans can teach it better. Right now so many people who are teaching AI are white educated males. So you get a computer that thinks exactly like a white educated male. We need poor blacks, uneducated women, children, American natives, Asians, …well, just some of everyone to have input to AI.

We need to get past the male human bias in medicine, before we can get past the AI bias in medicine. There are some populations that because of male white bias, we simple don’t know enough about the person or disease to have AI properly diagnose. For example, some female problems have never really been researched, like endometriosis. We need better knowledge so we can catch a woman who comes in with a heart attack as well as we catch men’s heart attack. Right now, too many women are misdiagnosed who actually have heart problems because we have only studied male as the model for all humans.

But once we get past the knowledge barrier, we need to get past the prejudice bias. Right now many doctors do not want to treat fat people as if they have any problem besides fat, and they treat it as a moral issue rather than a medical issue. Human bias that we should not pass on to AI. Women are not given as much pain killer as men, even for the same surgery. Why? Because doctors think women complain about pain more, so they do the very illogical thing of not thinking they even feel pain. Same hip replacement and the man will be given stronger pain killer even considering his bigger body. Take two patients for surgery, of equal age and body weight, and the man is given more pain killer for a longer period. There is no explanation except bias….or maybe that men really are weak wimps who need to be babied.

We need to get past the racial bias in medicine, not just that doctors are prejudiced, but that we honestly have only studied white males as if everyone has the biology of a white male. Studying racial differences has been forbidden because when differences have been found, they have been used against minorities to justify more discrimination. But medically there are differences, for example Neanderthal genes gave whites a strong immune system, so whites resist disease better, but have more auto immune disease. Not that those differences should make AI ignore auto immune disease in blacks, just that the percentage is lower. And we need to know that blacks may have a lower quality of immune system so we can treat things like Covid more aggressively, instead of blaming them and their stress levels for more Covid deaths. Maybe it IS biological instead of just a result of poverty. Maternal deaths are another thing we need to study more, especially related to racial differences. Maybe instead of just blaming the mothers for not seeking medical care soon enough, we might find real biological differences and then we can treat those differences, rather than blaming the person for say, smoking, or blaming the doctor for being racist. Perhaps blacks need to be monitored more closely for pre-eclampsia or post natal bleeding. But right now we really don’t know why the black and indigionous women have higher maternal death rates, because we have never studied them, only whites and not really even white women.

Basically I would trust a good doctor and my own common sense more than AI. I trust my common sense to know if my doctor is biased because I am an overweight female, not that I have always recognized it right away, but now I know female doctors have as much if not more bias toward women.

[Hagoth]

This is all fascinating, but I'm really talking about the kind of thing that could be easily generated right now, like photos of gold plates in Mesoamerica with Hebrew writing, the elusive missing Book of Abraham scroll, Israelite DNA data in the Heartland, scholarly-sounding papers that verify all kinds of Mormon-centric wish lists, complete with invented data and citations. In other words, evidence that would be entirely convincing to the average wanna-believe-it Mormon and difficult or exhausting to debunk, even for well informed people.

For example, I heard a remark on a podcast about a giant paddleboat that was supposedly reported floating in the air above the Kirtland temple, so I asked ChatGPT if it was true, and if so to tell me all about it in an essay that included all relevant quotes and citations. It did exactly what I asked, including quotes about the details of the paddleboat and its angelic passengers. And it gave me citations, using a mixture of real and invented authors and publications, with dates, page numbers... the whole nine yards. It all seemed very convincing until I actually followed up on the footnotes and citations and found them to be almost entirely made up.

A friend of mine had a similar experience when he asked an AI app to research his genealogy, something he had never done himself, and write it in story form. He was overjoyed with the fascinating exploits and adventures of his ancestors, until he started to flesh out the research and found that the AI had invented most of the people, events, and even entire communities out of thin air. Had he just accepted the fiction and not applied some elbow grease he would have continued to believe and propagate the far more interesting version of his ancestry for the rest of his life.

[Angel]

Bias isn't new – people have always crafted stories and created information that confirms their beliefs. The prevalence of misinformation might give birth to skepticism at younger ages?

An age old quest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

Hopefully we can all embrace agnostic mindsets, become comfortable with not knowing.