Costs of Technologies – “The danger of A.I. is not that it becomes like us, but that we become like it.” The Cross of Code (The American Conservative)
The Divine Project – “Ignatius Press has recently published a new book by the late Pope Benedict XVI, a collection of six lectures he gave in 1985 while he was still, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” Ratzinger: Grasping God’s plan as told in Scripture (Catholic Culture)
Anthropological Shift – “Gender ideology is part of a dramatic transformation in the notion of selfhood that has been underway since at least the eighteenth century.” Gender Ideology and the Future of the Human Person (The Heritage Foundation)
Political Prisoners – “Last August, a small group of priests, seminarians, a deacon, and a few lay people were held by police in an unofficial house arrest in the home of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, who was imprisoned with them.” Life in ‘El Chipote’ – A Nicaraguan priest’s story of prison, torture and exile (Pillar Catholic)
These Dread Latter Days – “Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022. The pro-life movement had worked toward this goal for nearly half a century; at several points, it had seemed impossible.” Walker Percy and Abortion (First Things)
Those Are My Children – “Jessica Bates was driving to work in southeast Oregon when she heard a Christian radio broadcast that, she said, caused a ‘really strong nudge in my spirit.'” Oregon Woman Sues State for Rejecting Adoption Application over Opposition to Child Gender Transition (National Review)
Audrey (Aiden) – “When covering the murders at Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian Church private school, journalists already know that the shooter wanted the public to know the answer to the ‘why’ question.” Heeding the Nashville shooter’s own voice: Do journalists want the ‘manifesto’ released? (Get Religion)
Our Western Fathers – “Spencer Klavan’s ‘How To Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises’ is simply not what I was expecting. It impressed me at every turn.” How Classical Wisdom Can Solve Contemporary Problems (The Federalist)
A Despised Defector – “A civil war erupted within broad evangelicalism, and the idol of LGBTQ+ is dividing the house.” Why I no longer use Transgender Pronouns—and Why You shouldn’t, either. (Reformation 21)
Puberty Blocker – “She was told medical intervention would help relieve her 14-year-old’s psychological distress. That’s not what happened.” ‘I Felt Bullied’: Mother of Child Treated at Transgender Center Speaks Out (The Free Press)
Cardinal Mindszenty’s Memoirs – “The book does a valuable service, to ensure that the story of a man who was once the world’s leading symbol of Catholic resistance to Communism does not pass lightly from the public memory.” Celebrating Cardinal Mindszenty’s birthday (Catholic Culture)
Daphne Pochin Mould – “It’s appropriate that at the beginning of this week, this Holy Week, I’m going to share with you a most interesting conversion story.” Why people should climb mountains (Charlotte Was Both)
“Sensitivity Readers”- “There is nothing like the elderly spinster and amateur detective Miss Jane Marple, Agatha Christie’s most admirable invention.” The Thought Police Come for Miss Marple (American Mind)
Imaginative Construction – “I noticed that the superb televisual imagery of the wedding at Cana was pushing away the images I had so painstakingly created in prayer for that mystery. And with those images went whatever the struggle to create them did to me.” Why I stopped watching ‘The Chosen’ (Our Sunday Visitor)
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@ Those are My Children. No doubt transition-promoter Biden will submit an amicus brief in support of the defendant Oregon Department of Human Services; that is, if he personally still has briefs…
The authors of a 2019 study which claimed so-called gender-transition surgery may improve the long-term mental health of recipients actually issued a CORRECTION, nearly a year after publication. The authors of the study—Richard Bränström, Ph.D., and John E. Pachankis, Ph.D.—now report that: “the results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care.” https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/08/04/researchers-reverse-gender-surgery-offers-no-advantage-to-mental-health/
@ Cost of Technologies.
Essayist Meadowcroft references, among many, warnings from Guardini, Heidegger, McLuhan. Today it’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Steve Wozniak who made the urgent appeal to halt research, at least a hiatus.
Musk’s fear, “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity”. Meadowcroft, “the app is an odious time suck, designed to hijack among a person’s most precious gifts”. Mimesis is that trend to imitate. Elicitation of human intellectual material drawn by the ogre, a computer programmed with that capacity and the unknown possibilities.
What is of greater concern from this writer’s perspective is a greater ethical issue, a dynamic other than what’s elicited for human manipulation of others, rather as Meadowcroft alludes, “the turning human beings into more material standing at hand for manipulation” [by machines].
Ethical matters, moral decision making is highly complex associated with a wide spectrum of variables that a computer cannot imitate. That capacity of the human intellect speaks to its creativity [see Bergson the Creative Mind]. A human needs to face vital issues and intellectually explore [deliberate] the variable conditions related to some envisioned act.
Reference to conceptual universals [easy enough to enter into a computer’s resources] of itself is insufficient because of that inherent faculty that belongs to the human mind to creatively identify and assess conditions on the ground. Tragic computer mistakes are inevitable. The potential of a computer programmed for what is effectively ethical decision making poses a grave risk to all.
Added QUESTION for Fr. Morello…
Might we say that in moral questions AI is simply and simplistically a giant b/c (benefit/cost) ratio calculator??
That is, a post-human oracle producing quantified printouts to the zillionth decimal point under “proportionalism” and “consequentialism”–at the disregard of, say, innate and divinely-confirmed moral absolutes (i.e., Veritatis Splendor transitioned into Non-veritatis Spender!)
If so, then AI in any language is likely to receive a bogus imprimatur from post-human der Synodale Weg, in Germania–the long-time source of other ethically ambivalent precision-instruments.
Yes. What you say is along the lines of how it endangers our human, spiritually based ethical decision making. We can’t implant a grace inspired soul into a machine. A ratio calculator seems correct.
@ Puberty Blocker
A woman, whose son experienced emotional trauma, likely faulted by homosexual propaganda added to school curriculum duped by faux medical professionals whose real interests are financial enrichment, enhancing their tenure with support by an Administration with an agenda that is morally daemonic.
If abortion policy doesn’t murder our kids in the womb, our LGBT worshiping administration will finish the process with its transgender policy. God’s wrath sorely tested.
The danger is absurdly exaggerated because it’s an atheistic fantasy. Aside from graduate degrees in physics, I also have a graduate degree in electrical engineering and for a period of time, I designed CPUs. Computers are actually simple devices. Billions of layers and branches of simplicity make them appear complex. Nonetheless, electrical circuits cannot and never will make any sort of decision let alone value judgments any more than a light bulb will contemplate the beauty of an object of art it illuminates or a television, thousands of times more sophisticated than the old Philcos of the fifties, can contemplate the ideas of the talking heads they illustrate on their screen. The pervasive stupidity that desires to believe technology advances closer to “consciousness” in a huge pile of circuits is the effects of an anti-religious culture. In Star Trek land people are machines and machines are people. We’re easier to dehumanize, especially those subject to being judged by functional utilitarian worth like the unborn.
Although Edward, with acknowledgment of your technical expertise which I lack, Amazon’s Alexa [Alexa a virtual assistant relies on AI technology via Google, Apple, and others] is not only able to respond to questions, but has an anticipatory capacity that mimics thought.
An example, my brother in law was searching Alexa for a recording that was difficult to identify. He dialogued for some time, several recordings were tried. Eventually Alexa responded, Frank, isn’t it past your bedtime? Listening nearby I was amazed.
Although technology cannot duplicate consciousness, it seems what’s entered into a computer can imitate consciousness and be programmed for decision making. This is where it seems the potential danger lies.