I really like this nice, clear, direct observation.
Thank you. I will try to do more of that.
Here Eliezer is in a world full of Christians who believe that dreaded Satan is going to reincarnate soon, claim to be a God, promise to solve all the problems, and take over earth. Religious people have been known to become violent for religious reasons. Surely building an incarnation of Satan would, if that were their interpretation of it, qualify as more or less the ultimate reason to launch a religious war. These Christians outnumber Eliezer by a lot. And Eliezer, according to you, is talking about building WHAT?
Interesting. Religious people seem a lot less scary to me than this. My impression is that the teeth have been taken out of traditional christianity. There are a few christian terrorists left in north america, but they seem like holdouts raging bitterly against the death of their religion. They are still in the majority in some places, though, and can persecute people there.
I don’t think that the remains of theistic christianity could reach an effective military/propoganda arm all the way to Berkely even if they did somehow misinterpret FAI as an assault on God.
Nontheistic christianity, which is the ruling religion right now could flex enough military might to shut down SI, but I can’t think of any way to make them care.
I live in Vancouver, where as far as I can tell, most people are either non-religious, or very tolerant. This may affect my perceptions.
My take on the “build a God-like AI” idea is that it is pretty crazy. I might like this idea less than the Christians probably do seeing as how I don’t have any sense that Jesus is going to come back and reconstruct us after it does it’s optimization...
This is a good reaction. It is good to take seriously the threat that an AI could pose. However, the point of Friendly AI is to prevent all that and make sure it that if it happens, it is something we would want.
:) You can be as direct as you want to with me. (Normal smilie to prevent the tiny sad moments.)
Interesting. Religious people seem a lot less scary to me than this. My impression is that the teeth have been taken out of traditional christianity. There are a few christian terrorists left in north america, but they seem like holdouts raging bitterly against the death of their religion. They are still in the majority in some places, though, and can persecute people there.
Okay, good point. I agree that religion is losing ground. However, I’ve witnessed some pretty creepy stuff coming out of the churches. Some of them are saying the end is near and doing things like having events to educate about it. Now, that experience was one that I had in a particular location which happens to be very religious. I’m not sure that it was representative of what the churches are up to in general. I admit ignorance when it comes to what average churches are doing. But if there’s enough end-times kindling being thrown into the pit here, people who were previously losing faith may flare up into zealous Christians with the right spark. Trying to build what might be interpreted as an Antichrist would be quite the spark. The imminent arrival of an Antichrist may be seen as a fulfillment of the end times prophecies and be seen as a sign that the Christian religion really is true after all.
A lot is at stake here in the mind of the Christian. If it’s not the end of the world, opposing a machine “God” is still going to look like a good idea—it’s dangerous. If it is the end of the world, they’d better get their s—in gear and become all super-religious and go to battle against Satan because judgment day is coming and if they don’t, they’re going to be condemned. Being grateful to God and following a bunch of rules is pretty hard, especially when you can’t actually SEE the God in question. How people are responding to the mundane religious stuff shouldn’t be seen as a sign of how they’ll react when something exceptional happens.
Being terrified out of your mind that someone is building a super-intelligent mind is easy. This takes no effort at all. Heck, at least half of LessWrong would probably be terrified in this case. Being extra terrified because of end times prophecies doesn’t take any thought or effort. And fear will kill their minds, perhaps making religious feelings more likely. That, to me, seems to be a likely possibility in the event that someone attempts to build a machine “God”. You’re seeing a decline in religion and appear to be thinking that it’s going to continue decreasing. I see a decline in religion and I think it may decrease but also see the potential for the right kinds of things to trigger a conflagration of religious fervor.
There are other memes that add an interesting twist: The bible told them that a lot of people would lose faith before the Antichrist comes. Their own lack of faith might be taken as evidence that the bible is correct.
And I have to wonder how Christianity survived things like the plagues that wiped out half of Europe. They must have been pretty disenchanted with God—unless they interpreted it as the end of the world and became too terrified of eternal condemnation to question why God would allow such horrible things to happen.
Perhaps one of the ways the Christianity meme defends itself is to flood the minds of the religious with fear at the exact moments in history when they would have the most reason to question their faith.
Last year’s Gallup poll says that 78% of Americans are Christan. Even if they’ve lost some steam, if the majority still uses that word to self-identify, we should really acknowledge the possibility that some event could trigger zealous reactions.
I have been told that before Hitler came to power, the intelligentsia of Germany was laughing at him thinking it would never happen. It’s a common flaw of nerds to underestimate the violence and irrationality that the average person is capable of. I think this is because we use ourselves as a model and think they’ll behave, feel and think a lot more like we do than they actually will. I try to compensate for this bias as much as possible.
I live in Vancouver, where as far as I can tell, most people are either non-religious, or very tolerant.
BTW, where I am (i.e. among twentysomething university students in central Italy) atheists take the piss out of believers waaaaay more often than the other way round.
Thank you. I will try to do more of that.
Interesting. Religious people seem a lot less scary to me than this. My impression is that the teeth have been taken out of traditional christianity. There are a few christian terrorists left in north america, but they seem like holdouts raging bitterly against the death of their religion. They are still in the majority in some places, though, and can persecute people there.
I don’t think that the remains of theistic christianity could reach an effective military/propoganda arm all the way to Berkely even if they did somehow misinterpret FAI as an assault on God.
Nontheistic christianity, which is the ruling religion right now could flex enough military might to shut down SI, but I can’t think of any way to make them care.
I live in Vancouver, where as far as I can tell, most people are either non-religious, or very tolerant. This may affect my perceptions.
This is a good reaction. It is good to take seriously the threat that an AI could pose. However, the point of Friendly AI is to prevent all that and make sure it that if it happens, it is something we would want.
:) You can be as direct as you want to with me. (Normal smilie to prevent the tiny sad moments.)
Okay, good point. I agree that religion is losing ground. However, I’ve witnessed some pretty creepy stuff coming out of the churches. Some of them are saying the end is near and doing things like having events to educate about it. Now, that experience was one that I had in a particular location which happens to be very religious. I’m not sure that it was representative of what the churches are up to in general. I admit ignorance when it comes to what average churches are doing. But if there’s enough end-times kindling being thrown into the pit here, people who were previously losing faith may flare up into zealous Christians with the right spark. Trying to build what might be interpreted as an Antichrist would be quite the spark. The imminent arrival of an Antichrist may be seen as a fulfillment of the end times prophecies and be seen as a sign that the Christian religion really is true after all.
A lot is at stake here in the mind of the Christian. If it’s not the end of the world, opposing a machine “God” is still going to look like a good idea—it’s dangerous. If it is the end of the world, they’d better get their s—in gear and become all super-religious and go to battle against Satan because judgment day is coming and if they don’t, they’re going to be condemned. Being grateful to God and following a bunch of rules is pretty hard, especially when you can’t actually SEE the God in question. How people are responding to the mundane religious stuff shouldn’t be seen as a sign of how they’ll react when something exceptional happens.
Being terrified out of your mind that someone is building a super-intelligent mind is easy. This takes no effort at all. Heck, at least half of LessWrong would probably be terrified in this case. Being extra terrified because of end times prophecies doesn’t take any thought or effort. And fear will kill their minds, perhaps making religious feelings more likely. That, to me, seems to be a likely possibility in the event that someone attempts to build a machine “God”. You’re seeing a decline in religion and appear to be thinking that it’s going to continue decreasing. I see a decline in religion and I think it may decrease but also see the potential for the right kinds of things to trigger a conflagration of religious fervor.
There are other memes that add an interesting twist: The bible told them that a lot of people would lose faith before the Antichrist comes. Their own lack of faith might be taken as evidence that the bible is correct.
And I have to wonder how Christianity survived things like the plagues that wiped out half of Europe. They must have been pretty disenchanted with God—unless they interpreted it as the end of the world and became too terrified of eternal condemnation to question why God would allow such horrible things to happen.
Perhaps one of the ways the Christianity meme defends itself is to flood the minds of the religious with fear at the exact moments in history when they would have the most reason to question their faith.
Last year’s Gallup poll says that 78% of Americans are Christan. Even if they’ve lost some steam, if the majority still uses that word to self-identify, we should really acknowledge the possibility that some event could trigger zealous reactions.
I have been told that before Hitler came to power, the intelligentsia of Germany was laughing at him thinking it would never happen. It’s a common flaw of nerds to underestimate the violence and irrationality that the average person is capable of. I think this is because we use ourselves as a model and think they’ll behave, feel and think a lot more like we do than they actually will. I try to compensate for this bias as much as possible.
BTW, where I am (i.e. among twentysomething university students in central Italy) atheists take the piss out of believers waaaaay more often than the other way round.