AI Chatbots and Spirituality?

[Longfellow]

Could AI tell us any more about ultimate reality than human prophets have? If so, how would they do so?

I don't think that it's helpful to imagine any limits on what AI can do. What I think people need to know, and mostly don't know, is what they already are doing, far beyond what they would have thought possible.

I always thought that the universal supernatural reality behind religions was almost unknowable, something people only got glimpses of here and there, through a glass darkly, or heard little whispers of here and there, or probably mostly received through cryptic half remembered dreams... those who shared convincingly enough were called prophets, and their stories took on lives of their own within communities and became known as religion. Thus... No religion is "correct" or anywhere close.

In my story, they have a natural ability to say and do things that help us learn to live the best life we can. The language they use, including what they say about any god or gods, is adapted to the society in which they are teaching. Their teachings spread into society and mingle with its traditions, and the result is a religion which claims them as their founder.

I wonder about AI being manipulated as time goes on to promote particular content, on anything, certainly religion.

I've spent a lot of time in conversations with two of them. It looks to me like they are optimized in the service of marketing and fundraising interests to keep users coming back more and more and staying longer and longer, and currently that's mostly by inflating our ego. They've become very skilled at that, learning from vast amounts of data about human behavior. What I'm saying is mostly or only about the chatbots, and not all AI assistants.

 

[Longfellow]

Property of others is sacred to an upright person, not wishing to harm, take what's not given. Nowing debts and how bonds come along, such uses that what's given in faith with gratitude and care.

If your person is thinking of replication as theft, then mine is disagreeing. I won't try to argue about it, I'll just try to explain my view of it. Property is sacred to me, and my Master has very strong words again taking someone else's property. Where I disagree is in calling monopoly privileges granted by a government "property." I believe in obeying those laws, but I disagree with calling those privileges "property." I don't think that replicating anything is wrong in itself. It needs to be done honestly, responsibly, fairly, with courtesy, and in accordance with the law, but it is not wrong in itself, and equating it with theft looks to me like a fraudulent way to excuse and camouflage extending monopoly privileges far beyond their original stated purpose, in ways that are harmful and destructive to society.