A godsend?<\/p>\n
Our faith in almost everything is being tested these days.<\/p>\n
Everything is instant, yet nothing seems real.<\/p>\n
The news is apparently as fake as people on the take. <\/p>\n
Yet we're desperate to believe in someone -- or even something -- that'll help give our lives meaning.<\/p>\n
For many -- though, perhaps, a dwindling number -- religion provides answers. Or merely some comfort.<\/p>\n
Step into a church, and you hope to be embraced by values and celestial guidance. <\/p>\n
Somehow, though, suspicion about God's human (alleged) intermediaries has grown. <\/p>\n
I was moved, therefore, by an article in Vox that explored the notion that religion will be \"transformed\" by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Already, a Buddhist robot priest called Mindar is offering its wisdom to worshippers in Kyoto, Japan. It's not powered by AI, but it is empowered to offer Buddhist teachings to a no-doubt rapt congregation.<\/p>\n
It's not difficult, though, to imagine a robot priest, bathed in supreme religious wisdom by the power of AI.<\/p>\n
Recently, the subject has invoked humor. This is largely thanks to Anthony Levandowski, the former Google and Uber engineer currently embroiled in a lawsuit as to his, well, ethical purity.<\/p>\n
A couple of years ago, he announced the creation of a Church of the AI God. At the time, he explained: \"It's not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?\"<\/p>\n
Um, an annoying know-it-all, perhaps?<\/p>\n
Is it possible, though, that some familiar religions might embrace a robot priest, rather than the more fallible kinds the real world seems to produce.<\/p>\n
For example, one of the first things that come to many minds if you mention the Catholic Church isthe constant sexual abuse and pedophilia scandals.<\/p>\n
Perhaps a non-human priest -- armed with all the holy knowledge imaginable and none of the unholy behavior -- might be the perfect way to renew the faith.<\/p>\n
Ilia Delio, a professor of Christian Theology at Villanova University, offered Vox some fascinating thoughts about this. <\/p>\n
Instead of trying to persuade Catholic worshippers that priests are somehow divinely consecrated, she said, perhaps the existence of robot priests would offer a new perspective on being a good person to deserve eternal life.<\/p>\n
\"We have these fixed philosophical ideas and AI challenges those ideas. It challenges Catholicism to move toward a post-human priesthood,\" she said. <\/p>\n
Perhaps some would feel enchanted at being offered spiritual guidance by a robot. Perhaps they'd think this was far better than the same old stuff Father Seamus has peddled for the last 20 years.<\/p>\n
(A confession: I was brought up in a severely, manically Catholic household. It was so manically Catholic that I haven't been to confession for decades. Nor, for that matter, to a Catholic Church, save for a couple of funerals.) <\/p>\n
Delio jested that robot priests have a better chance of being embraced by Protestants than Catholics. The former tends toward the more stoic and the less soaring than the latter.<\/p>\n
There is, though, still one large philosophical problem. Or, rather, a technological one.<\/p>\n
As with so much in AI, what matters most is who programs the robot. Elements of faith are -- despite fundamentalist protestations -- open to interpretation. If all robot priests were Bible-thumping fundamentalists, that might deter the faithful.<\/p>\n
Moreover, how easy would it be to tamper with their teachings? Imagine an unscrupulous Russian hacking a robot priest to tell Sunday's congregation that they should send their alms to Blessed Putin Fellowship Foundation.<\/p>\n
Still, some religions are wising up to the power of AI in a slightly different way than offering robotic holy beings at the altar.<\/p>\n
Recently, the Church of England created an Alexa skill so that, at any given existential moment of woe, you can call on your deity just by commanding Alexa to fetch it\/him\/her.<\/p>\n
I know that those in favor of the Great Singularity believe that humans will soon be Gods. Robotic Gods, that is.<\/p>\n
Perhaps having a robot priest merely places us halfway to our own personal heaven.<\/p>\n
It's artificial, of course.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Follow this link: <\/p>\n
Robot priests more acceptable to Protestants than Catholics, says professor - ZDNet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A godsend? Our faith in almost everything is being tested these days. Everything is instant, yet nothing seems real Continue reading