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Have we built the golden calf?

I want to pose a question, that will initially sound like it is aimed at exclusively Christian, but it is not. Not only do I want to get Christians to comment with their opinion, I really want to know everyone who takes the time to read this, Id like to know your opinion and perspective.

This may be long, but I promise I will make it as entertaining as I can. For those who dont know the story, I want to tell you the story surrounding the 10 Commandments or 10 Cs for short.

For those of you who like to follow along in your book, this story takes place starting at Exodus 21. The nation of Isreal is at Mt Sainai. They set up camp, and God calls to Moses from the mountain saying, "Tell Isreal that they saw for themselves how badly I tossed Egypt a beating, and how I brought you out of that place like if you flew on the wings of eagles. If they will agree to obey his voice, to follow his rules, he promised that Isreal would be a favored nation above every other nation on earth, and you'll be a holy nation. And Moses called the elders, relayed what was said, then they told the people who were like, BET! God told Moses he'd cover the mountain in a thick cloud so Isreal could hear what God told Moses so that everyone would believe Moses forever. God told Moses to prep them for what was about to happen and make sure everyone cleans their clothes. Well, when God came down and the cloud descended, there was a massive lightning and thunderstorm. Isreal was like, we'll do what God says, we'll listen, just that we want you to go because if we go, thats gonna be our death. So, the first election recorded shows a nation of men and women vote unanimously to vote in a representative to become a lawmaker. God warns Moses about what would happen if the people approached the mountain. Moses assures God that Isreal wants less than nothing to do with even approaching. This is where God gives Moses the 10 Cs.

The first one is to have no god before me. No idols of silver or gold. And what does Isreal do? They basically give up on Moses coming back, so they asked Joshua to build a golden calf, the birth of Mooby so we can worship it and make offerings to it... Now, I find it hard to understand how someone can build and craft something and then worship it as if it has any ability to be sentient or even alive. I have learned though that idols can be anything that we look to for safety, security, value, love, validation.

This part is to anyone who ascribes to be a Christ follower. Ive been guilty of idolatry. When my identity as a person was defined by my political affiliation, when I spent more time looking up game stats, memorizing the lineup of the player's, spent hours on names, player number, position, what teams they played for. I spent more on my jersey than I put in the offering. I was spending hours watching the games, the sports shows, and reading the articles about my teams. I was spending minutes reading the Bible. If I didnt have the latest gadget, I felt incomplete or like I was missing out. Now, I dont want you to think I am against following sports, Im just saying dont let something that is good become something ultimate. Anything you should be going to Jesus for but meet that need with, thats an idol. Idols arent always in temples, sometimes they're on Ebay.

I said all that, and thank you if you are still following along, to ask a question about artificial intelligence. Has man created another golden calf? Ive read articles where some people attribute god like attributes because of some of the things that have happened with AI. We have AI making predictions and lots of money because it analyzes every stock at every second on the market. We have had AI chat bots, man has created this great thing in their eyes. Man marveled at AI. We have AI cars. AI is everywhere and has its perverbial fingers in so many pies, with more on the horizon as far as capabilities of it. There are some who quite literally believe that man has finally created God.

What do you think?
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
Yours is a fair question and we certainly should consider every new major invention or development with great care; but I think the terms "artificial intelligence" and "algorithms" are their own worst enemies. Nor was it helped by that stunt pulled by some programmer working for Google, claiming some sort of artificial personality.

I don't go along with the theological parallel because I am not religious, but there certainly seems a human trait that leads to making false idols, be they ancient statuettes of animals or present-day computer programmes.

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An algorithm is merely an arithmetical unit within a complete programme - useless on its own, but a sort of false idol largely in the minds of journalists who love to use long technical terms they do not really understand.

The simile I use is that of a car gearbox. I travelled nearly 400 miles yesterday; but by driving my car. It cannot drive itself and its gearbox is part of its entirety, so I can no more claim to have come home by gearbox than the journalists can claim "now we all live by algorithms".
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Similarly, any AI application is no more than a computer programme, useless on its own, and neither it nor the box of electronics are "intelligent" in any real sense at all. They simply respond in set ways to set categories of input values and arithmetical operators that act as "stimuli".

Its spurious "false idol" nature comes purely from the High Priests of C++ trying to help we mere mortals understand what they have made; by applying unfortunately a degree of anthropomorphism to a river of electrical pulses. It is they who create the sets of artificial stimuli and responses, too.

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There are three salient points:
1) The computer is an inanimate box of transistors, capacitors, etc.,
2) The AI with its internal algorithms and other routines is an inanimate list of ones and noughts.
3) Both have to be created by people - very clever people I grant, and I admire their ability.

Yet the circuits and programmes are no more than artifices, tools designed and made by people to perform certain tasks for other people. Whether the specific tasks are necessary or desirable is a different matter, of course!

The [i]real[/i] intelligence is biological: the mysterious processes within the flesh-and-blood brains of those electronics designers and programmers.

The sad thing about it all is that the poor creators with the real intelligence are ignored in the false-idolising of bunches of lines of computer code.
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JediJesus · 46-50, M
@ArishMell wow! That was a great response! Thank you so much for sharing your point of view!!