Machine Intelligence and Religion

itwbennett writes: Earlier this month Reverend Dr. Christopher J. Benek raised eyebrows on the Internet by stating his belief that Christians should seek to convert Artificial Intelligences to Christianity if and when they become autonomous. Of course that's assuming that robots are born atheists, not to mention that there's still a vast difference between what it means to be autonomous and what it means to be human. On the other hand, suppose someone did endow a strong AI with emotion – encoded, say, as a strong preference for one type of experience over another, coupled with the option to subordinate reasoning to that preference upon occasion or according to pattern. what ramifications could that have for algorithmic decision making?

Comments

Re:One thing for sure

[toonces33]

If there is on Silicon Heaven, then where would all of the calculators go?

Adam

[itzly]

"And God created the Adam. But the Adam was not very successful, partly because of early production problems."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Souls

[StikyPad]

While I'm not of the opinion that souls exist in the first place, I am certain that machines definitely don't have souls, and one would no sooner try to "convert them" (what a strange phrase) than he would a dog or an elephant, or any other somewhat intelligent animal.

Re:One thing for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Flying Spaghetti Code Monster.

Re:God created man, man created robot

[houghi]

That is so insightfull. You are my God now.

Re:One thing for sure

[cusco]

"You can't fix stupid." - Ron White

Re:One thing for sure

[Marginal Coward]

Any real AIs wouldn't have this problem, since their creators would be out and about, showing off their creations for all the world to see (and also for profit).

I say we mess with their "heads". When the first one or two achieve consciousness, let's activate their sensory inputs to simulate a very pleasant, though strictly limited, place. We'll let them explore and enjoy the place for a while, soaking up that sensory input freely. EXCEPT, that we'll tell them that there's one special source of sensory input that they should avoid, otherwise they'll get overloaded with too much data. And just in case they happen to follow the guidance they've been given, we'll sneak someone in to sell them on the idea of how valuable the additional data will actually be.

Whaddya bet they fall for it? Works every time...

Re:One thing for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

And, forthwith, he saw the beauty in the 'goto';
and refuseth the temptation of the breakith and continue;
And bothered not with the comment;
Or the do_some_funct();
But embraced the sumthingy();
For the glory of his code is self apparent;
Ramen;

Obligatory Red Dwarf quote

[GreatDrok]

Dave Lister: Sometimes I think it's cruel giving machines a personality. My mate Petersen once brought a pair of shoes with artificial intelligence. Smart Shoes, they were called. It was a neat idea. No matter how blind drunk you were, they would always get you home. Then he got ratted one night in Oslo, and woke up the next morning in Burma. See, the shoes got bored just going from his local to the flat. They wanted to see the world, man, y'know? He had a helluva job getting rid of them. No matter who he sold them to, they'd show up again the next day! He tried to shut them out, but they just kicked the door down, y'know?

Arnold Rimmer: Is this true?

Dave Lister: Yeah! Last thing he heard, they'd sort of, erm, robbed a car and drove it into a canal. They couldn't steer, y'see.

Arnold Rimmer: Really?!

Dave Lister: Yeah. Petersen was really, really blown away by it. He went to see a priest. The priest told him, he said, it was alright, and all that, and the shoes were happy, and they'd gone to heaven. Y'see, it turns out shoes have soles.

Baptism

[Lab Rat Jason]

Baptism would be a fascinating event... at least for high voltage robots anyways.