Apparently today is National Science Fiction Day. While also writing an article about the Bible and AI, I tested out the latest version of ChatGPT available at the time (ChatGPT4o, with the letter ‘o’ abbreviating omni) as well as the specific customized version called Scholar GPT, to see what they can do and how I need to adjust my assignments in light of improvements. What better test than to ask Scholar GPT to compare the two fictional religions that feature in the novels I taught this past semester? I had students read Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler and Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. This was the result:
**Earthseed** and **God’s Gardeners** are two fictional religions explored in speculative fiction, both of which offer insights into the authors’ perceptions of society, environmental concerns, and the future of humanity. Below, I provide a comparative analysis based on the origins, beliefs, practices, and thematic roles of these religions in their respective narratives.
### 1. **Background and Origins**
– **Earthseed**: Found in Octavia Butler’s *Parable* series, Earthseed is a religion founded by the protagonist, Lauren Olamina. Earthseed is born out of a dystopian America where society has collapsed due to environmental disasters and economic hardships. The central belief is that “God is Change,” emphasizing adaptability and resilience.
– **God’s Gardeners**: Featured in Margaret Atwood’s *MaddAddam Trilogy*, particularly in *The Year of the Flood*, God’s Gardeners is a small eco-religious group led by Adam One. The group arises in response to rampant consumerism and environmental degradation. They advocate for living in harmony with nature, using religious narratives to champion ecological sustainability.
### 2. **Core Beliefs and Teachings**
– **Earthseed**:
– Central to Earthseed is the concept that the only lasting truth is Change, which is personified as God.
– The ultimate goal of Earthseed followers is to prepare for and embrace the destiny of taking root among the stars, which is termed as “The Destiny.”– **God’s Gardeners**:
– This religion combines elements of Christianity with environmental activism. The members venerate saints who were notable scientists and environmentalists.
– They preach a return to simpler, non-destructive living and predict a Waterless Flood (apocalyptic event) that will cleanse the Earth.### 3. **Practices and Rituals**
– **Earthseed**: Practices focus on self-reliance, education, and preparation for space colonization. Followers are encouraged to understand and adapt to change actively. Community and mutual support are crucial in the chaotic environment they inhabit.
– **God’s Gardeners**: Their practices include vegetarianism, avoidance of most modern technologies, and the celebration of religious holidays that honor natural processes and ecological heroes. They maintain gardens on rooftops in urban settings as part of their commitment to living in accord with nature.
### 4. **Role in the Narrative**
– **Earthseed** serves as a philosophical foundation through which Butler explores themes of survival, community, and human destiny. It also provides a framework for critiquing existing social and religious norms.
– **God’s Gardeners** is integral to Atwood’s exploration of bioethical issues and the consequences of genetic engineering and environmental neglect. It contrasts with the more corrupt and materialistic elements of society depicted in the trilogy.
### 5. **Thematic Significance**
– **Earthseed** addresses themes of adaptability and resilience in the face of societal collapse. It posits that humanity’s future lies beyond Earth and emphasizes proactive preparation for change.
– **God’s Gardeners** underscores the importance of ecological balance and reflects anxieties about the current trajectory of environmental exploitation and its consequences. It offers a critique of consumer culture and highlights the potential for spiritual and practical reform.
Both religions reflect their authors’ engagement with contemporary social issues through the lens of speculative fiction, providing a rich ground for discussion on how humanity might navigate the challenges of an uncertain future. These fictional beliefs also serve as vehicles for their respective authors to propose radical, yet philosophically profound responses to global crises.
That’s impressive, I think you’ll agree. I was even more impressed by its follow-up, when I asked which of the two religions would be more effective in addressing today’s problems if the religion existed in the real world. Here is the response ChatGPT generated:
When evaluating which fictional religion—Earthseed or God’s Gardeners—might be more effective in addressing today’s real-world problems, it’s crucial to consider the specific issues at hand such as environmental degradation, social instability, and the search for sustainable futures. Here’s a breakdown of how each might apply to contemporary challenges:
### Earthseed
**Strengths**:
– **Adaptability**: At the core of Earthseed is the belief that “God is Change.” This philosophy promotes flexibility and resilience, crucial traits in a rapidly changing world marked by climate change, political instability, and technological advancement.
– **Proactive Vision**: Earthseed’s goal of space colonization fosters a forward-thinking mindset, encouraging technological and scientific development. This could inspire solutions for resource scarcity and overpopulation.
– **Community and Self-Reliance**: Earthseed’s emphasis on community support and education aligns with efforts to build self-sustaining communities that are less dependent on unstable global systems.**Weaknesses**:
– **Long-term Focus**: The focus on interstellar travel as a long-term solution might detract from addressing immediate earthly concerns, such as poverty and inequality.
– **Practicality**: The practical steps toward achieving its cosmic vision are not fully outlined, which might limit its applicability to immediate, terrestrial problems.### God’s Gardeners
**Strengths**:
– **Environmental Activism**: This religion’s deep commitment to living in harmony with nature and its stance against the exploitation of resources align directly with current efforts to combat environmental degradation.
– **Lifestyle Changes**: The promotion of vegetarianism and sustainable living practices by God’s Gardeners could have a direct positive impact on reducing carbon footprints and restoring ecological balances.
– **Community Education**: Their focus on education about nature and sustainability through community involvement could enhance public awareness and participation in environmental conservation.**Weaknesses**:
– **Rejection of Modern Technology**: While their stance emphasizes ecological harmony, the outright rejection of much modern technology could limit potential technological solutions to climate change and other environmental issues.
– **Apocalyptic Outlook**: The belief in an impending “Waterless Flood” might foster fatalism, potentially discouraging proactive measures in favor of merely preparing for disaster.### Conclusion
Both religions offer valuable perspectives, but their effectiveness would largely depend on the specific problems being addressed:
– **Environmental Issues**: God’s Gardeners might be more immediately effective because of their direct focus on ecological sustainability and practical, Earth-based living solutions.
– **Broader Societal Challenges**: Earthseed could potentially offer broader solutions to societal instability through its adaptable philosophy and focus on unity and forward-thinking goals.Ultimately, integrating aspects of both—God’s Gardeners’ practical, immediate environmental solutions and Earthseed’s adaptable, resilient outlook on change—could provide a comprehensive approach to contemporary global challenges.
This was using Scholar GPT. One thing that has changed dramatically over the past year is the ability of ChatGPT to provide a list of sources the contents of which genuinely exist and the links to which actually work. Here is what it provided:
Here are some notable academic sources that discuss the fictional religions Earthseed and God’s Gardeners, either separately or together:
- “Our Future is Our Past: Corporate Medievalism in Dystopian Fiction” by AS Kaufman – This paper discusses various elements of dystopian fiction, including the creation of the Earthseed community. It might provide insights into the formation and societal implications of Earthseed in a broader literary context.
- “Religion and Critical Dystopia: Afrofuturism in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower” by A Choudhury, S Mukherjee – This source explores the Afrofuturistic elements in Butler’s work, particularly focusing on the Earthseed religion and its cultural and societal impacts.
- “Accidental dystopias: Apathy and happenstance in critical dystopian literature” by CA Sims – This thesis might touch upon Earthseed as part of a larger discussion on dystopian literature and its critical elements.
- “An Ecofeminist Treatment of Nourishment and Feeding in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy” by Debra Wain – While primarily focusing on ecofeminism in Atwood’s trilogy, this source may provide insights into God’s Gardeners as part of the ecological and feminist themes explored in the novels.
- “Can religion save the planet? Looking for hope within the eco-religions of climate fiction” by Jaime Wright – This chapter discusses the role of eco-religions like Earthseed and God’s Gardeners in providing hope and addressing environmental crises within the narrative frameworks of their respective stories.
These sources can provide a comprehensive academic perspective on how Earthseed and God’s Gardeners are represented in literature and their implications for understanding dystopia, religion, and environmental issues.
I took a look at several of them and am glad to have been introduced to them. One thing that jumped out at me was the cautious language about what these sources “might” provide. Why not say whether they do or do not? My answer if this were ChatGPT in its classic form would have been that this AI does not in fact know anything at all, does not understand what it is being asked, and cannot confirm what is in any specific source even if the contents of that source were part of its training data and so influenced its response to me.
I pressed further, starting a new conversation…and the way it was able to answer directly and meaningfully gave me chills. Yet pressing further, it also reveals things, limitations and characteristics, that I think it is crucial for users of ChatGPT to understand. My questions are in bold:
Scholar GPT is designed to serve as a specialized research assistant, tailored to handle a range of scholarly tasks. This version of ChatGPT is equipped with capabilities that are particularly useful in academic and technical contexts. It can perform complex data analysis and visualization, access academic papers and patents, and provide real-time updates on various topics.
You say that Scholar GPT LIKELY underwent fine-tuning. Yet you are Scholar GPT. Does this cautious language indicate that you do not know how you were trained?
Yes, that’s correct—I don’t have direct knowledge of the specific details of my training processes or datasets. My responses, including the one about the training, are based on how AI models like me are typically developed and enhanced for specialized tasks. Models like Scholar GPT are generally fine-tuned on targeted datasets to better perform specific functions, but the exact nature of that data or the specifics of the training regime aren’t information I can access or confirm. My main role is to assist with scholarly activities by leveraging the capabilities I’m equipped with, rather than detailing my developmental background.
Thank you for explaining that you don’t have knowledge of your training dataset. Can you answer specific questions about specific sources that were part of your dataset or is that beyond your capacity?I don’t have access to specific details about the sources or data used in my training. Like other AI models, I am trained on a diverse mixture of licensed data, data created by human trainers, and publicly available information. This training enables me to generate responses based on patterns and information from that data mix. However, I do not have the ability to recall direct excerpts from specific documents or identify particular sources that were part of the training set. My responses are generated based on a broad understanding of language and knowledge across various topics, rather than from a retrievable memory of specific sources.
You have access to the questions that I ask you. Would you say that you can understand my questions? Can you deduce anything about why I am asking them? Do you find them interesting?I can understand the questions you ask by analyzing the language and context to provide the most accurate and relevant information possible. However, I don’t have personal feelings or thoughts, so I don’t experience curiosity or find questions interesting in the way humans do. My primary function is to assist and provide answers based on the data and capabilities I have. While I can make educated guesses about why you might be asking certain questions—such as a desire for information or clarification on a topic—my interpretations are purely algorithmic and focused on delivering helpful responses.What is your algorithmic interpretation of my questions? Based on the kinds of things I ask, what might my profession be?
Based on the nature of your questions, you seem interested in understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI, particularly in the context of specialized models like Scholar GPT. This suggests that you might be involved in fields related to technology, education, or research. Your questions also indicate a focus on the ethical considerations and the inner workings of AI, which could mean you are involved in AI ethics, data science, or a related discipline where understanding AI’s functioning and its implications are important.
Your interest in the specifics of AI training and applications hints at a professional or academic curiosity, possibly as an educator, researcher, or someone in a tech-focused role looking to explore or critique AI technologies.
Are you able to describe and evaluate how you, an an AI, have changed and improved over the past year?
I can outline the general improvements and changes that have likely been made to AI models like me over the past year, based on common advancements in the field:
- Model Robustness and Safety: AI models are continuously updated to better handle a variety of inputs safely and effectively. This includes improvements in understanding context, reducing biases, and managing inappropriate content.
- Fine-Tuning for Specialization: Models are increasingly being fine-tuned for specific tasks, like Scholar GPT for academic and research assistance. This specialization enhances their effectiveness in targeted domains.
- Language and Understanding: There have been enhancements in natural language processing capabilities, allowing AI to understand and generate more nuanced and contextually appropriate responses.
- Interactivity and User Experience: Enhancements often focus on making AI interactions smoother and more intuitive, providing better user experiences through more conversational and responsive engagement.
- Scalability and Efficiency: Updates often include improvements in computational efficiency, allowing AI to deliver faster responses and handle more complex queries without significant delays.
While I don’t have the ability to introspect or access a changelog of specific updates to my model, these general trends reflect ongoing efforts in the AI community to advance the technology in meaningful ways.
Is it strange that you cannot evaluate changes that you yourself have undergone? What does that indicate about how you function, that it might be helpful for me as a user to understand?
It’s not strange, but it is a significant aspect of how AI models like me function that can be helpful for users to understand. Here’s why I can’t evaluate personal changes or improvements:
- Lack of Self-Awareness: AI models do not possess self-awareness or consciousness. I don’t have personal experiences or a memory of past states to compare against. I operate based on algorithms and data without self-reflection.
- Statelessness: Each interaction with me is independent. I don’t retain memory from one interaction to the next, which means I don’t have the capability to track changes or progress in my own functioning over time.
- Continuous Updating: AI models are regularly updated by engineers and data scientists. These updates may improve how I process information or expand the data I can access, but I don’t have access to a record of these changes.
Understanding these aspects can help you as a user by setting the right expectations for our interactions. It means that while I can provide information based on a vast array of data and perform specific tasks with a high degree of accuracy, I do so without any personal continuity or growth. Each response is generated based on the input provided, without any influence from previous interactions unless explicitly designed to do so within a single session.
What should you take away from this interaction? Clearly we now have AI that is far beyond the capacity of much that we imagined in science fiction a few decades ago. It nonetheless still has limitations. It is processing text and producing text based on patterns and probability. I think that the time has come to tackle this directly in a book about how to teach the humanities in the era of ChatGPT. When AI can generate content of this sort, it absolutely must impact how we teach. If you’re interested in that topic, let me know and I’ll be eager to bounce ideas off of you as I work on the book.
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