{"id":41969,"date":"2018-01-06T05:47:22","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T10:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=41969"},"modified":"2018-01-08T20:09:32","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T01:09:32","slug":"can-ai-write-better-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/01\/can-ai-write-better-bible.html","title":{"rendered":"Can an AI Write a Better Bible?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>The author of <a href=\"https:\/\/venturebeat.com\/2017\/10\/02\/an-ai-god-will-emerge-by-2042-and-write-its-own-bible-will-you-worship-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">a\u00a0recent article<\/a>\u00a0was much more impressed than I was with an AI\u2019s vaguely biblesque-sounding blather. Here is one example of what the AI\u00a0mentioned in the article came up with:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And let thy companies deliver thee; but will with mine own arm save them: even unto this land, from the kingdom of heaven.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u00a0will take much more than that to create a new religion, never mind become its God.<\/p>\n<p>But ultimately, even if an AI can produce scriptures that will impress\u00a0even someone who knows human scriptures well, is that the crux of the matter? Machines can already analyze hit songs and imitate them to produce their own. But as of yet, they cannot appreciate music, whether created by humans or AIs.<\/p>\n<p>And so perhaps the most exciting time will not be when a machine can <em>create<\/em> a religion, but when it can be <em>moved<\/em> by one.<\/p>\n<p>You can read more of the KJV-imitating AI\u2019s output here:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/god.iv.ai\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/god.iv.ai<\/a><\/p>\n<p>See also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2017\/12\/21\/robot-goes-college\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Lindsay McKenzie\u2019s\u00a0<em>Inside Higher Ed<\/em> article about\u00a0the android Bina48 successfully completing a university course about the philosophy of love<\/a>. This is a major first in the realm of AI \u2013 and of higher education! Course instructor William Barry said that, while he doesn\u2019t expect robots to ever replace professors, he is still interested in the possibility that they could teach a class \u2013 perhaps his class on robot ethics would be an appropriate choice?<\/p>\n<p>Of related interest, an AI may not be better than humans at creating scripture, but it seems that <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/google-artificial-intelligence-built-ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">an AI can make a better AI than humans can<\/a>. Which is more worrying?<\/p>\n<p>I have yet to see the Blade Runner sequel, and just recently finished watching <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2CC8WYN\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Westworld<\/a>, and so you can expect more on these and related topics in the not-too-distant future.<\/p>\n<p>Also related to <a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/artificially-intelligent-drones-become-terrifying-killi-1820392537\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">artificial intelligence in recent news<\/a> are\u00a0the following:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.the-tls.co.uk\/articles\/public\/technology-companies-facebook-god-earle\/<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"8lpXeJjldb\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/venturebeat.com\/ai\/an-ai-god-will-emerge-by-2042-and-write-its-own-bible-will-you-worship-it\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">An AI god will emerge by 2042 and write its own bible. Will you worship it?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"\u201cAn AI god will emerge by 2042 and write its own bible. Will you worship it?\u201d \u2014 VentureBeat\" src=\"https:\/\/venturebeat.com\/ai\/an-ai-god-will-emerge-by-2042-and-write-its-own-bible-will-you-worship-it\/embed\/#?secret=wRRgF8OtzR#?secret=8lpXeJjldb\" data-secret=\"8lpXeJjldb\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author of a\u00a0recent article\u00a0was much more impressed than I was with an AI\u2019s vaguely biblesque-sounding blather. Here is one example of what the AI\u00a0mentioned in the article came up with: And let thy companies deliver thee; but will with mine own arm save them: even unto this land, from the kingdom of heaven. It\u00a0will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":42092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14827],"tags":[443,810,1140,4005,10169],"class_list":["post-41969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bible","tag-god","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can an AI Write a Better Bible?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The author of a\u00a0recent article\u00a0was much more impressed than I was with an AI&#039;s vaguely biblesque-sounding blather. 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