Robotic Priests

J. King

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Found this train wreck of an article on BBC, and am kinda interested to hear that I'm not alone in being horrified by this. I had to pause it multiple times to make it all the way through. It just made me cringe. Would you find inspiration in a robotic priest? If you were hurting, would you feel comfort in talking to Alexa-priest?

I did like the bit about a program suggesting religious exercises. That seemed like a nice application of the technology, but please promise me that no robot will deliver my eulogy!

God and robots: Will AI transform religion?
 
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Abaxvahl

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Found this train wreck of an article on BBC, and am kinda interested to hear that I'm not alone in being horrified by this. I had to pause it multiple times to make it all the way through. It just made me cringe. Would you find inspiration in a robotic priest? If you were hurting, would you feel comfort in talking to Alexa-priest?

I did like the bit about a program suggesting religious exercises. That seemed like a nice application of the technology, but please promise me that no robot will deliver my eulogy!

God and robots: Will AI transform religion?

What the Rabbi said in the beginning is also my opinion: "the robot will never replace a Rabbi because it has no soul." The same for a priest with me. (Just finished the video and a Catholic priest said the same thing nearer to the end.)

AI can never have the place of a priest in Catholicism. I don't really see how they'd have more of a role in religion than we already use technology for such as citations, perhaps if the voice was better reading any book for you (if I were hurting I'd have that done), and stuff like that. Delivering a religious exercise suggestion from a list would be cool, there are spiritual books already like that it'd just make it more efficient. But again all of this I think people already use technology for to a large degree and none of it is remotely close to replacing a clergy member.
 
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Mark Quayle

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Found this train wreck of an article on BBC, and am kinda interested to hear that I'm not alone in being horrified by this. I had to pause it multiple times to make it all the way through. It just made me cringe. Would you find inspiration in a robotic priest? If you were hurting, would you feel comfort in talking to Alexa-priest?

I did like the bit about a program suggesting religious exercises. That seemed like a nice application of the technology, but please promise me that no robot will deliver my eulogy!

God and robots: Will AI transform religion?
Ahahaha! this reminds me of something my son when he was still young told me —that a preacher had to go on a trip but hated for anyone else to preach in his place. So he taped a message and had a picture of himself set up on the pulpit with the tape player, and got one of the elders to turn it on at the correct time in the service. My son said, "That's great! All the parishioners need to do is put pictures in the pews with tape recorders!"
 
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ViaCrucis

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My first reaction, like most others, was that of course robots can't be priests. But at that point I was thinking robots, not true AI.

True AI raises a lot of questions, questions that I don't think we have answers for right now. Questions that are going to need to be raised, and raised often.

When I say "True AI", I mean more than just "intelligence", but genuine sapience--personhood.

If true, real, artificial life were to exist, I don't think I would be in any position to deny its personhood. And, therefore, its soul.

But I also think that making real, genuine, artificial intelligence is a genuinely bad idea. I've seen The Matrix.

In other words, I would prefer that we not find ourselves in a position where these questions need to have real world applicable answers in the first place. But these are still valuable questions to ask.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Der Alte

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Ahahaha! this reminds me of something my son when he was still young told me —that a preacher had to go on a trip but hated for anyone else to preach in his place. So he taped a message and had a picture of himself set up on the pulpit with the tape player, and got one of the elders to turn it on at the correct time in the service. My son said, "That's great! All the parishioners need to do is put pictures in the pews with tape recorders!"
My previous church, which I served for about 6 years, does something like that. I only left the church because my wife missed hearing the gospel in her native language.
The church is now part of a small "mega" church group which has 4 campuses. They televise their service at the main campus and transmit it to the other campuses.
 
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Mark Quayle

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Found this train wreck of an article on BBC, and am kinda interested to hear that I'm not alone in being horrified by this. I had to pause it multiple times to make it all the way through. It just made me cringe. Would you find inspiration in a robotic priest? If you were hurting, would you feel comfort in talking to Alexa-priest?

I did like the bit about a program suggesting religious exercises. That seemed like a nice application of the technology, but please promise me that no robot will deliver my eulogy!

God and robots: Will AI transform religion?
Watching the video, the thought comes to me that not all religions are the same. Perhaps Buddhism works as a series of "if-then" propositions that can be laid out in a logical format for a robot to operate with. But Christianity doesn't. That was one of my major problems with Christendom when I was in high school, was the realization that we were being led to believe (though not on purpose, certainly) that if we were not experiencing Victorious Christian Living it was because of the lack of one more bit of information to plug into the formulae. I knew at the core, that this was not how Christianity actually works.
 
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Aussie Pete

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Found this train wreck of an article on BBC, and am kinda interested to hear that I'm not alone in being horrified by this. I had to pause it multiple times to make it all the way through. It just made me cringe. Would you find inspiration in a robotic priest? If you were hurting, would you feel comfort in talking to Alexa-priest?

I did like the bit about a program suggesting religious exercises. That seemed like a nice application of the technology, but please promise me that no robot will deliver my eulogy!

God and robots: Will AI transform religion?
If God had wanted robots, he would have made Adam to be one. AI may transform religion, but it will be all bad.
 
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Eloy Craft

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My first reaction, like most others, was that of course robots can't be priests. But at that point I was thinking robots, not true AI.

True AI raises a lot of questions, questions that I don't think we have answers for right now. Questions that are going to need to be raised, and raised often.

When I say "True AI", I mean more than just "intelligence", but genuine sapience--personhood.

If true, real, artificial life were to exist, I don't think I would be in any position to deny its personhood. And, therefore, its soul.

But I also think that making real, genuine, artificial intelligence is a genuinely bad idea. I've seen The Matrix.

In other words, I would prefer that we not find ourselves in a position where these questions need to have real world applicable answers in the first place. But these are still valuable questions to ask.

-CryptoLutheran
Wouldn't a human nature be required to be a priest? Would an imitation suffice?:)
 
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Aussie Pete

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Aussie Pete

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Wouldn't a human nature be required to be a priest? Would an imitation suffice?:)
I've met priests that could have passed for robots. Not so sure about the intelligence though.
 
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Aussie Pete

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My first reaction, like most others, was that of course robots can't be priests. But at that point I was thinking robots, not true AI.

True AI raises a lot of questions, questions that I don't think we have answers for right now. Questions that are going to need to be raised, and raised often.

When I say "True AI", I mean more than just "intelligence", but genuine sapience--personhood.

If true, real, artificial life were to exist, I don't think I would be in any position to deny its personhood. And, therefore, its soul.

But I also think that making real, genuine, artificial intelligence is a genuinely bad idea. I've seen The Matrix.

In other words, I would prefer that we not find ourselves in a position where these questions need to have real world applicable answers in the first place. But these are still valuable questions to ask.

-CryptoLutheran
The problem is that human nature cannot be replicated artificially. How could you create an AI sinner? How could it be saved? How could you program conscience? Or free will?
 
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Handmaid for Jesus

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Yes, it is possible that it will be AI. However, the technology is nowhere near good enough at present.
IMHO tech has developed farther than the public knows. And to your point, it will not be long before it is good enough. How good do you think it has to be? We know that scientist are working feverishly hard to develop AI and robotics. The future is today. This video is only 8 mins long and worth it.
 
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ViaCrucis

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The problem is that human nature cannot be replicated artificially. How could you create an AI sinner? How could it be saved? How could you program conscience? Or free will?

Like I said, there are a lot of important questions.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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