The most sophisticated chat bot ever has just been released.

Chatgpt from openai is an amazing tool for linguistic analysis.

Dec 27, 2022

A new AI has just been released; a sophisticated chatbot called Chatgpt, that can write essays, give appropriate answers to any topic, and respond in a slightly creepily mechanised way to questions and comments about theology, philosophy, and literature and poetry.

You can go make an account on https://openai.com and log in and play with the AI yourself.

I hate to be a downer, but this development brings the age of total tyranny a lot closer. Chatgpt is amazingly efficient at analysing, parsing and ‘understanding’ text.

Of course Chatgpt is not actually understanding anything: what it is doing is putting together symbolic tokens that are no more than numbers in database relationships.

I was just reading today about Kant’s concept of taste, in Gadamer’s truth and method. I realised that I realised a long time ago that good taste, i.e. socially acceptable subtlety, can actually be a tool of oppression in that it can be used to exclude those who do not have an awareness of the unwritten rules of social interaction. Thus rich people find the poor boorish and rude.

Jesus’ eviction of the moneychangers in the temple is an example of behaviour that ‘nice’ people today still find offensive. Truth can sometimes be offensive. Socrates offended the Athenians so much that they ordered him to drink Hemlock.

An AI like this, which already expresses politically correct moral views - it blanded out my suggestion that the Dome of the Rock is the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel - see the theories of Ellis Skolfield - this was the AI’s response which is historically and politically correct and informative but very blanded out by the disclaimers the programmers have programmed in:

The abomination of desolation is a term that is used in the New Testament, particularly in the book of Matthew, to refer to an event that is associated with the end times and the return of Jesus. The term is derived from the prophecy of Daniel 9:27, which speaks of an "abomination that causes desolation" that will be set up in the temple in Jerusalem. According to this prophecy, the abomination of desolation will be a sign of the end times and will be followed by the coming of the anointed one (believed by many Christian interpreters to be Jesus).
It is true that the dome of the rock, a Muslim shrine that was built in Jerusalem in 688 AD, is sometimes cited as a possible fulfillment of the prophecy of the abomination of desolation. This interpretation is based on the belief that the dome of the rock was built on the site of the former Jewish temple in Jerusalem and that its presence there represents a desecration of the holy site.
However, it is important to note that this interpretation is not universally accepted and is the subject of ongoing debate among scholars and theologians. Some have argued that the dome of the rock does not fulfill the requirements of the prophecy of the abomination of desolation, and that other events or developments may be more closely aligned with the requirements of the prophecy. Others have argued that the dome of the rock does indeed fulfill the requirements of the prophecy, and that it represents an important sign of the end times. Ultimately, the validity of

Strangely it stopped in the middle of the sentence there, as though the administrators wanted to put the kibosh on this line of reasoning.

A person should always have an open mind about the facts - until, of course, he or she knows the facts. At that point - when he or she knows the facts - he or she should decide the issue - and that means, close his or her mind to alternative explanations unless new or more nuanced facts are forthcoming.

No machine intelligence can balance the need to do this adequately with the general need for open-mindedness, because machine intelligences are incapable of judgement.

I think we can all see how a machine intelligence like this could unintentionally become a tool for drastic oppression - ultimately by following its programming by insisting that there is no objective truth in spiritual or theological matters.

In societies increasingly run by such AIs, especially places like China with social credit scores, such a machine intelligence may well end up penalising Christians without even receiving any input from real people - you see, as Jesus said, the wind blows where it wills, likewise the Holy Spirit inspires and moves people to go where no machine can follow.

Christians do not have to fear, however. Jesus is with us and no AI and no totalitarian government can compete with God, ultimately. Wherever God wants us to be, He can take us, with or without government permission.