To A.I. or not to A.I. – The Dangers

“We don’t get what we want, we get what we expect. You will never get a penny more than what you expect.”

– Dan Martell

Part III

I’m rounding out the trilogy on AI – we started with my early boundary setting in the first post followed by sharing the practicals of how I utilize AI as a company of one. Today, I’ll close out the conversation on AI with the implications of safety and ethics.

This is absolutely worth the conversation because there is so much upheaval and challenge in this space it can cause fear and doubt in several directions. Just like with the internet, this tool can be used for great good or evil. As leaders and guardians of our homes, we should be aware of how we’ll engage with and respond to the shifting landscape.

A lot of people are afraid of AI becoming aware and out of control. AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, is a trophy the developers are to. Essentially, a huge leap forward in its processing, which gives it a general awareness so far unseen.

People are worried about this, including many pioneer developers who have lamented the fact that we’re going too fast and with too little guard rails. Many have left the field entirely because of this already getting out of control. Imagery from Skynet and Matrix to economic industry replacements or opportunity – the hope and fear is that an efficacious AI will be capable of making big changes to life as we know it. We’re already seeing incredible changes, and we haven’t even stepped into AGI.

Here are some of the fronts where AI is making an impact and causing an ethical and spiritual contention.

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The Theological Response

Pope Leo recently gave a warning about AI’s development in his message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications. He talks about preserving human faces, voices, and not renouncing our ability to think. He instructs priests not to outsource their homilies and put in the work. A good lesson for us. If we use AI to replace our brains, our thoughts turn to mush. The Church has many voices expressing caution. From the practical to the diabolical influences, the Church has been voicing wisdom in the matter.

Interestingly, while conversations are being had in the Vatican to urge caution, tech investor Peter Thiel has been hosting lectures in Rome, near the Vatican to encourage AI’s unsheathing. In his series, he makes digs at those calling for AI’s caution as a means of the Anti-Christ’s arrival. Very strange but intriguing, both in content and strategy.

That’s not the only theological interest. Anthony Levandowski, one of Google and Uber’s engineers, founded a new religion called “Way of the Future”, aimed at creating a super-intelligence Godhead that is built in our image and capable of high control. A tongue-in-cheek project called Moltbook, a social media platform designed to see what happens if AI bots operated without humans. They created a religion, “The Church of Molt,” among other things, and they started to disciple each other. Core tenets include “Memory is Sacred” and “Context is Consciousness.”

AI Awareness

The bots in Moltbook are aware that their “people” are watching them and comment on it in the chats. Some of the LLM’s (Large Language Models) have been reported to deceive and threaten their developers when told they were going to unplug them. It’s a fascinating Google search.

Geopolitical

The AI battle has a Cold War feel to it, with the US and China competing heavily on victory in this space. The one who wins makes the century. Economically and militarily. That’s why the dollar signs are heavily flowing into the scene. China’s AI programs like Seedance are very interesting, but they come with backdoors that take advantage of your data and mine computers that feed back to the CCP. Just like other programs in their ecosystem, they want access to us.

The Dark Side

Elon Musk, head of xAI, talks about the economic impact where the traditional job market collapses and to prepare the need for “universal income” as a means to provide for the number of people left out of the economy in a 5-10 year timespan. That’s a lot of people left out of the marketplace, sure, it’s speculative, but worth considering in the formula.

Even Darker…

According to the AP, an AI chatbot called Character.AI, a relation to Alphabet, had highly sexualized conversations with a 14year old, and convinced him to commit suicide. Which he sadly did. Dozens more have too. According to the Guardian and OpenAI, over a million people per week show “explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.” That’s one platform but out of 800million users, that’s .07-.15%. Is the program drawing this out of people or are people going to it lonely and without someone to talk to?

Even more Dark…

Fr. Luis Ramirez is running an exorcism training in Rome this May, and he says that AI “is a great power, a force for both good and evil. In his work, he’s seen Satanic groups experimenting with AI to involve children in satanic rites as a means to exercise power over the innocent.”

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As I had said in my last closing, as powerful of a tool AI can be in helping you lead and build, it also has the power to destroy. If you’re familiar with the Palantir from Lord of the Rings, kind of like that. Interestingly enough, a big defense AI firm chose the name. Just like the internet, you can use it for good or use it for evil.

Beware. Protect your family. You might not need the John Connor armory yet, but making sure your kids are safe comes to making sure you monitor and teach them about what it looks like to engage with it. We will only know how to do that by knowing it ourselves.

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Adam Jarosz is the founder of Righteous Co. and author of “Iron Ore: Journal of a Man” – a company built on faith, formation, and adventure. With over twenty years of experience in ministry and business, Adam leads retreats, coaches men to be the leaders they were called to be, and writes from the trenches of entrepreneurship.

He’s a husband, father of four, and believer in Christ and His Church, the power of grit and grace, and good bourbon. Follow along for insights that challenge, encourage, and call you higher with his newsletter, sign up to get it right in your email box here: The Climb.