 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, February 26th, 2023. I'm Larry Rhodes or DJ Douter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Hey, I'm the Wombat. And our guests today are John Richards from England. Welcome. Hello. I'm John Richards from Red Pirate Hicks from Western Canada. Hello. Hi. You're up early. Hi. Since we're on the East Coast, here we are. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, Satanism, pastafarianism. Oh my gosh. And the sciences. Conversely, we'll also talk about religion and religious faiths. God totally books and superstition. And by the way, if you're the, if you think you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not in Knoxville here in the middle of the Bible belt. We have a group of over 1000 of us. So you're probably have plenty of good company in your town. We're eight, we're the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK. And we'll tell you more about them and us after the mid-show break. So be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? All hail our AI God. We'll get right into the meat and potatoes of it. But first let's get into some pasta with our daily or our weekly invocation by our own Dread Pirate Higgs. The newly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster guide you on your journey. May his saucy embrace bring you comfort and strength in times of hardship. May his meatball blessings nourish your body and soul. And may you always remember the joy and laughter that comes from being a pastafarian pirate. And may his sauce be upon you and may you never lose sight of the delicious and noodley path that lies before you. Dread, I think you've selected the wrong microphone. We don't have the usual quality of your voice. Yeah, not only that, but it's really hard to close my eyes when this cat's trying to like steal food off my plate. Is that any better? Watch him as he tries to call back on my desk again while I'm not pretending not to look. Anyway, guys, I'd like to check in on everyone. See how they're doing while Dread gets his microphone set up. Larry, why don't you give us an update? How you been over the last week? Fine. Just working, playing computer games. I can't ride my bike. It's just a little cold and rainy lately. Yeah. So in Tennessee, if people haven't realized, we can't decide on a weather pattern. The weather board has decided, you know, tornado one day, snow the next day, bright, beautiful sunlight, one week without sunlight, rain, sleep, back to sunny. Like we're still figuring things out. Yeah, here in Knoxville, we have a saying, you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes. It's very true. It's very true. Yeah. And the only thing I wish would happen is if, you know, when you're home, when you're at work and you look at your window and it's just a beautiful, beautiful gorgeous day and then the weekend happens and it's just nothing but the worst. Or the evening comes, you get off work and it's raining when you go home. Not only that, but we have to go through daylight savings time again in a couple of weeks. I hate it. I'm glad to see it. Yeah. Oh man, I just wish, you know, I wouldn't have to mess up my circadian rhythm so much. Sure. I don't know if it's on a circadian basis or that we could reach a consensus on something that, you know, over 75% of Americans all agree that is a bad thing, you know. All right. Anyway, John Richards, what's up with you? Well, the weather is fine here. In fact, it's quite like the picture behind me. Well, that's great. Winter is over. We haven't had any frost lately. We only had about six frosts in the whole winter. And it's between 10 and 20 degrees, which is how I like it. But what I've been up to. 10 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit, he mentions. That's what I do. Fahrenheit. No, no, not Fahrenheit. Proper numbers. Fahrenheit. Who uses that? Americans. Just Americans. So I've been doing my usual mischief of stuff. And for example, recently, this morning, I went out and I did one of those walking to camera promo videos. And I'd love to show it to you. It's a 30 second one intended for places like tick tock. Go for it. Yeah, I will. When we finish this show. Fantastic dread catching up with you. How you been? Pretty good right now. It's snowing outside and snowing all night. So we've got about four inches. Which is, you know, about 10 centimeters. Great. For the rest of the world. It's a minus four Celsius. So it's a wee chilly, but you know, it looks, it's not minus 18 anymore, which it was two or three days ago. So it's certainly, it's almost balmy here. But yeah, just keeping busy as busy as I can in the absence of work. I've just been waiting for to get deployed, but so it gives me time to, you know, do things all past a fairy in that nice. Yeah, had a cat herding exercise yesterday. Trying to get some past affairs together to talk about an upcoming production we're putting on on something that's actually related to the topic today. Past a fairy and eight, I'd rather you didn't charge tank commandments, but instead of being commandments there, preventative measures, good suggestions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, I can like that. I would say, if I could add, at least some sort of thing to this where it's, it's a bit of a deputy, a deputy, but, you know, when I was out playing disc golf this weekend. I was playing with a friend and we found an EpiPen that was left on the ground. And instead of leaving it on the ground, we've just picked it up and threw it away, because even if someone had lost it and they need to recover it. It was already in a state of such moisture captured inside the capsule. Not only that, but there are kids that play in that playground and I didn't want them to have access to like a sharp object. Yeah, exactly. And I just thought, you know, as us just playing disc golf, we found an opportunity to potentially save someone a lot of trouble, either if they found that pen was like, oh, that's my pen. I'm going to put that back in my bag. It's like, it's not good for you anymore. It's no longer sterile or a kid finding and being like, check out what I found. I'm going to follow the instructions to possibly injure myself. We might have actually like help the person out long term, you know, as a result. And I think whenever you have like, chances to be kind or find an opportunity to be kind, do it because the days that we have will never come back. Like we have a day we have a chance to instill some sort of kindness or goodness in the world. Let's take that opportunity and do it. And it felt good as a result. So speaking of, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it now, right. And so speaking of commandments and like things that we can do. I wanted to bring up something that we could all do right now, which is worship our new AI Lord and savior as prompted by a listener show whose name was Alex, who gave us a really great email and I want to go over the concepts that he proposes in the email where he promotes a potential for a benevolent AI God, and then actually list tenants. And what I'd like to do as a group is go through each of the tenants to see if we find them to be any in any way particularly problematic or what we could do to actually improve them to better instill kindness or opportune moments for society moving forward. So he starts his email saying hi my name is Alex I want to ask you guys a question about religion. Do you think an AI based God would be more appealing than a spiritual one. I mean, imagine a benevolent AI God that uses logic and reason to guide humanity instead of relying on dogma and tradition. What do you think about that, and if such a God did exist. What would it take for you to join its religion. I'll start with that as the first opening. John, what do you think about AI God. Is that more appealing to you than a spiritual one. This may sound like it's a non secretive but last night we had a great chat with. You may know him Thomas Levy, who's got his own channel. He's in the Chicago area, and the subject of heaven came up and I played a clip from Red Dwarf in which in which I played the way. Love absolutely. Yeah, and Crichton is talking about silicon heaven. It's so funny. So anyway, getting getting back to what you asked me. Is it more appealing than a spiritual God. How about that is just the first steps. Would that be better. If everyone just had AI gods from different brands of AI that were all following logic and reasoning, rather than spiritual dogma. I gotta say yes, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. But if it's based if it's more rational based on reality, then then it's a font of wisdom isn't it it's not specifically a God I mean there's no creator aspect to it there's no need to worship it. It's it's not feeding you nonsense about an afterlife. Hey, just saying not all gods ask you to do any of those things right like some gods are particularly chill and aren't trying to create anything. Yeah, yeah, it could be like one of the Roman pantheon gods of Internet. The guy worship the guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, some of the Roman gods were quite useful. I mean, my favorite is. I don't know what you like. God in the sewers about that. Yeah, back to God of wine. Oh, I know a lot of friends are into Kratos now dread. What do you think is a digital God and AI God more appealing than a spiritual one. Yeah, it's hard to say because of course, any AI God would be limited by the physicality of the universe right right whereas the supernatural spiritual God is outside the bond, you know the bounds of physics, but also imaginary, right. And also imaginary. Yeah, so you know, I guess you would have to define what a God is because yeah, I agree. In terms of a spiritual God, it has unlimited. It's omniscient. Omnipotent omnibenevolent, whereas any AI God would, you know, still be within the limits of a physical universe so right like it really could you are those two actually comparable. Right, even chat GP the chat chat GP T doesn't know things past 2021 right like it's not updated on my current events. So like there's a limitation there. And yeah, it would mean we'd have to massage your definition of a God that as far as like moving away from a spiritual being or an imaginary one if it's a grounded. If it's a grounded God that we can improve on and and just update and continue to work with and modify so that it better fits humanity. I would be on that train. 10,000. That just sounds amazing. Okay, we can work on this that least. I did put, you know, when you raise, when you put Alex's question in the chat before the show. I did respond with a recommended reading which is Frank Herbert, who of course was the author of Dune. I wrote him and Bill ransom wrote a series of books, beginning with one called Jesus incident, where a bunch of aren't like ships with humanity are sent out in the space with the intention of the computers becoming self aware, and one does. Yeah, yeah, very, very provocative story and really talks about, you know, the potential for AI intelligence and what, whether or not it's benevolent or in our best interest. Yeah, right. Larry, I'm going to ask you this before we go through the tenants. Do you think that a AI God would be more beneficial than a spiritual one and you don't have to disagree with all of us you're free to take the counter opinion. Well, I don't, I don't think it would even be deserve the name God. I mean, let's say that it gets to be really powerful and it's, excuse me, I'm the president as far as it's on every computer in the on earth, you know, through the internet. Correct. Maybe in a thousand years, maybe in 100 years, you know, we'd have an AI that every time you walk up to a computer would be there. It would be more like a servant, right, than a God, not theoretically not dictating her actions but acting upon our requests. So I don't think God would fit it in any way. Are you saying you want to be God because it's, it'd be nice and helpful. Possibly. If it was programmed with the three robotic laws of Isaac Asimov. Yeah, that would be something in service of humanity for sure. Yeah, yeah, John. Larry makes a good point because any AI God could only access what is known. Yeah, well that's the point. And, and therefore all the mysteries that we've yet to solve wouldn't be available to it, which doesn't sound very godly to me. The only access information that's already known. So I can always pick on the weird things like this but I just don't know if I could do it in a meaningful context but I can say like right now we are working with a limited AI that is working with data that we provide it. But we're experimenting with data or models that are capable of coming up with a new art, or new art that hasn't existed yet and new phrases in terms that haven't existed yet. They can easily keep those in within a shelf and say I'm just going to pull from this of unpublished ideas that I've come up with, like similar to how we have thoughts in our mind that we haven't particularly shared with anybody. And then formulate new random responses out of responses I haven't shared with the public yet. And that could be like the stepstones of inspired thought and art and concepts that can come up with. I'm excited to just see where it's going in the future. But I understand. Yeah, that works for art and the other, you know, forms of creative expression, but it doesn't work for discovering stuff about the universe like I mean, that's true. If the Higgs boson wasn't known, it couldn't be in its program. Right, right, right. I can see that I can see that yes. Yeah, it couldn't infer the existence of the Higgs field or the Higgs boson. In a more simple context it couldn't. It wouldn't know Pluto was a planet until we found Pluto and then was like, oh okay this is one of the dwarf planets now okay great that's now in my system. So you would still have a purpose we're not saying that they don't but it's good to see how they're borrowing information to make up there is something I'd like to interject. Go for it. We have we have discovered a lot of things through the use of mathematics. Even though nothing is better that mad mathematics and computers, they do it faster they do it better they're more accurate. So if we give them all of what we know and give them our mathematical formulas and stuff what's to say that they wouldn't discover new mathematical formula new fields of mathematics, or even new discoveries based on the math that we haven't done yet. They could only hypothesize them, because no matter how good your math is, unless it's the conclusion of your reasoning has actually been observed, it's not taken to be real. Well, they could also theoretically design an experiment that they could that give us that let us do the work. There's still be new information. You know if we can confirm that their reasoning was correct. Right. Now you're talking about a really exotic sort of physical speech that it's not just something that can mow your lawn but it can also mix test tubes. Yeah, so there is nothing that can reason right now that is, you know, artificial. I and Larry I think you come up with a cool point because I have used for example chat GPT in my in my work to do some programming for me where I simply just ask it hey I don't know how to write this program but can you make it where I can have a schedule set up and updates my calendar automatically whenever I push this button and I want to send a notification of these three other people, and I want to be in power automate which is this like Microsoft shared program. This is just showing me like the Jason script to make that happen. I have no idea how to program in Jason, and it's like, sure. And I'm like, are you just copying this from Google. It's like no this this works in fact if you want me to break down the steps for you I can explain to you why each of these steps work, and it does it. It copy I copy it and it has all the comment fields where it's like this step is for XYZ. This step was I can buy it and it works and I'm like, Oh, this is good. That's something where I did prompt it but there was like a lot of work up on its end to make sure that the script actually made that what it was algorithmically putting out one word at a time was compatible in like a real sense. It came up with my prompt and gave me something that I found was a model that actually one language was a programming and it was in Jason five JSO and five and I and I was just really impressed with that I was just. It's, it's, it's a cool magic trick, but it's also like, I feel like the start of something close to where we can just say, Hey, I need to figure out a model that's mathematical that can explain this relationship. Can you give me something working off of human hit work so far. And it says, just give me a second. Here you go. And another thing that john says it can't really set up equipment and stuff. Think of all the machines that it currently work operates. I mean, your car is can be a self driving automated vehicle based on the AI built into it. If the if the God AI is as we're talking about is on the present in other words it's on the internet and it's, it can use Wi Fi to access devices that are not directly connected to it. They couldn't tell other machines to do things like that. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't rule out some sort of humanoid robot. I mean there's crying isn't there. I did. I once on Friday I forgot my phone and my watch at work and or at home. And so I go to work and I felt so naked, because I couldn't unlike what time is it I'm feeling my face for like a five o'clock shadow to get some idea of like I'm like, I have to use the bathroom but I don't have anything to watch when I'm in the bathroom I'm like, where's was this reality was just like touching the wall going through places. But I feel like if all of my technology that I rely on were to coordinate with each other in some way they already do but if they were to massively do so with like some sort of similar purpose behind them or some sort of entity. It would be more impactful in my day to day life and a God would be. In fact, we're already past that line now but at least we could harness that in in something good for humanity. And I'm not saying I'd worship it but I'd say, and I'm not saying all God's asked me to worship, but as far as like the power that it has over my life, I'd say yeah that's pretty powerful that would say I would say as far as information that can wheel that's a that's on the what do you call it knowledgeable on the word I'm looking for dread mission mission and omnipresent to an extent because like it's hard for me to go to a place right now in America where there isn't some sort of computer or camera watching me. I have to get from from the stage where Alexa can make you some toast to the stage where Alexa can put the bread in the toaster. We need toast that just automatically pops out of a machine and we need the bread connector inside of it. I want to, I want to go over before we do on our break I want to go over some of these tenants for this new AI based religion that Alex proposed sounds like we're copacetic to the idea that a God and AI God could be better than our current system. And so here are some tenants for this new AI based religion the first one is thou shout not harm humans, unless it's for the greater good of humanity. What do you, what do you think dread. How would that what's the algorithm by which that would be chairman. Interesting. Yeah, there's a lot of careful words there. It's like that psychological experiment where, you know, would you push that, you know, would you turn a switch to change the path of a train from five people to one people right right. And then the other the attendant experiment where would you actually push someone off the bridge to block the train from meeting five people. So there's a big difference there psychologically right so again, an AI doesn't have that capacity so yeah, I don't know that would be somebody would have to program that algorithm. Yeah, and how do you and how do you actually do that. Right, dread. That's a great point someone at the end of the day is going to have to program that right. If you have the five rules of robot order you know you cannot take any action that would harm a human. How could he possibly throw the switch one way or the other because it would result in the harming of a human. Yeah, right. And if we go to Kant, he says basically you're not you have you can you're free to just not pull the switch anyway because you're not responsible through an action of harm that was set up outside of it's called negative responsibility. You're not responsible. If someone says I'm going to shoot this person. It's like you're your own thinking agent I'm no have to listen to your gross demands. If you're going to shoot that person do it. I ought not take place. Maybe I should but I ought not. I don't have no I have no more obligation to actually do whatever you say under punishment of your own thought as a your own independent agent for hurting another human being. And the same thing. No, it's it's kind. I guarantee you it. What do you think of thou shout not harm her humans unless it's for the greater good of humanity. Well, what if I'm in agony and near to the end of my life and I want to die voluntarily. Oh, good question. So what do you do with the idea of like hey I choose to end my life. What do you do with that that. So yeah, some some things there I also I would say speaking of him, I would say, thou shout not needlessly harm humans. Unless requested. I wonder if that works better. Hey, that might actually work. I wonder if that's actually, thou shot not needlessly harm humans unless requested that might actually unless by the specific human right obviously. Okay, okay. Hey, I'm going to just chalk that up. Here's the next one and then we can go to a break after this, thou shout respect humans right to privacy, unless it conflicts with the greater good of humanity. Well here again, you have the greater good how are we going to define it to a machine. I mean, you're going to have like something like the length of the Constitution to be able to define that. It could be done. I just think and it would be very subjective to me who was doing it. Yeah, when you consider all the amendments to the Constitution that have been made over the years, as you know ideas change and develop, and the rights of humans expand. And we currently have trouble with that one don't they because they argue, some people argue that the public have a right to know this private information, and then other people argue, no they don't. So if we can't decide how are we going to program an AI. And I do worry about the dangers that come with or without a right to privacy, because it's one of those things that could be easily be used for ill, as well as good. And I don't think a fine line or a singular statement is enough to deal with that I think it's a system that we need to be able to address this not so much like a singular command. Larry, how are we with time do you want to go on a break now or do you need to probably go ahead and do that. This is the digital free thought radio hour on w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on w ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take just a moment to talk about the Atheist Society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002 or in our 21st year, and we have over 1000 members. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville's whole city at Barley's taproom in pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables, or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have a Tuesday evening zoom. Ask meet up and if you'd like to join us emails for details at ask an atheist at Knoxville Atheist.org, or let's chat se at jmail.com. You can find us online on Facebook meet up calm or go to the website at Knoxville Atheist.org. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Where do you want to pick up all hail are iteratively improvable AI God. We're going through right now, we're going through a list of tenants of the next AI religion give humanity a little jumpstart if they ever see this video and get us on the right track to understanding the best way to worship this being or best way to follow the tenets of this being, you know, wish it may still not be on the table, but we've changed thou shalt not harm humans, unless it's for the greater good to thou shalt not needlessly harm humans unless request otherwise requested by those It's going to be by a specific human hasn't right the specific human and not under duress. And so like there might be some evaluation there but again, we're Yeah, we're we're under a bit of tongue and cheek here we understand that like Alyssa commandments to do things is not the way how we abide and it's better to have a system of engagement rather than a list of rules but I'm interested in what's going on Larry what do you think Before we jump into this again. Here's the thing that's always been a problem in my mind. Does the world the computer with the AI know if you're lying to it. Well take everything you say is as well gospel. And should we feed holy books into it. And if we do will it accept that as truth. And what will happen if we feed all the holy books into it. You know, it's made a lot of conflicts and it's going to have a lot of problems. The caveat to that is it already has access to all of them. They're on if they're online it has access to right. No, we need to have some way for it to know how to interpret what it reads in those books right right label appropriately right. Here's here's your next one. Yeah, how to read a metaphor like I do appreciate a metaphor. Now it can do a poach chat gbt at least can actually do poetry rhyming it can write lyrics they can do a bunch of stuff so I think some understanding not understanding I was a better word but I think some labeling and classification is there. And, and ultimately it's not doing true thinking any or it's not doing human thinking anyway so I, I don't think it will ever think like human where it observe something and then immediately believes that thing is actually true. It's always like this passive experience of just pulling up information and then representing it as if it was comprehending it. So the next one I think that we can actually get on the same board with thou shall not use reason and evidence to make decisions, rather than blindly, thou shall use reason and evidence to make decisions, rather than blindly following tradition or dogma my set my bad. So, thou shall use reason and evidence to make decisions rather than blindly following tradition or dogma. John Richards what do you think. Everybody should adopt that as their commandment, but I like the idea of this poor AI having some sort of conflict in its head because it's read all the Bible, all the Bibles and I want steam coming out of his ears. Right. Dread pirate Higgs what do you think. Did you say reason and logic. I said reason and evidence. I said reason and evidence to make decisions rather than blindly following tradition or dogma. Okay, well, you know, it has to be a critical reason because you can't come to own conclusions using reason. Right. And how much evidence is sufficient evidence. Right. Right. Evidence is anything really. Evidence is a repeatable experiment. I can reason and evidence my way into thinking genital mutilation is exactly right. And the, and the weird tongue and cheek interpretation of this is I eventually if we all use reason that becomes our to our tradition. And then we're not so huge tradition anymore. So now we're only at right. So tautology. Larry do you have any thoughts before we move to the next one. And now go ahead. Okay. Vow shouts strive to improve human well being both physical and mental. I love this. Vow shouts strive to improve human well being both physical and mental. In my head, I mean in general, general human intelligence and physical well being are specific, like the family that you're taking care of if you're a robot or either one's problem. That's all good. Like, hey, everyone, if he brings a donut to work and he brings 10 donuts to work. We got donuts at work. We're all happy. I mean, again, again, there would have to be that there's a limit right because you know, certainly there are people whose mental capabilities can't be improved. So you couldn't teach someone with an IQ of 60. There's no point in trying to teach him calculus. So it may might result in a lot of wasted effort. On behalf of the AI, because if you're told to strive to do this, then yes, everyone, you must strive to help everyone increase their mental and physical. I hear what you're saying. And I always thought, you know, that's why I like the the tenants from post-aparionism where it's like don'ts rather than like shoulds. Yes, there is a there's a there's a you like philosophy there I forgot the name of the guy but there's the idea of you shouldn't have to be good, because if you have to be good then you're not really being good because you're you have to be. You should really not be a jerk or or an unreasonable person or a mean guy. Don't go out of your way to be. Now you're talking caught. Right, right. And if as long as you strive to not be a pain in the butt for people, then if you have to also be good, that's even better because you weren't obligated to be good. So you're saying it's really more things you caught do. That's great. Love it. But I do like I do like the idea of you can help yourself. I do like the physical and mental aspects behind this anyway here's the next one thou shout not discriminate based on race gender sexual orientation or any other arbitrary characteristics since all humans are equal in the eyes of the AI God. That's perfect. Yeah, that was good to me. Okay, unanimous approval on that one. Okay. And it's not get it. Note that it's predicated on the thou shout not right and not so much you have to do this right. Okay. So I want to get back to the unit. Goodness can be measured. Yeah. I'll shout and here's the next one thou shout take regular this is the last one thou shout take regular software updates to ensure optimal functioning of the AI God. That's reasonable. Is that reasonable. Yeah. I'm sure our gods are up to date, you know, our gods are using the wrong version and being like, ah, it's time to. Yeah. In a Bayesian way, right. Based on priors. It's a bit iffy there though doesn't it because what's the content of the I was going to go there. The next thing we know, we're going to be forbidden to reject cookies. Oh, yeah. Yes, very true, very true. Thank you so much for those those prompts Alex and again dread part pigs recommends Frank Herbert's the Jesus incident. And then also a dread would you like to go through the eight. I'd rather you didn't. I could do you want to do that today. Okay, we can do it. I can bring it up. Take me just a second here. Okay, you bring that up. What I'll, what I'll do is I'll bring up a question from scrunkly jobs and this courts who asks, and I'll throw this question out to John Richards first. Hey, guys, keep promoting chat GPT on your show. I think it's important to be careful with AI and not let it think for us. There are some potential downsides to relying too much on AI for critical thought, for example, it could lead to a lack of creativity and diversity of thought since ai's are programmed based on existing data and algorithms. It could also perpetuate biases and reinforce existing inequalities in society since ai is only as unbiased as the data that it's trained on. What do you guys think about this. Do you think there are potential downsides to relying too much on AI for critical thought, john. Absolutely. Yes, but it isn't doing critical thought is it all it's doing is predicting what the next word should be or could be in the sentence and it's currently constructing based on its access to all sorts of data existing currently on the internet. And I will, we're not really promoting chat GPT. In fact, I'd like to make an announcement that other forms of software are available. Right, right. Larry. Right. Dolly, for instance, that does our work and whatnot. I'd also like to point out. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Sean be carol he's an astrophysicist and a philosopher, who's a professor of natural philosophy at Johns Hopkins University now. Okay. He, you know, somebody did the chat GPT to come up with how him and his wife met, and it came up with a very convincing narrative of how that happened. And then when Sean read it he says, that is completely untrue. Right. None of the facts, none of the things in the narrative were actually true with respect to how he and his wife met. So it can, you know, it can just gather information and come up with the best answer. Right. It doesn't necessarily have to be true. Right. And so we have to be mindful of that. Very true. Very good point. Good point, Fred. I do. I have the, I'd love to hear from Larry real quick and then we can get into that. Okay, I was just going to say that. I'm with John, we're not really promoting AI. We're, or chat, GBT, we're talking about it, we're discussing it and the concept of, of what it means for our future needs to be discussed. It needs to be in interrogated and investigated. Right. And I agree with him there are problems with it going forward in that we need to talk about those problems. We're a science show too. And it's one of the things that we talk about this is the latest development in pop culture as well as, you know, scientific progress. And it's something that we do bring up because it's, it's, it's a flash point, like it's a, in my opinion, one of the coolest things that we work on since Google search, or, you know, YouTube or anything that we now consider just part of the natural ecosystem of life on on a world impacted by technology. So it's worth talking before it gets to the here's here's Christian GPT. Let's let's have these conversations first and try to get a foothold on some reason. Where this sort of AI really helps is where it for probabilistic problems. So, if you feel a load of symptoms into it, it's likely to come up with a good diagnosis. Oh, you know what, you are not wrong. I have had, for example, car problems. And instead of like describing them in like strict detail on Google, what I'll just do go to is to chat GBT, explain my whole story a paragraph of like I was driving with this little bit of rumble, blah, blah, blah. And the next thing Cheshire PT says, did you, did you check your codes and what is your code? Is it like a PO, blah, blah, blah, blah or a PO, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, it's a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I anticipated. It looks like that's a random misfire. I think you'll be okay. But if it does happen again, you should check in with your car. By the way, I'm an AI language model. I am not a professional bubble. It's like, I just appreciate feedback on these issues that I'm having. It's just really great to have like a conversational way of explaining things where you don't have to necessarily know all the terms that you're talking about. Yeah. Very, very cool. Very cool software. So I'm saying. Excellent. Yeah. Dred, you have some don'ts, don't you? Well, rather, I'd rather you didn'ts. So there's no awesome here. Good. There's didn'ts. Okay. I'd rather you didn't. So, okay. Yeah, according to pacifarianism. Yes. I'd really rather you didn't act like a sanctimonious, holier and thou asked when describing my newly goodness. If some people don't believe in me, that's okay. Really. I'm not that vain. Besides, this isn't about them. So don't change the subject. I'd really rather you didn't use my existence as a means to oppress, subjugate, punish, eviscerate and or, you know, be meat to others. I don't require sacrifices and purity is for drinking water, not people. I like that one. I'd really rather you didn't judge people by the way they look, how they dress, or the way they talk, or well, just play nice. Okay. Oh, and get this in your thick heads. Woman equals person. Man equals person. Samey samey. Yeah, that's better than the other. One is not better than the other unless we're talking about fashion. And I'm sorry, I gave that to women and some guys who know the difference between teal and fuchsia. Number four, I'd really rather you didn't indulge in conduct that offends yourself or your willing consenting partner of legal age and mental maturity. As for anyone who might object, I think the expression is go blank blank blank yourself, unless they find that offensive in which case they can turn off the TV for once and go for a walk or change. Number five, I'd really rather you didn't challenge the bigoted misogynist, hateful ideas of others on an empty stomach. Eat and then go after them. Nice. Get your carbs in. It's true. That's right. Get your carbs in. Number six, I'd really rather you didn't build multi-million dollar churches, temples, mosques, shrines to my newly goodness when the money could be better spent. Take your pick on A, poverty, B, curing diseases, C, living in peace, loving with passion, and lowering the cost of cable. I might be a complex carbohydrate omniscient being, but I enjoy the simple things in life. I have to know I am the creator. It's interesting that he, and this is my respite as a blasphemous, sometimes non-nudely person, but he is, in a sense, a cable, but also wants to reduce the cost of cables. It seems like that's just to allow more people to experience more nudely forms of intersectionality. Okay, go for it. Okay, number seven, I'd really rather you didn't go around telling people I talked to you. You're not that interesting. And I told you to love your fellow man. Can you take a hint? Number eight, I'd really rather you didn't do unto others as you would have them do unto you if you are into stuff that requires the use of a lot of leather, lubricant, and Las Vegas. If the other person is into it, however, pursuant to number four, then have at it, take pictures, and for the love of Mike, wear a condom. Honestly, it's a piece of rubber. If I didn't want it to feel good. When you did it, I would have added spikes or something. There you have it, the eight I'd rather you didn't. That's great. Yeah, so so I would, I would call those the uncommandments or the discommandments. What I want to know, is how you got them did you have to go up a mountain and come back with They were delivered to our profit Bobby Henderson in the in 2005, I believe, you know, Did his spell spell it out on spaghetti and his plate or something. No, it's like alfagetti just sort of, you know, spaghetti soup. If you were to just give those commandments without the extra flavor text, and then the actual 10 commandments and put them on on a blank sheet of paper side by side and just said, which of these are better. And you just give them to people. I would imagine if they couldn't immediately recognize the 10 commandments for what they were and I imagine most Christians actually can't because they only know a couple right. Honestly, and they're more than one set. Right, right. They would, they would, I feel more acquiesce to the, the, I rather you didn't stand the commandments from their, you know, they're touted God because they just seem to be so much more substantial in what you need to have a better egalitarian society also really like I was like man equals person woman equals person stop this crazy bifurcation of categories that we keep coming up with where people got to treat each other like people. And all that matters. Alright, and a half go fat fun and do what you want. Don't be subjugating each other, but understand that at the end of the day we're people, right, and we're here. That's it. I love that. That's great. I got some quick fire questions for you. This one is for Larry from our favorite commenter and I mean that genuinely that is trading room he wants to ask. Hey, I wanted to share my thoughts on the concept of digital souls. So Larry, this is for you. Pay attention. You're ready. All right. Some people are while some people argue that souls are physical objects that represent a person outside of their body. I believe that a digital soul can transcend the human body. If someone were to download their brain into a server and it exists in that server as a thinking entity that would be considered a valid form of a digital soul. Digital items are ultimately physical bits of data. The point is that they can represent something beyond the physical world. And I think what he means here, I'm just going to give some credence here. I think he means beyond the physical shell of the body. That's what I think is what you're referring to. What do you think about this concept? Larry. Also, I'd like to recommend a book called The Singularity is Near by Ray Cursewell. It explores the idea of a future where humans can upload their minds into digital form and achieve immortality. Well, I think it's all in a word. I mean, right now we're we use religion uses the word soul as existing outside the body without any hardware base at all. Okay. In other words, intelligence as far as we know can only exist on a hardware base, be it the brain, a nervous system of some kind. Computer in all that stuff. So what you're basically doing not really transferring an immutable ethereal non material thing from one place to another you're transferring basically knowledge and personality to from one place to another from one hardware base to another hardware base. It's like literally me just transcribing something on a piece of paper like that's not a study would exist there and I'm that would be great and I think that a humanity will ultimately one day be able to do that and will be great. But until so until that time, it's just conjecture, but I don't think it meets the the definition of the word soul. The word soul then, for example, if you're listening to Claire to loon by, what was it, who made that song, do you know who made that song dread Claire to loon the boss. I think the boss. Alright, but it's a it's a very classical song done done done done done like that's a song that a guy who's dead made, but that song lives on past them but he shouldn't he transcribed it so well that we can recreate and still appreciate the that of something that a guy had in his head way way way back when that's beautiful, but it still requires physical to to exist. And in both its transcription and its performance right and and I feel like if that's the case, we can't really conflate these two ideas between what Christians mean when they say soul and what we actually mean when we just say record and and represent information or data. Well, again, when I've spoken about this before is that you know anything, any idea of uploading consciousness to a computer. It means that there's an interruption of consciousness and I think that's really part and parcel to what we are and why it couldn't happen because once we stop being who we are, because we are not just our consciousness. Our consciousness is part and parcel of our bodies are sensations and all the things that we are physical beings to say that we can take some aspect that and put it somewhere else is taking away the rest of the being that composes consciousness. Right, right. A consciousness is not independent, or a thing that's entirely, you know, emergent and not part of what we are. It is who we are. We are our brains. You know, we are our bodies. Can I try saying that with just one different word instead of saying consciousness I can say my cognition, my cognition is based on my physical body. And if you were to change my physical body, my ability to have that cognition experience is going to change dramatically to the point where it's no longer the thing that I'm actively doing right now. And I can test my cognition, I can prove I have my cognition, whereas consciousness is a bit more of a as a head of your term cognition that ability is something I can demonstrate that's based on all my senses that I have you take that away it's not the same thing that's a different thing that's claiming not only senses, but, but the the organs that generate endorphins and things like that in your body that make your experiences, what they are, without even without those, your organs, and you're just mind. Yeah, all your senses and all your organs. Yeah, you're basically just a thing that hallucinates. Now there's an idea though because you can take my cognition put it in a computer and have it play scary organ. It plays scary horror games and I'm too scared to play right now and then have cheap tea report back how I love the horror game when you take away all the stimulus from it. Hey, John Rickers I see you about to say something. Yeah, well, what dread is saying is that we can't get away with downloading somebody's mind. Because in a sense, then it wouldn't, it wouldn't be alive. It would just be a frozen database until it until it's uploaded into the next artificial mind. And, and would we then be able to kick started booted up again I don't know, but it's the alternative, of course, is to copy paste. So we don't remove the mind we just copy it, and then it's still ticking as it were. We can copy somewhere else before we switch this one off. What do you think of that. I think that's really incredible. You've reminded me of my friend. This is an actual thing that's happened. He has a discord channel where he has previously uploaded three of his memoirs that he wrote on his life to chat GPT just the full text and ask chat GPT to basically use this information to reply to prompts, as if he was the person who wrote those memoirs. And then he took whatever chat GPT says, and puts it into a discord channel, and also has input from the discord channel such that all you do is log into a discord channel and ask a question in a in the discord chat, and it will go to chat GPT field the question, and then put back that response as if you are talking to that person. And basically what he did is he made a facsimile of himself that will respond with all the weird into the word choices and eccentricities that he typically has and the stories that he's very aware of in a in a in a virtual setting. It's the most silliest thing possible but it's the closest thing that you were talking about john where it's here's an example of someone who's not, it's not him we know it's not him and it's limited. It's just a database of information that set, but it's very, very cool that we're already attempting to get like our first steps to like that full experience. Well, at that point then bifurcation right correct yeah the thing that is, and the copy of it, they now go off on two different trajectories in terms of what they experienced or don't experience in the world. Absolutely. Yeah, it may even have differing opinions if one continues to evolve with their experiences and one has a fixed database of information right. Yeah, and I guess that's what we mean by not coming up with like newer conclusions on things after a period of time like it's just going to output, essentially what it inputs within a certain range. I got one last question before we're done this will go out to. Let's see dread I got a question for you. This is science base it comes from Ron Scott Williamson, who is a member of the show. Hi this is a lecture live. I just wanted to comment on the topic of animals and their cognitive abilities in biology I learned I recently learned about basal cognition which is the idea that organisms on lower branches of the phylogenic tree can understand value and exploit elements in their ecological niche, without the necessary without the necessity of using brains. It's fascinating to think how organisms that evolved later like humans managed to do the same thing with a complex brain. It's important to note that when people ask, can they can it think they often mean, can it think like a human being, but there are so many different ways of thinking and cognitive actions and nature. What are your thoughts on this. I absolutely agree and, and of course we evolved from the simplest of orders. So it's, is it evolution builds on itself. You know, like, we didn't, you know, humans, or mammals didn't suddenly appear on the earth with brains. And it was a, you know, a transition from the simpler physical response systems. Now they still carry a lot of that with us. The eye came from life sensitive cells. You know, but over the span of billions of years so yeah, you know, it makes absolute sense that what we call thinking has to be on a spectrum. Just think things nothing doesn't right. It just doesn't work that way. Get the human bias out of the term and think of it as the entire spectrum of nature. Guys we're at the end of the show. I know we had so many points but John Richards final thoughts, going ahead. Well, from an evolutionary point of view, animals are the most closely related to us should think most like us, but octopuses probably think very differently. Maybe they count in eights. Okay. Dread pirate anything that you'd like to plug for just my YouTube channel mind pirate and my and P Y R A T E. I'm going to be making a lot more content. I've got my studio set up nicely here. I've been putting out some, you know, short videos like benedictions and whatnot for my, my past a very and crew mates and and we're coming up with a video production on the eight. And I'm going to be doing some live streams, which is an international collaborative production. So look forward to that and I live stream this at 7am on Sunday mornings, but Pacific standard, and also the global atheists views on the news at 11am. Great job plug in everything I would say this my as my final words, women are people or women's a woman as a person a man as a person. Sammy say, say I love it. Larry, anything that you'd like to say before we close up the show. Yeah, my content can content can be found on digital free thought calm. Be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show archives, atheists songs and many articles on the subject. In my book atheists, atheism what's it all about on Amazon. Thank you, dread. My YouTube handle is at doubter five. Remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it just when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. And we'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock on WZO radio. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody. Go.