The Pope came out against AI art this week, and that rules.

There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity.

The thing that bothers me most about the debate around this technology is that, on multiple levels, it makes sense. Even from an evolutionary perspective, what really separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is our ability to think, to invent, to build. Taking the concept of passing information from one generation to the next and removing the limits of mortality from that process seems fitting—that the human species was a temporary stop on the path for the idea and utility of information to remain ever-present.

Yet these AI dorks are seriously disregarding the idea that being human can be a distinct experience that offers something technology can never replicate or replace—which is exactly why they don’t understand why people (and the Pope) hate AI ‘art.’ They simply don’t seem to understand what it means to feel connected to life at a level deeper than the aesthetic, or perhaps chemical, level. Via The New York Times:

It appeared to Rabbi Navon that [Anthropic co-founder] Mr. Olah and his team believed that Claude had what philosophers call “moral status” on par with a person — that it was a being with similar inherent rights to dignity or respect.

…

Mr. Olah was so alarmed by the pope’s strong position against A.I. consciousness that he proposed pulling Anthropic out of the event, even at that late juncture, according to a Vatican organizer.

There’s far more to that article, but what strikes me as that the concept of ‘consciousness’ they’re talking about relates purely to the idea of the AI models ‘reacting’ with perceived emotional responses to information. That because a glorified computer can represent a feeling, than it must be true. It’s absolutely fucking insane.

They also seem to believe that creativity is equivalent to the result of a prompt input as opposed to an inspired thought that can be conceived from nothing. They disregard the mystery of living in a way that resonates with the universe at an ethereal level. (It is quite ironic that their argument for AI art is purely an aesthetic and superficial one, while so much of their argument for AI as a ‘conscious being’ is that it can ‘think’ and ‘feel.’)

These people reject half of what it means to be alive—at least what it means to live outside of their understood parameters. In no way should they be trusted to helm this type of technological development at any scale. Olah claims Anthropic wants a model like Claude to be used ‘for good,’ but then promises truly evil shit like this—

Mr. Olah had begun privately telling people that A.I. was so powerful it could potentially help make bioweapons in as little as 12 or 18 months.

You cannot convince me that anyone who supports AI in the way it is currently being developed is anything less than a complete sociopath with a case of self-aggrandizement that is almost peerless in history, and is inevitably going to cause major crises when this all goes to shit (be it from a technological mishap or an economic collapse).

There’s an interaction in the new movie Tony where the Anthony Bourdain character tells his chef mentor he doesn’t believe in God, and the mentor replies, “What is that? That’s like saying you don’t believe in air, but you continue to breathe.”

What’s funny to me about this sentiment—which I hear plenty of similar-orbit shit constantly by just going to AA meetings—is that it works on paper, the same way any structure of authority does. (It is not lost on me that very religious conservative Americans will say communism only works on paper but the word of God, as it is written in the Bible, is indelible.) It’s pretty easy to conceptualize of the idea that there could be something that we, as humans, are incapable of truly grasping the all-encompassing nature of out in the universe.

But that isn’t the premise that the movie talks about, and that is so often confused in these theological debates. The idea posited isn’t Can you conceptualize of a god?—the question usually asks Do you believe in God?

There is a fundamental difference between these acts. I can understand the idea of capitalism the same way I can understand the idea of communism, but I will not believe in the former the way I will the latter. With the argument surrounding some kind of higher power, these understandings of ideas against beliefs become more abstracted but the premise remains—what does your individual relationship with reality allow you to feel aligned with at a spiritual level so much that you can have faith in it?

Looking at the world, both in this moment and throughout history, I can’t believe in any sort of god that centers humanity. We are a vile species hell-bent on self-destruction—at either a massive scale through balances of power or individual scale through vice and corruption. I certainly won’t lend my belief to any god that is talked of as representing countries like the United States or Israel. Does a god that created humans to create religion, and all the subsequent death and destruction in its name, exist? Maybe, but I don’t have to—and will not—believe in that.

So often people who adhere to organized religion cherry-pick what to believe in from a religious text and excuse incongruent ideas by the passive dismissal of, “It’s not for us to understand.” This feels like such a catch-all justification for perpetuating destructive behavior or ideas without feeling the need to improve (or, perhaps, the guilt for being associated with it).

Part of it is just being sick of an ongoing genocide and settler-colonial project being justified by ‘God’s promise,’ but it’s mostly how one-dimensional a lot of theological talk feels in general public discourse. Comprehension, imagination and faith are separate concepts that get conflated and then used as justification for the selfish deeds of humanity and it’s just so goddamn stupid.