Interesting conundrum for Christians: When 2 people conceive a child, at what point do they imbue it with a spirit of life? It’s important because if a research team ever develops true AI advanced enough to qualify as genuine life, who gave it that life? Would it have a spirit?
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Replying to @TheBrometheus
1. At the moment of conception. 2. There's never gonna be true A.I.
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Replying to @BrianNiemeier
True AI, no longer “artificial”, is exactly the point of this question.
I also doubt it will ever come about, because at that point it would be a genuine life, which would require the will of God since none but Him can fashion a living spirit.1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @TheBrometheus
It's not so much that as the issue being framed in Cartesian/pseudo-animist terms. Aristo-Thomism doesn't conceive of the soul that way.
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Replying to @BrianNiemeier @TheBrometheus
Super short version--there's 3 kinds of rational beings: >God: unlimited pure spirit >Angels: limited pure spirits >Humans: limited body/soul composites.
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Replying to @BrianNiemeier @TheBrometheus
Reason is a power proper to a soul made in God's image. It's a spiritual faculty that no amount of processing power or complexity can conjure from base matter.
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Replying to @BrianNiemeier @TheBrometheus
If a machine really were rational, it would a) have been granted a rational soul by God, and therefore, as a matter-soul composite, be ontologically human.
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Replying to @BrianNiemeier
Fascinating.
So in this view, the quest to create a true machine intelligence is identical to the quest to create Frankenstein’s monster in that both are inevitably doomed to failure because it’s man’s attempt to create life in his own image, not God creating man in His image.3 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
But this also appears to confirm, if a true machine intelligence did ever arise and could be definitely proven to be real life, it would be considered a human. Both of these reasons, Frankenstein and blurred humanity, must be why the Catholic Church warns so sternly against it.
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Replying to @TheBrometheus
Yeah. Creating life ex nihilo--or near enough to it--isn't a power proper to human nature. We've been given a perfectly good means of participating in the propagation of human life. Why anyone would prefer another way is beyond me.
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