Ai......have We Gone Too Far?

[HiddenVoice]

With all these movies going around like Matrix and Terminator my brain got to cranking earlier today (which was a feat in itself): How far is too far? It just seems to me that with each passing year we put so much more faith in machine over man. Everythings done on computer and online nowadays. even the connect four AI on this website is living.....er, simulated proof that machines are potent devices. Anyone?

Voice

[hyperdulia again]

I haven't much to add other than to say A-I made me cry...a lot..poor little 'bot boy

[Hermione]

Yeah, we kinda have. The thing about technology is that its main purpose is to allow progress, but the definition of progress here is simply anything that would help make life easier for us. Human beings are such that at this, we'd start to get lazy and rely more and more on something we could have easily done without before. Right now, I would say that we're at the point on the road where we can't go back to nature because we've forgotten how to survive it, and can only keep on going on out of desperation. In that sense, technology is like a drug. We can't turn back cos we've become dependent, and furthermore, we don't even want to turn back in the first place. We'll continue looking for a drug that's even better than the last, until one of them finally kills us. It's the reason why philosophers have been trying to turn man back to nature (that's their version of progress) for millenia.

Having said that, since this is a Catholic site, I'll just go with "Playing God is wrong".

[mulls]

technology provided phatmass, right?

and just think, where would catholic apologetics be right now without the internet?

[littleflower+JMJ]

and what proves it is that computer chip that they have now that they put in your skin and it has all your medical history and bank info and tells them whereever your at all the time....man, thats scary, it really is...

they said that some ppl already have it, like the services or something....and that it doesn't hurt or anything....and that with it they would be able to track down ppl who got kiddnapped and stuff....

i don't know.....but like hermine said (by the way WeLcOmE to phatmass) i also think science and all of us playing "God" will ultimately distroy us.....

good topic, i now have the goosebumps thinking about all this....yikes!

:ph34r:

ps. hermione don't forget to visit the checking in thread in the open mic section ok? B)

[Hermione]

Yep, Thanks littleflower! Anyway, as for my post, it was just a long term view~ Cos it seems as we've progressed so much in technology, but not in individual skills~ No musical or philosophical geniuses nowadays...

[littleflower+JMJ]

i know! today alone, i've used an electrical can opener, a microwave and my remote control is connected to my hand soo....whats it helping me? none! isn't that horrible?

i used those old can openers yesterday, man i was so tired by the time i actually had it opened, i kissed my electrical can opener when i found it again!! i didn't let it out of my sight all day today....

im' just kidding!

but i am kinda hungry now that i think about it.........

[Kilroy the Ninja]

Call me old fashioned (or maybe survivalistic nutcase would be better...), but I can walk, nay, run away from technology at any given second. I do not "depend" upon it for my survival. It just makes survival a little easier, less boring and more comfortable.

And yes, that's even after getting my new Dell (Dude!) last week and the new cable modem yesterday.

Until the machines are lining you up and plugging you in for juice, I would say that we haven't yet gone too far.

Are we able to program machines to behave like sentient beings? Yes. Does that "make" them sentient? No. We are not God. We can not give a machine the "spark of life" as it were. As it is in our own reproductive process, we are merely "assistants" to The Maker. We cannot provide our own "spark of life".

So, don't get me wrong. I'm as big a techie as my budget allows, but I would give all of it up in a nano second if I thought I had to, or if God told me to, (or if I had to go on the lam or something.... :ph34r:)

[Carrie]

I can't even remember a time when I had to do research without the internet. If I had to go through school without the internet, I would have probably failed out!

Welcome Hermione...love the name...first heard it in a D.H.Lawrence book.

[cmotherofpirl]

I remember pumping water from the cistern, outhouses and the big old radio for entertainment on a rainy day. No telephone, no tv, no car. I also remember my first Beatle 45, and my grandpap saying these newfangled inventions ( and he meant radio and the car) were our doom.

As long as we run the technology and it doesn't run us, we are ok.

back to my microwave cooking lunch for the fully electric band practicing in the attic, while my computer gently hums away, watching the Scifi channel.

[Kilroy the Ninja]

I'm right there with ya Cmom!

(Except I can't get cable on the tv here at work. Maybe local news....)

[Guest catholic4ever]

Technology is in for its head! We must limit the amounts of it before it turns into the Matrix or some crazy Hollywood reality! May God watch over us as the Apocolypse seems very close. Computers already can outsmart in some areas. Very spooky but very real!

[Hermione]

Hahaha... I can't help it if I'm not that old, Killroy...

[God Conquers]

It's not the technology that's evil, but how it's used. Arguably, all the technology that exists today for communication has been driven by God to allow us to even better evangelize. Nothing is evil until we make it evil.

[Don John of Austria]

technology can be evil in and of itself---- but that is another post. I am not sure we have not already crossed a line, the internet decorpralizes us in very significant way. I am suspicious of technology in the extreme ( yes I realize the irony of me posting here) most of my friends were shocked that I would even let a computer into my house, I still don't like buying things online( although I do it sometimes) the internet is allowing us to further seperate our mind from our body which is not really a good thing. I have a very large part of me that would like to live like the Amish, I really don't care about any of this technology that much it entertians me nothing more.

As for catholic appologetics it would be in books and in actual physical debates where it is always been.

[Don John of Austria]

Oh I almost forgot ---as long as they don't put A. I.'s in bulletproof ( I prefer not even club proof) shells we should be okay.

"If you can destroy a thing, you control a thing"

[Hermione]

I agree that technology isn't evil (at least not yet) but human failure always tends to screw up good things~ So even if we can truthfully say we, and the people around us, would never indulge in playing God or AI, we can't say the same for everyone else... just look at Bush and the war on Iraq.. (topical digression.. haha)

[Adam]

A.I. was a great movie... I sean it so many times its kinda boring now, but it was pretty nice for the times.

[Kilroy the Ninja]

I agree that technology isn't evil (at least not yet) but human failure always tends to screw up good things~ So even if we can truthfully say we, and the people around us, would never indulge in playing God or AI, we can't say the same for everyone else... just look at Bush and the war on Iraq.. (topical digression.. haha)

I fail to see your point about Bush and Iraq as relating to playing God.

As far as others playing God, (I assume you mean with A.I.), I don't honestly believe that man, as vain as he is, will ever allow his own creation to control him. One can argue that we are "controlled" by computers as it is (i.e. when they go down we can't function like we're used to, etc.), but on the most basic level we are not, truly controlled by computers. Should the entire computer infrastructure on the face of the planet get wiped out, humans would still LIVE. Because we are ALIVE and the machines are not. It is my opinion that humans are simply not smart enough to create a sentient mechanic being. For we are not God.

[Don John of Austria]

personally I really didn't like AI I wanted my 2 and a half hours back.