Anthropic co-founder to present AI encyclical alongside Pope Leo XIV

I'm an atheist, but most of what I have heard from popes in recent years seems like sound and possibly needed advice.

Also, even though I feel AI and robotics are very important for progressing humanity, I think that much of the world has long since lost a proper sense of intrinsic human value. It's really gone from overt exploitation to slightly more mild exploitation where we pretend the system is really merit based.

And as AI and robotics remove the need for human labor, I hope that someone like the pope can convince people that we should value human beings inherently and more fairly. Inexpensive labor and intelligence should make this feasible.

I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" because I think that's really premature and pretty obvious that AIs are not people at this point.

The really convincing and somewhat deeper simulations of humans are probably only a few years down the line though.

Which comes back to the Rovelli dualism article that was on the front page before. I think we should not be in a hurry to try to duplicate humans in depth (such as imitating emotions, pain, stream of consciousness, self-preservation, etc). It's just completely unnecessary to go that far to get useful AI, and obviously unethical to subject a real human emulation to slavery.

The title seems to be editorialized. To me, it makes it sound like Christopher Olah (the mentioned Anthropic co-founder) is a co-author. Instead he is going to be one of several speakers present when the encyclical is released.

It's a tall order to live up to the impact of Rerum novarum, the encyclical by the former Pope Leo that greatly guided thinking out of the industrial revolution. Personally, I'm excited to read this. If we take the claims of most AI labs at face value, they believe their work will fundamentally change the relationship between humans and the economy. More involvement from faith leaders is a good thing.

For anyone concerned about the growing power of giant corporations, the fact that they're doing joint statements with religious leaders is...wow.

Regardless of content, it seems an extra step in solidifying where power lies.

This reminds me of the second half of the Hyperion cantos by Dan Simmons

Amodei seems apropos

I bet it will be 100 AI written, with guidance, natch, just because...

Who is this for? Is this to promote AI to the general Catholic public, or is it some kind of cultural signal to potential conservative institutional customers that Anthropic isn’t just a stereotypical bunch of godless California hippies?

Normally when I see these sorts of things it’s obvious what it is for and why, but this one confuses me.

The world is getting real tired of these tech bros.