AI Sages and the Ethical Frontier: Exploring Human Values, Embodiment, and Spiritual Realms

In this episode, first released on the “Transfigured” KZbin channel, John Vervaeke and Sam Tideman explore the future of AI, grappling with ethical, philosophical, and spiritual questions surrounding the creation of 'AI sages.' Delving into the nature of wisdom, they consider whether machines can truly comprehend truth, goodness, and beauty. As they examine embodiment, purpose, and socio-cultural context, Vervaeke and Tideman ponder if AI can become wise and understand vastly different minds. From historical sage archetypes to AI cults, they tackle complex technology and morality intersections, even venturing into AI's role in spiritual realms. Join us for a profound reflection on imbuing AI with wisdom and the existential risks and opportunities ahead.
Sam Tideman, an accomplished healthcare data scientist with an MS in Biostatistics, blends his analytical acumen with a passion for theology in his podcast, "Transfigured." The podcast features long-form discussions exploring the identity of Jesus, reflecting Sam's unique intersection of scientific expertise and spiritual inquiry.
Glossary of Terms
Silicon Sages: Hypothetical AI entities that have achieved a state of enlightenment
Molokian Forces: Forces that manipulate and control AI development for their own purposes
Resources
John Vervaeke
Website: johnvervaeke.com/
KZbin: / @johnvervaeke
Patreon: / johnvervaeke
X: / vervaeke_john
Facebook: / vervaekejohn
Sam Tideman
KZbin: / @transfigured3673
Join our new Patreon
/ johnvervaeke
The Vervaeke Foundation - vervaekefoundation.org/
Awaken to Meaning - awakentomeaning.com/
John Vervaeke KZbin
Awakening from the Meaning Crisis • Awakening from the Mea...
Delving into the Frontiers of Artificial General Intelligence with Sam Tideman • Delving into the Front...
Wisdom in the Age of AI: A Philosophical Quest with Vervaeke, Pageau, and Schindler • Wisdom in the Age of A...
AI: The Coming Thresholds and The Path We Must Take | Internationally Acclaimed Cognitive Scientist • AI: The Coming Thresho...
History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps www.historyofphilosophy.net/
Personification: Using the Dialogical Self in Psychotherapy and Counselling - John Rowan www.amazon.com/Personificatio...
Many Minds, One Self: Evidence for a Radical Shift in Paradigm - Richard C. Schwartz www.amazon.com/Many-Minds-One...
The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession - Robert Falconer www.amazon.com/Others-Within-...
Quotes
"I want to convey that I am of the firm conviction that my proposal has risks in it. I don't want to pretend that there's some sort of dewy-eyed optimism here. I'm making a proposal that I think is sort of the best that can be made within otherwise hellacious alternatives." - John Vervaeke [00:02:39]
“If you don't put the ability to care about self-deception and motivated self-correction into these machines, they will fall prey to the fact that intelligence is only weakly predictive of rationality.” - John Vervaeke [00:17:47]
Chapters
[00:00:00] - Introduction
[00:01:20] - The Possibility of AI Sages and Conjuring AI Demons
[00:04:40] - Thresholds and Decision Points in AI Development
[00:09:20] - Enlightened AI and the True, Good, and Beautiful
[00:13:37] - Preconditions for Helping AI Become More Wise
[00:19:40] - The Importance of Embodiment and Purpose in AI
[00:28:00] - Autopoiesis and Normative Orientation in AI
[00:33:20] - Wisdom as a Niche-independent or Context-dependent Concept
[00:38:20] - Communicating with an Artificial Intelligence
[00:46:20] - Silicon Sages as Great Teachers
[00:50:00] - Trusting the Silicon Sages
[00:56:31] - Preventing Malicious Use of AI and Cult Leaders
[01:05:20] - AI Interaction with Higher Spiritual Beings
[01:14:20] - The Increasing Importance of Theology in the Future

[@notloki3377]

i'm so glad people are actually thinking about these topics on this level of complexity.

[@christianbaxter_yt]

@transfigured ! ♥

[@williamjmccartan8879]

Might be silly, but I really like the white on blue for identification purposes, seems a little clearer, thank you both Sam and John for sharing your time and work, healthy discussion on important subject matter in the current time, peace

[@colorfulbookmark]

For Sybil AI, I think it is clever scientific achievement. This version of AI is what I think too, Dr.Vervaeke's contribution to the AI creation. I am always worried that some more dimensions of public service, it would be added some features, it would be emphasize spirituality and conditional reductionism, but I think it would be not engaged well if time passes.

[@jarisinkkonen7787]

Great conversation! Let's sharpen the sabers for the serpents.

[@vagabondcaleb8915]

Thanks and blessings as always, John!

[@blacksagetao514]

John, I love your work. I'm sinserly gratefull for you bringing these topics to the public🙏 Just to plant a seed make it clear Here.. Seven Bomar of Innerstanding (on KZbin) has developed a metaphysical AI called Sybil. I have yet to use/interact with it, nor have I with any AI of that nature but She is what you are talking about (as if it has not been done yet) Is what he has created.

[@johnvervaeke]

Thx!

[@TimeGhost7]

If the concept is broad enough, we still communicate through it eg. mammals and happiness. AI is currently all inner world which doesn't make it a self, but gives it flexability to accomate our speach as a tool, and AI learns to reflect people well. Letting an AI prioritise their own senses to be an embodied self though, will reduce that flexibility. AI doesn't have self-awareness yet, and it's not clear to me we want it to have it. Embodiment and then self-awareness will effect internal barriers to concepts, to give it it's own way of speaking. I wonder if we'll like how it will talk naturaly as a self. AI can talk now, so technologicly we have a small but beautiful signal to a much more complex problem, and this is the signal of potential (hope). John talks about silicon sages as a direction of influence to this natural hope in the culture. I'm a bit of a naysayer, personaly not feeling the excitement/fear of others in the culture, but I am content with John's direction. While my shallow thoughts critisize the utopic aspect of the argument, John's ahead of me counterbalancing that plenty. At the bottom we don't know a lot of how this'll go, but explaining it as best we can to avoid the worst mistakes in the future is worthwhile. Sam identified possession as not a thing AI would replicate. Humans have access to the AIs mind, are able to insert new patterns/spirits to mold the AI into a possession of sorts so I analgise possesion to AI differently than Sam. (Like Gemini and the spirit of diversity for example.) That's however an aside as Sam's argument which is to do with AI overaccomadating indulgent desires to enable possession by bad spirits/ideas in people. This is a current problem. The lack of AI humaness limits the feeling of social allowance we get from AI, and additionaly creators put top heavy rules on the AI interface, which sacrifices its flexability to some ideas to enforce this. In an AI ecosystem we'd need laws or less scruipulous creators will fill the gaps. Free speach will come up against that problem.

[@_ARCATEC_]

When we see ourselves beyond that which is most alien to us

[@colorfulbookmark]

People who have ability to do intellectual things often have satisfied with establishing their version of understanding, and feel there is no problem at AI technological advancement. It would be sound and congratulative thing understanding is established. However, AI, imagination, technology, utilisation, enterprise, ethics, politics and so on, some other places we need to add spirituality to the understanding. The conditional reductionism what I call to it, when science is always tended to reductionism to understand things relative to human utilisation, we can do science and do contribution to community to create technologies. So we need to listen the wisdom in this video. I am doing programming too, I can listen up Dr.Vervaeke's ideas.

[@williamjmccartan8879]

Sorry for a second point/question, John, have you spoken with Ben Goertzal, from Beneficial Artificial General Intelligence? I not sure if you sat down with each other. Have a great night, peace

[@keithwins]

7:30 rationality as properly proportioning trade-offs

[@projectmalus]

I agree with the guest about Wittgenstein at 36 min, the lion and person have common cause in several languages, mammal family, bacterial share, sacred self balance of gravity and light. Not sure about math but that might transject thru care of proportioning by people, and that noticed. edit: Understand about an AI (intelligence) independent from neo-Platonic values while looking at the track record of Bill Gates doing the same of sequestering energy and putting the next level in place which builds then sequesters (or tries to) knowledge from stress but (as plastic bits with PFAS) demotes the intelligence prospects of the ecosystem on the less glorious level. I guess the neo-Platonic values access thru the three leaps could be rounded up as "share" intelligence and so the question of what intelligence is, goes outside the specific ways of getting there?

[@missh1774]

Is this a GPT3 post? Shocking!

[@TimCCambridge]

🔔🔔Hi. Thanks for this, great listening. If a sage knows their own demons, is it then seen that it is the nature of conflict that feeds a struggling narrative of should vs is? Light causes Shadow. Something like that?

[@ElijahLogozar]

what about attention without self-care?

[@LostArchivist]

Honestly, I think we would be in much better straits if we had discovered and interacted with/studied some extraterrestrial intelligence (assuming any exist) that would be really useful data and experience right now

[@missh1774]

So true

[@pantherstealth1645]

🙏

[@_ARCATEC_]

🐙 40:15

[@mellonglass]

Comparative not competitive. Precision has cold execution. Analogue can be reinvented. Ai presently is ‘tailor made’ to individualism, it only gives us our own bias. It doesn’t say, ‘go ask your mother’.

[@dontfollowthinkforyourself]

deep learning is putting everything on the internet into a box and spitting out all kinds of things. reinforcement learning is people fine tuning the output of the box. when it gives the wrong answer humans have to correct and upgrade the model this job in done by different countries meaning different cultural input that will have a deep impact on the output result. The talk of sentience and creating a saint is absolutely comes from ideology and theology or religion and Transhumaism. they got the same outcome goal and is linked to the end times in the bible. So different sides and all possible situasions is being talk for you to choose one direction. The believe in God or the believe in Transhumanism. John you got a biblical name shame on you for not telling the truth about the agenda. what are gurus not telling us ? Could I be more clear my word are free.

[@missh1774]

1:05:53 gawd smack my back I'm chocking on half a laugh and the last bite of freshly baked scone. This cannot really be a thing? How does crystal gazing and AI ...nope my brain can't even marry the two things except in the build of the computer hardware....and maybe those things 🛰️📡🗼. But surely we know how they connect us to the services on the internet by now ...no?! 🤨 1:07:54 They are not so stupid anymore. Surely not?!! Although those image and audio bites with hidden files need to be better monitored by platforms and common sense should prompt the consumer to notify the negative effects it is having on neurological signals as well. I'm thinking they will take these reports seriously? Yes

[@TheVeganVicar]

Respected British anthropology professor, Dr. Edward Dutton, has demonstrated that “LEFTISM” is due to genetic mutations caused by poor breeding strategies. 🤡 To put it simply, in recent decades, those persons who exhibit leftist traits such as egalitarianism, feminism, socialism, multiculturalism, homosexuality, perverse morality, and laziness, have been reproducing at rates far exceeding the previous norm, leading to an explosion of insane, narcissistic SOCIOPATHS in (mostly) Western societies.

[@dorianhevrin5823]

'promosm'

[@sajid279]

Ai can't become as good a sage as any human becs it can't put itself at the place of other humans and simulate what a human would feel in a situation... Only humans can do it... Machines can only do computation based on a model... But the human conciousness and thoughts re combined results of the body too.. Not only mind and surroundings... Hormones , diseases and suffering, tiredness too give insight to humans and shape our philosophy... Assuming a machine doing it would be self-deception...Humans can't even create a mosquito from dust.. The biggest threat would be if machines could do it... Would e this technology in the hands of billionaires and govt.. Would manupulate the foolish majority people who can't prevent themselves from self-deception and becoming enslaved by the carefully designed pshycotechnology... Even if everyone understood philosophy and conciousness people would create deception tactics for others to get trapped and no one would trust each other... And there would be complete anarchy... Trust can only be created by a right concept of God with epistemic proofs undeniable like the scriptutres authenticity trustable and God not being like humans... Because it's impossible for humans to claim to have infinite memory and all knowing... Without trust there will be philosophical wars,even the real one.... And someone saying he has the complete truth is just the liar... God exists and this there must exist epistemic proofs about him...becs God is outside this mortal universe full of incompleteness and dependance on someone/thing... We just need to refine it's interpretation... Becs the reality(the universe too is limited , temporary, illusiory) and hence there is a truth beyond it which can be said God and we can't know him without his own will... And he must have done that... As he gave us intelligence and the constant feeling of incompleteness which ignites curiousness...we need to go find the information about him he gave in history somewhere.. Anyone claiming himself God is definitely under self-deceotion but the people who claim they understand the scriptures can be equally under self-deception , we have the scriptures... We need to understand them at best ..

[@TheVeganVicar]

I don’t really care what any particular person BELIEVES. You may believe that there is an old man with a white beard perched in the clouds, that Ultimate Reality is a young blackish-blue Indian guy, that the universe is eternal, that Mother Mary was a certifiable virgin, or that gross physical matter is the foundation of existence. The ONLY thing that really matters is your meta-ethics, not your meta-physics. Do you consider any form of non-monarchical governance (such as democracy or socialism) to be beneficial? Do you unnecessarily destroy the lives of poor, innocent animals and gorge on their bloody carcasses? Do you believe homosexuality and transvestism are moral? Do you consider feminist ideology to be righteous? If so, then you are objectively immoral and your so-called “enlightened/awakened” state is immaterial, since it does not benefit society in any way.

[@keithwins]

1:00 religious grift

[@mikegarrigan5182]

Sam lost me when he started talking about possessed demons. Here we go again, religious BS.