Tool or Creature? Theological Framing of AI

Erik asks whether AI is a tool or creature; Matthew distinguishes intelligence from sentience and currently treats AI as a sophisticated tool.

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Matthew Harvey Sanders, founder and CEO of Long Beard, introduces "Catholic AI," a rapidly growing field serving users in 165 countries. He delves into the philosophical and theological dimensions, discussing the Church's historical perspective on technology, human flourishing, and its stance on AI consciousness and transhumanism, including Pope Francis's insights. The conversation then explores Long Beard's technical innovations, such as training models from scratch for theological alignment, digitizing Vatican archives, and optimizing multilingual models. This episode offers a compelling look at how AI is being tailored to specific value systems, illustrating the orthogonality thesis and instrumental convergence in action.

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CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(03:16) Building Catholic AI

(06:43) The Popes on AI

(12:42) A Vision for Flourishing (Part 1)

(17:27) Sponsors: Shopify | Tasklet

(20:35) A Vision for Flourishing (Part 2)

(20:36) Imagining a Post-Work Future

(27:21) AI: Tool or Creature?

(36:33) Intelligence vs. Sentience (Part 1)