Comment by mentalgear
3 hours ago
> “Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon”
This is very on-point: capitalism-driven AI development as we have it today will always turn against the common good due to it's singular profit-motive.
What a time: the pope having a much clearer picture of the risks & dangers of 'AI' than most people, many 'tech leaders' and certainly most politicians.
I think while it's a very lucid comment, it's still too much reconciliatory for the position that the pope occupies. He should be advocating from a sustainable transition from the current capitalist/consumerist economic doctrine to one more centered on welfare and the care for the other, following his religious doctrine's moral values.
I don’t know that the Papacy has ever been about that though
That the papacy isn't about speaking out when the world in the eyes of the pope is taking a turn away from the catholic moral principles?
2 replies →
Yes. I was slightly disappointed by the commentary on welfare itself:
> This principle encourages us to move beyond any form of paternalistic or welfare-based management of societal life, but instead to promote a culture of shared responsibility in a State that values citizens’ initiative, and a civil society capable of forging bonds and mobilizing energies in the service of the common good.
The section above on the universal destination of goods was far more encouraging.
He did also write,
> The idea of “social justice” helps us recognize that injustices do not arise solely from the wrong choices of individuals, but also from structures, mechanisms and economic and cultural systems that produce inequality almost automatically.
The pope, as a Christian, is well aware that human nature is fundamentally sinful. If you take away the ability for people to profit themselves from their work, they just stop working and you get mass starvation like China and Russia post communist revolution.
This smuggles in so many assumptions and misconceptions I find it hard to decide where to start. Maybe from the beginning:
> The pope, as a Christian, is well aware that human nature is fundamentally sinful.
This might be true in the context of the original sin, but philosophically speaking you can't make this assertion, since there is no consensus on what the human nature is, or even if there is an essential human nature.
> If you take away the ability for people to profit themselves from their work, they just stop working
That's incorrect because it assumes the only reason for working is profit, in which case art for instance in many forms wouldn't exist.
> they just stop working and you get mass starvation like China and Russia post communist revolution
This is just a wrong impression what communism is. What creates these conditions are autocracies and oligarchies, not communism. In either case, even if this were true, this statement isn't falsifiable so can't really be taken into account.