^TagFirst Things

Hands of a male photographer holding a digital camera taking pictures of a idyllic landscape with a lake and mountains while the picture shows at the display

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post

Author
Peter Biles
Date
October 16, 2023

Tagged
Arts and Culture, Family, First Things, Gen Z, Jonathan Haidt, mental health, social media, tech use, Technology, Toddlers}

Two Notable Reads: Children and Tech and the Illusions of Photography

_{How much should kids be online? And is taking pictures taking us out of real life?} _{Peter Biles

October 16, 2023

4}

For this week’s reading on all things technology, I came across a couple over the weekend that were incredibly interesting and insightful. For starters, there’s a new article out now via the Institute for Family Studies on toddlers and technology use. In summation of a study they conducted, Jane Shawcroft writes, 1. Sometimes it takes a while to reap the rewards of guiding children’s technology use. Children like TV. They like tablets. They are usually upset when you say “no” and don’t let them watch another episode of Paw Patrol or play games on your smartphone. It can be hard in the moment. But remember that research suggests there are some significant payouts down the road. Standing your ground on media rules might be difficult Read More ›

Stained glass collage of stores from the Bible

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post

Author
Peter Biles
Date
September 17, 2023

Categorized
Transhumanism

Tagged
AI, Catholicism, Christianity, First Things, Medievalism, science, transhumanism, Vox, Wesley J. Smith}

AI as Refashioned Religion

_{How AI fits into the transhumanist utopian dream, and where that dream might have come from} _{Peter Biles

September 17, 2023

3

Transhumanism}

You can see it in the discourse surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) over the last year: AI is going to change everything. Some think it’s going to do this for the better. Others think it’s a technological handmaiden for world destruction if its programming goes awry — or worse: AI becomes self-determining and sentient. An insightful article at Vox by Sigal Samuel considers this doomsday/salvific kind of rhetoric and points out that AI developers sound a whole lot like religious priests, prophesying doom, promising salvation, warning the populace to heed the coming armageddon. He writes, These technologists propose cheating death by uploading our minds to the cloud, where we can live digitally for all eternity. They talk about AI as a Read More ›

surreal This futuristic new york city is a hub of technological innovation with holographic advertisements robots highspeed trains flying cars and personal drones It is a melting pot of cultures and

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post

Author
Peter Biles
Date
July 1, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
AI, Allie, chatbots, ChatGPT, First Things, J.D. Salinger, Lee Siegel, Meta, Sex Bots, The Catcher in the Rye, Washington Post}

Simulating Human Connection with Meta’s “Allie” Chatbot

_{I can't help but wonder if people will increasingly use chatbots as paltry substitutes for genuine human connection} _{Peter Biles

July 1, 2023

5

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

To anyone who’s been watching and considering the outcomes of the chatbot revolution, virtual sex has seemed all but inevitable. Meta’s AI chatbot LLaMA, which was controversially made open to the public earlier this year, is now being used to generate sex bots. Washington Post reported on the trend, with Pranshu Verma and Will Oremus writing, Allie is an 18-year old with long brown hair who boasts “tons of sexual experience.” Because she“lives for attention,” she’ll “share details of her escapades”with anyone for free. But Allie is fake, an artificial intelligence chatbot created for sexual play — which sometimes carries out graphic rape and abuse fantasies. -Pranshu Verma and Will Oremus, Meta’s new AI is being used to create sex chatbots – The Washington Read More ›

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Author
News
Date
April 13, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, education, First Things, Liberal Arts, Plagiarism, Universities}

More Than Cogs in an AI Machine

_{Perhaps it isn't only AI which poses a challenge, but the mainstream model of education} _{News

April 13, 2023

3

Artificial Intelligence}

Education seems especially vulnerable to ChatGPT. Universities now have to grapple with AI plagiarism, and even teachers and administrators are being tempted to use the Large Language Model to generate syllabi and even condolence emails in the wake of tragedies. Leah Libresco Sargeant, author of Building the Benedict Option and Arriving at Amen, wrote a piece on this issue at First Things last week. She goes past simply the struggle schools have in detecting ChatGPT’s presence, but also why it’s so easy to use AI generated language in school settings. Many educational institutions, like AI, promote the appearance of productivity but lack real value. She writes, If schools are primarily dedicated to producing workers, rather than holistic human beings steeped Read More ›

A man on the background of a gloomy city

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post

Author
Peter Biles
Date
December 29, 2022

Categorized
Technocracy

Tagged
Christian, Control, COVID-19, CS Lewis, Eastern Orthodox, First Things, government, Icon, Paul Kingsnorth, Scientism, Technology, totalitarianism}

Science, Safety, & Slavery to the State

_{Revisiting a 2022 conversation between Paul Kingsnorth and Jonathan Pageau} _{Peter Biles

December 29, 2022

4

Technocracy}

Paul Kingsnorth is a writer and novelist living in Ireland who operates a Substack account called the Abbey of Misrule. For years his work has focused on the many forms of civilizational control that human beings seek to exert over their fellow man and how such power, whether it be technological, governmental, or corporate, diminishes our humanity and freedom. He is also a newly converted Christian, and he wrote his conversion story for First Things last summer, which you can find here. In April, Kingsnorth joined Jonathan Pageau on his YouTube channel. Pageau is an Eastern Orthodox iconographer from Canada. In their discussion, Kingsnorth uses the word “Machine” to describe the massive technological control that’s now not so subtly creeping up on many western countries. From Read More ›