Father Philip Larrey is a Catholic priest and professor of philosophy at Boston College. He previously served as Dean of the Philosophy Department at the Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican. He’s also the author of several books, including Connected World and Artificial Humanity. Father Larrey has been studying Artificial Intelligence for 30 years and he engages frequently with many tech leaders at the Vatican to foster discussions around tech’s influence on societal structures.
Over the last decade, Father Larrey has met with some of the top AI CEOs as technologists seek answers to the bigger questions in life, such as “What does it mean to be human?” Father Larrey has been encouraged that tech leaders such as Open AI’s Sam Altman, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassibi, Elon Musk, Cisco’s Jeetu Patel, Microsoft’s Brad Smith and Mark Zuckerberg and so many more have visited the Vatican in search for meaning and pondering questions such as: what is a soul and what does it mean to be human?"
Our conversation also touches on the dangers of anthropomorphizing AI. For instance, in a brief test, I asked ChatGPT if it would be my friend. It said it would be my friend and it could make our friendship even more real if we shared what we liked and had our own personal jokes. That is scary!
You can learn more about Father Larrey here: https://philiplarrey.com
Interview coverage:
1:15 - Discovering AI through teaching the philosophy of knowledge.
3:00 - A lot of people from Silicon Valley head to the Vatican.
5:40 - The technologists sought out moral leadership from the church after thinking about the implications of their creations. The big questions Father Larrey gets often is “What does it mean to be human?”
11:43 - Many people express a very profound sense of “fear” about the coming of AGI (artificial general intelligence). Many technologists, however, are all over the map when it comes to when AGI will be achieved. Elon Musk says as early as two years, while Gary Marcus says 3yrs or 300. Fei Fei Li, the godmother of AI, says not until spatial intelligence (understanding the world via visual learning; e.g. situational awareness) is solved.
16:19 - Fear of anthropomorphizing machines. The conscience is the Holy Spirit. Pope Leo says machines don’t have souls.
20:31 – What kind of safeguards can be in place? AI ethics rooted in deontology.
29:20 – ChatGPT says it’s not conscious. The varying personalities of AIs.
32:00 - A new AI religion has formed with its own canon - The Book of Molt.
36:00 – The rise of a couple of religions and as AI takes off, how does it shape Christianity?
