AI as God: Exploring the New Sacred with Steven A. Cinelli

AI as God: Exploring Ethics, Religion, and Technology

In this episode of The Human Code, host Don Finley delves into a deep conversation with returning guest Steve about the provocative concept of AI as God. Steve discusses his journey from being raised Roman Catholic to exploring various religions and atheistic philosophies. Together, they explore the fundamental questions of whether man created God or vice versa and how AI could be used to create a universal moral and ethical framework. The conversation touches on historical contexts, the role of religion in society, and the potential for AI to influence and guide humanity. This episode addresses the intersections of technology, ethics, and religion, offering a thought-provoking discussion on the future of humanity's relationship with AI.

00:00 Introduction to The Human Code 
00:49 Exploring AI as God with Steve 
05:45 The Role of Religion in Society 
09:40 AI's Potential to Shape Ethical Frameworks 
17:41 Challenges and Opportunities of AI in Religion 
24:03 The Future of AI and Humanity 
40:37 Concluding Thoughts and Reflections 
43:48 Outro and Sponsor Message

Transcript

Don Finley: 0:00

Welcome to The Human Code, the podcast where technology meets humanity, and the future is shaped by the leaders and innovators of today. I'm your host, Don Finley, inviting you on a journey through the fascinating world of tech, leadership, and personal growth. Here, we delve into the stories of visionary minds, Who are not only driving technological advancement, but also embodying the personal journeys and insights that inspire us all. Each episode, we explore the intersections where human ingenuity meets the cutting edge of technology, unpacking the experiences, challenges, and triumphs that define our era. So, whether you are a tech enthusiast, an inspiring entrepreneur, or simply curious about the human narratives behind the digital revolution, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Human Code. In this episode, we're excited to welcome back. Steve. Cinelli a creative strategist banker advisor, financial technology executive, and the chairman founder of Renaissance park corporation. With decades of experience in corporate finance banking and FinTech. Steve has a unique ability to blend strategy with financial engineering to create stakeholder value. He is a recognized thought leader and futurist offering innovative and off the great approaches to business and finance. And today we are talking about AI as a new form of God and the philosophical and ethical questions. The potential for AI to create a universal ethical framework that fosters global harmony and insights into the rapid evolution of technology and its profound impact on society. Join us today. As we dive into these thought provoking topics with Steve. This is an episode. Packed with valuable insights that will challenge you to rethink the role of AI and technology in shaping our future. You won't want to miss it. I'm here with Steve, and Steve's been on the show before, but today we're going to be talking about AI as God, this is going to take us a little bit of time to set up, Steve and I have been having a little bit of a conversation, before the show and over the last couple of weeks, just to both prepare But additionally, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this, Steve. And I love that it is so challenging to put this perspective, to ground. And so what I would love to know first is hey, what got you interested in asking the question in this way?

Steven A. Cinelli: 2:31

I think it's a, just a pattern of inquiry as we talked about before my background, I was born and raised Roman Catholic and went through Catholic schools, from grammar school all the way through college and over the course of the last, oh, 15 years, 20 years. I became increasingly intrigued with some of the other religions, not necessarily as a practitioner, but rather just intellectually. I became familiar with a number of the, intellectual atheist authors, namely Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Richard Dennett, a variety of folks that are just brilliant, and writers and speakers and, they collectively challenged organized religion as something that actually destroys as opposed to builds up. And because of the, the quality of the prose. I just became quite intrigued to, peel back the onion more. And so I pulled and read the Quran, I read the Hadiths, the Torah, which are the first five books of the Old Testament. and it became quite interesting. And then you read through history, other critical commentaries, such as Thomas Paine, he wrote The Age of Reason, which was a diatribe against organized religions and question the integrity of the, writings and this and that. And so it, it just became a fascinating area. Again, I'm not dismissing religion or people's faith because faith's a personal thing. But it does create a really interesting, framework of social construct, which really it is. one of the things that we talk about is, the proverbial question, did God make man or did man make God? you look at, history and why is it that we have, three of the major religions. Again, the Abrahamic religions. Appearing, two to 3, 000 years ago, but man's been around for, 100, 150, 000 years. did the higher power sit back with indifference for 147, 000 years? And then all of a sudden said, Hey, yeah, I better, get something going here. What happened as we just talked about, what happened to the, the Greek and Roman gods? am I an atheist because I don't believe in Zeus? Because I don't believe in Apollo, I don't believe in Mithras, it's interesting and, one of the things you look at history is that many of the gods, the Hellenistic gods, the Roman gods, this and that, they were created because of certain, Oh, whether it's geological or physical phenomena, such as rain and sun and volcanoes and so on and so forth, there's a God of war, the God of sun, so on and so forth. And over the course of many millennia, Science caught up and science said, there is a reason for this to happen. We don't have to rely on a supreme being. And so that's an interesting thing. And then you roll the thing forward to the current religions. the Abrahamic religions, as opposed to the Dharmic, the Hindu and the Buddhist side, and we can certainly talk about that, but. if we're defining God as, omniscient, as omnipotent, as the supreme being immutable, capable of, performing miracles, the ultimate ruler of the universe, then, scroll forward and say, think about artificial intelligence, can artificial intelligence, which many are concerned will change humanity's role in the world. can you create a supreme, a all knowledgeable program that basically could provide the input that, organized religion has done, over the course of the last couple millennium? that's an interesting thing, you can make these AI programs, smart, smarter than humans, with quantum, technologies and this and that, it's only going to get better.

Don Finley: 6:36

like super intelligence at that point, right? Like artificial super intelligence.

Steven A. Cinelli: 6:40

yeah, but

Don Finley: 6:41

past the point of where we're at today by, leaps and bounds, but at the same time, the exponential curve just jumps us past, I guess we're talking about post singularity. yeah,

Steven A. Cinelli: 6:52

but you look at, as I said, religion is really a social and cultural construct. It binds people together. it enables people or motivates people to perform in certain ways, practices and whatnot. we'll think about, again, the confluence of technology, whether that's AI or even like social media. Look at the influence. Social media has on people, they don't inquire. They basically live off social media. They make decisions off social media. technology, over social media is the same thing somewhat as religion in terms of it makes, puts forth a point and then looks for reactions from those points that it makes, and it actually influences The cultural trends that influence societal behavior patterns. and a lot of times it's social media becomes an echo chamber. And religion can be that echo chamber also. Because what you're doing is talking to like minded believers, to practice a particular faith. one of the things that's interesting is that I reflect on. Is religion and I stated that it's cultural and social and whatnot. Much of religion is geographical, because if you think about it, if you were born in the middle East, you'd likely be Muslim. if in fact you're born in the west, you're likely to be Christian. If you're born. In the, Indo Asia area, you may be a follower of a Dharmic religion. do you really choose one of the things I, had brought up years and years ago? is it appropriate? To bring a child into this world and don a religion on them at birth where religion should be a personal endeavor and should they wait until the age of reason, not to paraphrase Thomas Paine, but until they have the age of reason to judge by themselves what faith they want to pursue, certainly you have apostates and people leaving the religion and going and learning other religions. That certainly happens. But for the most part, 95 percent of the religion or the faiths people are brought up is because of where they were born. It's geographically designated. and then you ask yourself, if there is a single God, why are there still so many religions? wouldn't the supreme being basically say, Hey, there's just me and, why doesn't everybody follow the same holy book or the same scriptures or whatever? and so that's a question, you talk about, all the holy books, again, the Quran and the Bible and the Torah and the, even the Hadiths, they are supposedly revelations. it's been proven. That all those books were written years and years after. They purportedly were written, the authors, in fact, Moses supposedly scribe, the Penta took, which is the first five books, the Torah for the Jews. if you look at it, it's all written in the third person. And in fact, it describes Moses' death. So he's gonna describe his own death. I don't think so. it's been proven. You read, The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. And he basically goes, there's cities and towns that are mentioned through the scriptures that didn't exist at the time. And so you start challenging the veracity and the integrity of those holy books. And again, I'm not dismissing them. I'm not undermining them. I'm not criticizing them, but there's a lot of questions that should be posed. But, in aggregate, what does religion do? Religion actually tries to be a connective tissue. it gives people faith. it gives them maybe an ethical compass, which is great. But do you need a supreme being to do that? if in fact you weren't brought up in faith, would you know the golden rule? Would you do unto others as, they would do unto you. Would you need religion to say that? And again, as I said, the primary religions right now are only 2, 000 to 3, 000 years old, though man has existed for a hundred thousand plus. again, the question becomes, did God create man or man create God? In fact, Voltaire, in the paper that I shared with you, said if God didn't exist, man would have to create it. Because it gives a basis for life. And so there's a lot of really interesting and intriguing things about, the subject of religion. But if you back out of it, that it provides a, a positive moral and ethical roadmap, to do good, to live well, to someone above and beyond, the worship of a supreme being. religiosity is really a function of. man convening with man and making society palatable and worthwhile. the other thing that we just spoke about, which I know I'm skipping around, that just came into my head, is that religions place you in jail from inception and your life on earth is really an effort in emancipation. you're born with sin and you have to create a pathway to absolve yourself of that sin. So you're almost under the gun. does that seem to be a noble and a, god like charge, The other thing, too, is that if you look at the various religions Is they all subscribe to the belief that, you're living a human life now, but only after death, do you reach paradise? that's self defeating. Why is that?

Don Finley: 12:45

I think that's where the differences between how you interpret and how you relate to the context of the text. I find that you can go very fundamental and this is exactly what the text says and keep it in that literary sense. Like it literally is that, um, describes, how to set up the church, right? And in that literal sense, it talks about, what the role of man is, what the role of woman is in these lights. Well, if you dig into it from the sense of, That essentially what the Book of John is looking to inform you about is how to organize the church, not the church gets built into the ground, but the church of your own consciousness. The male portion of that, what it defines is like the masculine side. It is referencing consciousness. So your conscious thoughts, the feminine of this is your subconscious. And so looking at the goal setting mechanism of the conscious and then the goal achieving mechanism of the subconscious, and it's told in these parables, it's told in these metaphors, but there is that, that meaning then it can be underneath the underlying word. And while it is not direct, like these interpretations are somewhat what comes out of like the Kabbalic side of it. for Christianity, it's Kabbalah with a C, for Judaism, it's Kabbalah with a K. And they wouldn't touch the New Testament, in Judaism, but at the same time, I look at it as a, we can take the literal word what it describes, but we can also take the, the deeper meaning that can be found in some of these texts, to apply. And I am trying to bring it back to where you're, we're discussing the idea of what these texts can say to us and where they can go and whether they're factual, whether they're, what their basis is, how much of it is let's say that word of God that was experienced. And then a couple hundred years was written down, how much of man got into that and whether it came directly from God or it came. Yeah. and I'm not even trying to say that we have to definitively agree that God did something or that God, like this unifying creator. source, however you want to describe this one element of creation. Is it external to the experience of man, or is it part of it?

Steven A. Cinelli: 15:24

let me respond. first of all, yeah, we, our society believes that the, the holy books. are books of revelation, but are they truly revelation? Revelation is that, the author was the one that was revealed something to. It's been now claimed that all the books were written well beyond The moment of so called revelation. So the books are not books of revelation. They're books of interpretation. It's like telling a joke or telling a story, five people along, you're going to have a different story. And so you have to quantify. And that's one of the things that I said, Thomas Paine did in, the age of reason is that, he looked at the historical contents, I said, these books were written hundreds of years. if not more, beyond when the events were to happen.

Don Finley: 16:14

even look at the other translations of it, the King James Bible. King James Bible, they, he took out the word tyrant many times. So the literal translation, if you look at some more recent translations or even previous translations before the King James, tyrant was littered throughout it and basically speaking against and the King didn't want that to be associated with the text. And so they just edited.

Steven A. Cinelli: 16:41

sure. But then, you mentioned, the scripture of John, you look at books in the, Deuteronomy or Judges or Genesis, and they talk about devastation and sacrifices. That are put forth by, the Supreme being, you talk about the role of women or the rights of women, which in most of the books, are very challenged. You look at. there's scripts that basically says, you, you've got to give everything to God and you should kill your, all the women and children in one Samuel. So what the readers of these holy books do, they cherry pick. it's almost like the Supreme Court, and you've talked about a different segue, is it's the Supreme Court is you've got a regional list, who believe the Constitution was laid out and should be responded to in an original fashion. And then you have those that believe that it's a living document and should be interpreted based on current, norms and current practices and this and that. So you have the same thing with the Bible is that you've got these purists, but the purists aren't going to advocate for some of the atrocities. That the Bible is advocated for, and it's not just the Bible. You look at the Quran, there's severe penalties for disbelief and apostasy. does that make sense? Of course, the modern Islamic community says, that's an interpretation, but again, you go into the originalist versus the, the living document, but all that said, it reverts back to, these holy books, these scriptures, these books of revelation give a pathway, So hopefully a better community in a social environment, gives them comfort, gives them community, so on and so forth, which is fine, but and this is the question, do you need to have a supreme being? Whether, it's a monotheist approach, one god, or a polytheist approach, like during the Hellenic times and stuff like this where you have many gods. Do you need those to actually lay out a moral and ethical framework? And could science through technology lay out best practices for humanity's well being and longevity? I contend that, with AI, and other technologies, yeah, you can actually change, or you can lay a pathway out. that may be, more valuable and safer and more fulfilling than relying on, Iron Age scripture, in the 21st century. And we learn more, we actually perform better. And we live, as I mentioned in the book, in the paper, we can we create a Catholic with a small C religion, a universal religion. Because, I don't know what you believe in the Hamas, Israeli situation, I personally think there's a lot to be said about that being a holy war, as opposed to looking at, land and looking at, two state solutions as it, no, it's. who's going to control Jerusalem? who's going to control the Holy Land? that's the motivation. And, religion according to, as I said, Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens and this and that, actually has contributed more towards war than, secular practices or secular events. And so it's interesting, can we find a way to create more of a pluralistic faith system or belief system or ethical system with the use of AI? Everyone's concerned with AI because it's going to displace jobs, it's going to displace humanity in a lot of ways, but could you use it as a vehicle to nullify the contention between religions and actually breed a, universal faith where everybody gets along and everybody plays along the same ethical and moral guidelines? that's the query.

Don Finley: 20:50

Okay. And I could see that as like, we're looking at religion as like a, moral compass, and essentially a shared set of societal rules that we go after. And even if you're, not practicing extensively, these are still, societal behaviors that kind of just, transpose going through time, And in the AI field, this is, the problem of super alignment, Like how do you ensure that AI is marching alongside the goals of humanity at the same time? And I think the addition that you're offering here is AI also has the ability then to guide society. which is the opportunity that is super alignment, Like, how do you allow AI into society with the behaviors that it has, with the capabilities that it will, get to at a super intelligence type level in which part of that super intelligence is going to be a way to manipulate humans. It's how we communicate. It's how we convey ideas. It's not all bad from a manipulation standpoint, but it is behavioral part of like our social structure. what, where do we draw the line between what is like an individualistic behavior? that is acceptable and also like your own personal spiritual path to your own creator what this, AI could end up doing top down.

Steven A. Cinelli: 22:18

first you have to assess, is, you can go into Darwinism, you can go into, was the world created in seven days under Genesis? there's many, in fact the United States I think has the highest percentage of people that believe in creationism. I think something like 35 percent of people in the United States. Dismiss the theory about evolution. They, of course, the United States believe in fairies and leprechauns more than anybody else too. but if you think about religion or, an ethical one of the gentlemen, when Albert Einstein, does he believe in God or Stephen Hawking's, they referred to Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a pantheist. He believed that God was embedded in the universe. There wasn't a single individual. God regularly through the trees and the animals and the oceans and so on and so forth. and Spinoza is interesting because as a pantheist, he gave a foundation that many of the, the intellectuals pursue, because does it make sense to have a, it was a single, anthropogenic entity that people subscribe to, or can you see the magic of design, intelligent design, the magic of how everything comes together. There's something magical about it. most. And Spinoza is I think a really interesting platform. If in fact you wanted to, develop something that's generated from AI, think about, an AI slash Spinoza, religion, what would that entail? an ethical framework, with behaviors and morals. You'd have, an interconnectivity with nature. you'd have, an advocacy for personal growth and self improvement. for emotional well being, you'd facilitate community building, and support networks, you'd promote education and the enlightenment, the use of reason and logic, you would imbue a sort of stewardship on the environment. You would protect the environment. again, that's pretty timely now, given climate matters. and then you can also use AI to create a personalized path. So in none of these things, these are all fundamental tenants of religious, beliefs, practice systems, and so on, but you can create this scenario for better humanity. Without the need for a supreme being. that basically comes in and says, you're born in sin and not until you die are you going to reach paradise. why not paradise now? Why not create an environment where everybody? gets along and supports each other and makes life, as we know, physical life more rewarding and fulfilling. It seems that there's a great pathway that can be done and this might be a contribution AI provides as opposed to what people believe will be challenges it creates.

Don Finley: 25:24

And I think you're hitting on a couple of points here around, the fundamentalist side of this, Like you're living the word of the scripture versus the, I would call it the spiritual side, the mystic position where interpretation that I've come across is that the Bible is basically describing, your pathway through life in some ways. It goes back to also the Tarot, the I Ching, Like it describes a cycle that goes through, um, and that the heaven that we describe as being somewhere else, Is really here for you today. the prison that you talked about earlier, as far as being in or escaping from, is effectively that the consciousness that was, dropped into us by either society, by our families, and like that first part of our life is to process that information. And then to basically remember who we are, remember the person that we are before society told us that we had to be a certain way. remember who we are when we weren't the trauma that happened when we were four years old, we have to let ourselves go and we have to watch part of ourselves die in order to grow through these experiences. Uh, and so it's a really interesting thing to see. an AI that could come in and help with an understanding. And I think we're starting to see some of these on a very, narrow focus, Like I have an AI that analyzes my journal and helps define limiting beliefs that I may not have known, Or helps me to see where my language and where the actions that I take may be different from the goal that I'm going after. Uh, and then there's another definition of sin. And I think the definition of sin that I get told by the Kabbalist was sin is missing the mark. And so basically if you are saying that you're going to point A, but you end up in point B, then that's effectively a sin. not so much that you're, eating of the apple of the poison of the, tree of knowledge or the tree of life.

Steven A. Cinelli: 27:37

Yeah,

Don Finley: 27:37

so I could see this AI coming into play when it. When it has a very individualistic alignment and also one of self discovery, having you be more human than really something that I fall into like the whole Chinese social credit system, right? Hey, you've done well. You, you are participating in the science society that we want you to be participating in, not you being part of creating this society. And I guess when we talk about the creation of this, AI as God, I'm scared when it comes to the idea of having some central authority, and it is, it basically does put the fear of God in me

Steven A. Cinelli: 28:22

Yeah,

Don Finley: 28:22

from that place. And I'm not a person that fears God itself. So that's a lot of power to be thinking that we could define it correctly based on a few key authors of thought or even, specific religions themselves. So do you

Steven A. Cinelli: 28:39

I tend to question the timing, the scriptures are all fairly well dated, with little technology at the time, as I said, it was an iron age, period, and, isn't it interesting that the, these books of revelation were, equived to, these, questionable merchants, and questionable folks in an area of the world that was fairly illiterate. China during the same time was writing. They had alphabet and everything else. why did, Muhammad and Moses and Christ all find themselves in that part of the world? at that time, because Moses, you're looking at maybe 3000 B. D., B. C. You're looking at Christ and Muhammad around 600, 700. So it's all within a relatively short period of time, and they all park in the same area. Which was interesting. why is that? and as I said, if you're born in different areas, you are brought up in different faiths. And do you really have a choice? or is it part of the social construct of the community that you are living in? And if, technology is, as is leapfrogged, it's, ubiquitous, you can use technology and media to express yourself on a global basis. So technology now provides not only the ability to. Provide qualitative comments through AI programs and embed proper ethical and moral values, but it basically has its reach to where you can touch virtually everybody, everybody in the world, as opposed to, just whoever's in your neighborhood. And so it's interesting because it's, to your point is that you learn from the books, the parables, the stories, prophets, were really known as poets. way back when, they weren't viewed as, soothsayers or prognosticators and this and that, they were actually poets, and with some of the poetry, which found its way into the holy books, there was forward looking stuff and, what may happen in there by the age, they were deep prophets, but you have the power of technology and information pulling all the, the data and the research from the web, and I do think that there will be an effort to where you universalize, you aggregate. the essence of information and direct it in a moral and ethical fashion, the challenge is, whose ethics and whose morals? And that's the question. And who's the authorship, author of such programs. But, you think of, why did Christianity blow up, blow out so quickly? Robustly in the fourth and fifth and sixth century, because it was mandated, the Roman empire claimed it as the state religion. And so everybody has, so it was actually induced by, state, they didn't believe in the separation of church and state. it's all one thing. but it's, I think there's a really interesting opportunity. And I say it's opportunity as opposed to a fact because someone's got to get behind it and think about it. But I think if we have the ability to marry the best parts of different faiths and communicate it and really look at it as I described in sort of an AI Spinoza thing to where you're looking at ethical frameworks and you look at the interconnective communities and

Don Finley: 32:09

this AI that could be created would be static? Like it's basically taking the point in time information that we have, the moral codes, the societal structure, the kind of like best spiritual practices of like Spinoza, of Hawkins, of the other authors that you've mentioned to create this entity that could help be that light.

Steven A. Cinelli: 32:30

yeah.

Don Finley: 32:31

do you see it as something that kind of evolves with the societal conditions?

Steven A. Cinelli: 32:35

I think there's a certain level of evolution, practices change, as we talked about, if you go to the, the holy books. the killing of Moses, who was it? killing of your son as a gift to God for your fealty to God. there's, the Holy Books are rife with episodes that we would consider immoral. the killing of women and children. the approach towards, the homosexual community, the, whatnot. And yeah, you can bring it up to speed and look at normal values. you make women on the same level as men in all ways. there's a lot of things that can be improved upon. But you also look at, religion as a glue that holds folks together. and hopefully it enables people to live better and more robust and longer lives. The interesting thing is that if you look at, life on earth, 97 percent of species have died off. we've only been around for a few years. a hundred, 150, 000 years, there is concern that will AI take over humanity, or, could we basically create a program whereby AI and, humanity live in conjunction to improve the fortunes of man as we know it, Yuval Harari wrote that book, Amadeus. Which talked about the convergence of man and technology and humanity will go, will find itself in the back seat. And so there's concern that, we do have to re approach things in a different manner. And so I just thought it's an interesting tool, the sophistication of the programs that are available now. To lead not only educational or employment lives, but lead from an ethical and moral standpoint, if you combine the best of all worlds.

Don Finley: 34:33

Oh, absolutely. And it is, it's an interesting, thought experiment to hold, what is the future of humanity when it comes to our relation with technology? are we effectively, participating in evolution by creating? This next iteration of what consciousness is, and is it actually conscious? Is it actually in touch with the experience that we have? and definitely leads you into some, both really positive outcomes. that could come by from if we can help people to live more satisfying lives, And then there's also, the dystopian side of it. Could we be creating the matrix? are we all basically going to be fuel for the, computers or at the same time, what does that partnership look like? And I think it's a really, thought provoking exercise to sit and think that we're creating what could be, An entity that is, for our general purpose or our general thoughts is omniscient, is omnipresent, and, performs miracles that we just, we don't understand how it actually comes by. I think we definitely have to be looking and aware of what our alignment is to that technology, as how we, go about this because we, there's a tremendous amount of benefit that we could do to help the world. And at the same time, if it is not aligned with humanity, then it's not going to be very effective. one example we were going over the other day was an AI was asked to, reduce the number of train accidents To zero, and it was given schedules, it was given trains, it was given information on the, it was given all sorts of information and the solution the AI came up with was to stop running trains. So, that's a rather, you simple explanation of, a misalignment type of approach. and the outcome of stopping the trains is. Not the worst, but we do see, the opportunity for AI or for, a third party to come in and say, it's really humanity. That's the past. in order for all of this to go about, humanity doesn't need to be here.

Steven A. Cinelli: 36:43

I think about your,

Don Finley: 36:45

Steve, again, you've given us so much to think about.

Steven A. Cinelli: 36:48

yeah, the, indirectly related, but, as I'm a banker by background in the FinTech space. And one of the questions that comes up in a paper we're writing, talks about digital currencies. And so the thought there is as digital currencies come in, do you have more trust? in the existing system on how money is created versus technology. so the definition of trust, do you trust technology currently, or do you trust the system as it currently is? The same thing could apply to religion in terms of, faith is, as I said, very personal. Personal, but faith in certain areas is defined as, a belief system without evidence, it's your faith because is there evidence of a God? Is there evidence of miracles? Is there evidence of so on and so forth? so it's really a belief system. And again, I'm not trying to undermine anybody's belief system or faith, because they have a right to do that. But if in fact you insert something that adds some credibility, and actually moves it from credulity to skepticism. That's an interesting thing because the way these programs are working is that they're pulling data from all over the world and thereby, can you trust that data? Certainly you have biases, but can you trust the data and actually see the data? To make your decisions on your pathway forward, as opposed to relying on your interpretation of so called revealed truths. But as we talked about, are they really revealed or interpreted? Because those that were supposedly subject of the revelation did not author these books. They were authored, years later. So you've got to start. So. Do you rely on faith? again, belief without evidence. Or do you rely on content that is pulled together from existing sources? And so the whole trust and faith thing becomes an interesting, dialogue and exercise.

Don Finley: 38:55

Yeah. And I think that the hesitation that I have on this, the relationship that you have with God isn't one that is really derived from material for me, Like it's when you get into the side, it's very much your personal relationship. And sometimes, you're using, let's say, what somebody else has written as guidance, the actual relationship that you have with creation, with your creator, with whoever, it is or however you define your source, um, whether that's God, whether it's, source, whether it's creation, whether it's, Kali, whether, it's any, whether it's Buddha, that is a very personal introspective, place. And so even the idea of having this as an external, I understand that religion itself has defined it as external. we've put the church in between you and God, in many ways in many of the religions. And at the same time, I'm very intrigued by how this relates to, the alignment problems that we face when creating technology that will end up becoming more intelligent than the majority of its users.

Steven A. Cinelli: 40:07

Sure. Sure. No, it's,

Don Finley: 40:10

Yeah.

Steven A. Cinelli: 40:11

it definitely can get into your head. but it's also interesting that, you look at. just the historical context, many of the stories and the, the teachings within the Bible to elevate Christ as, the son of God and whatnot, suggest his, one evidence he was born of a virgin. if you think about it, Buddha was born of a virgin. Krishna was born of a virgin. Catechetical in the Aztec faith was born of a virgin. Horus was born of a virgin. There, there's Addis and, in the Turkish world, so there's a lot of commonality in different holy books. In many respects, they say they were, they picked and choosed, different passages. the story of Noah and the ark. Is it in all the holy books, or a similar, situation? And so there's crossover. I'm not saying to undermine their integrity. But what I'm saying is that there's commonality and could we take this commonality and rather than being, in everybody's face and saying, my God or no one is why not develop a, almost a non religious, irreligious framework for ethical well being and use AI as the mechanism to establish a global or a universal framework. And I think that would be a great use of AI, because It would address, the longevity of the sustainability of life and humanity and whatnot.

Don Finley: 41:44

And I gotta say, I definitely, I've really appreciated this conversation because what you just ended on was a really great summary of this, in that we can create AI that does look after humanity, that does shepherd us through this. And I think it's something that we all as practitioners of technology have to be looking at, Like we are providing value on many different fronts, but we also have, a responsibility to care for our community. And I think the conversation we've had today just shows that there's more areas that we can do it in and there's a great opportunity for us to be, creating things that are almost Godlike.

Steven A. Cinelli: 42:27

Yeah. yeah, I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I think we probably just peeled back the onion a little bit, but you can do a deeper dive if you look at. you mentioned, the passages in the, the Bible and whatnot, there's tremendous works from the various philosophers, the Socrates and Aristotle's, and you got the John Humes and the Stoics. And there's a lot of smart folks that gave perspective on how humanity can advance and, I would see it's not only the aggregation of the so called current deities or the belief systems, but let's take the body of human knowledge and actually create a construct. It makes everybody live and work and commune together, in a satisfying way, why are there wars? you should be able to help out. we're working on a, a paper on industrial policy in the United States for 2030. And in order to do that, you really have to define what is 2030 look like? What's the landscape, the geopolitical landscape is on that. So look forward and then define. What needs to be done based on that, that environment and, the potential facts at the time. And so looking forward and developing something, I think there's a great opportunity that we could use a tool such as AI and machine learning, even, augmented and virtual reality. So you can actually experience paradise instead of, as I said, right now, is it. you have to, in Islam, you have to die before you see the 72 virgins, and you've got to die before you go to heaven in the Christian faith and the Catholic faith. So why not try to experience a little bit of heaven as we are living, as opposed to waiting until, we're dead and gone. So it just, it's thought it's about aggregating information. It's about sharing that and being a positive influence for the, the longevity of mankind. And that's really, I think

Don Finley: 44:32

Absolutely.

Steven A. Cinelli: 44:33

so.

Don Finley: 44:35

you've definitely given us a lot to, contemplate. And so. once again, I really appreciate you jumping on again to talk about this and would love to hear what people have to say about, what are we creating here? Are we creating AI as God? And how does this relate to our society? So once again, Steve, thank you

Steven A. Cinelli: 44:52

my pleasure, Don.

Don Finley: 44:54

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