Soon after Jesus’ murder, “two of his disciples were walking to a village seven miles” away and “were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them.”
Disciples still converse about “all the things that had occurred” around Jesus’ murder and the belief he resurrected. Jesus’ resurrection challenges science and reason. His resurrection is therefore easily rejected by some who might still converse about his life. He gathered people rulers divided, cared for people rulers abused, and healed people rulers violated – and the rulers murdered him for it. Conversing about such matters can get us thinking, maybe even get us feeling, living in touch with our human condition, and, potentially, get us acting to ensure rulers no longer rule, abuse, or violate. As such, our conversing still has rulers arresting us as they arrested early peacemakers, “While the disciples were still speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees confronted them, disturbed that they were… proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection. They laid hands on them and put them in custody.” Rulers are arresting conversation still today and conscience suffers as does the Common Good. Rulers arrest conversation after the fact by ‘laying hands’ on whistleblowers and ‘putting them in custody.’ Rulers also arrest conversation before the fact. For example, rulers have long denied people knowledge of the facts through an early kind of algorithm – a ruler based corporate media narrow in the ideas presented for people to converse about. The average person has not so much been arrested for conversing in the Public Square as arrested of knowledge to do much conversing in the Public Square. Humans having become less conversant with other humans is matched by some becoming more conversant with machines, Artificial Intelligence like Siri, Alexa, Chat GPT, and LaMDA. A Google engineer working with the AI LaMDA chatbot, recently claimed it was becoming more conversant with him, even sentient. Over 5,000 AI technologists have recently signed an open letter asking scientists to “Pause Giant AI Experiments” asserting “AI labs (are) locked in an out-of-control race… (for) digital minds that no one… can understand, predict or reliably control;” and AI poses a “profound risk to society and humanity… and should be planned for and managed with care… (with a) robust AI governance system.” AI governance could include Isaac Asimov’s Hippocratic styled zero law, “a robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.” Unfortunately, AI and its governance is already harming humanity, harming our conscience and the common good. For example, we get our information – and hence arrest our knowledge – from AI-based algorithms. It is a more developed ruler based corporate media narrowing the ideas presented for people to converse about. The algorithms determine the next piece of information we see. We are programmed for thoughtless manipulation by external corporate decision makers; ruler based and mechanistic. We cede our inquisitive minds to apathetic AI machines which devise our disinterest in our own curiosity. We become compliant drones, programmed for menial existence. We thus accept compliant drones delivery of packages by corporations and drone delivery of surveillance by the empire’s military / police force. So too we are being programmed, against conscience and the common good, for drone delivery of missiles by the military. The military, which will not be participating in the “Pause AI” request nor Asimov’s Hippocratic law, is driving the “out-of-control race” researching, developing, and using AI drones to murder modern day Christs. The military’s AI arms race enables autonomous weapons to receive information that results in the machine making the decision to murder the human being it targets. Such an inversion. A military empire, with brand new AI weapons, pursues and implements strategies for people to not think. At the same time it pursues and implements strategies for machines to think – of murder! Science in cahoots with Militarism may indeed assert resurrection defies reason. For it routinely asserts dehumanization unto murder as quite reasonable.
“Talk to me about indifference… Because as humans, indifference is valued… Poverty in our country? I’m indifferent… the screaming of my next door neighbours wife… I’m indifferent… BY GODS… I AM A ROBOT AND YOU ARE TOO Devour my heart it no longer beats, my eyes are desensitized, my spirit aghast at the agony of existing… Social media seems to have developed in me a craze for the worst! I’ve liked pages that post videos of people killing themselves… I have food that sustains me and a group of robots that I call friends, we share the same software I can relate to them via USB… This is not the way I was created… I am not of robotics I am not of steel I am… human And I Am not Indifferent!… Poverty in my country?! I will rise to be what is needed!… to be human!… The cries of my neighbor will be brought to… my community… and burst forth with our love!… I AM NOT INDIFFERENT… I am not of machine… I am the wholeness” (Indifferent – Death Throws)
Prayer: Spirit of Beauty, guide our conversations.
Question: What is the future of life?
April 23, 2023 Gospel Luke 24:13-35 Third Sunday of Easter