The CPX team freaks out about AI, explores stories of “efficiency” run amok, and probes our tech utopias.
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The apocalypse will be ... boring.
Or so says Charlie Warzel, tech journalist for The Atlantic. He means that AI won’t put you out of a job or take over the world, so much as overstuff your inbox and give you more mind-numbing tasks to complete.
Other people in the know about AI are less optimistic. Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather” of AI who resigned from Google in May, Sam Altman, the CEO of the company behind ChatGPT, and others have sounded the alarm: AI is progressing too quickly, no one knows exactly how it works, and without careful regulation it will upend life as we know it.
There are a lot of unknowns where technology is concerned. One thing we do know, though, is it makes for great TV, and stories and books.
In this edition of Seen & Heard, the CPX team debriefs on what they’ve been watching and reading.
Natasha takes us through the twists and turns of Amazon Prime’s Mrs Davis, a “bonkers” show about a nun facing off against Mrs Davis, the all-knowing algorithm against whom she has a grudge.
Simon looks at the way George Saunders’ short story “Escape from Spiderhead” (and the Spiderhead film based on it) explores how “the greater good” is used to justify all kinds of evils.
Justine looks closer at the digital utopia on offer in Grace Chan’s speculative novel Every Version of You, and finds that its promise of agelessness, no death, no suffering, and no body is basically heaven without God.
Explore:
ABC article on Replika
Every Version of You by Grace Chan
Escape From Spiderhead by George Saunders (via The New Yorker)
Mrs Davis trailer
Her and a Disembodied Future by Mark Stephens
Andy Crouch’s Richard Johnson Lecture on why technology keeps disappointing us and Q&A
Charlie Warzel: Here’s how AI will come for your job
Bright Lights, Dark Nights: Jim Wallace
The end of the world as we know it?
Bright Lights, Dark Nights: Leigh Hatcher
Baroness Cox on modern slavery and human rights
Zeitgeist: Time to discard the Christian story?
What Australians think of Jesus
Professor Ian Harper - Financial crisis, free market and faith
Prof John Gascoigne: Christianity and the scientific revolution
Dr Michael Ruse
A more secular Australia?
Eric Metaxas
Spectator's guide to Jesus: God
Spectator's guide to Jesus: Adam
Spectator's guide to Jesus: Saviour
Spectator's guide to Jesus: Friend of Sinners
Spectator's guide to Jesus: Christ
Spectator's guide to Jesus: Healer
Spectator's guide to Jesus: Teacher
Dr Olivera Petrovich
Richard Cizik discusses Christianity and climate change
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