Pentagon AI more ethical than adversaries’ because of ‘Judeo-Christian society,’ USAF general says::The path to ethical AI is a “very important discussion” being held at DOD’s “very highest levels,” says service’s programs chief.

  • finkrat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “Judeo-Christian society” has been airstriking the Middle East for years and provoking wars for a lot longer than that which is a violation of Christian beliefs (“Do to others what you would have them do to you”, among others) so they can kindly shove it up their warmongering ass

  • Obinice@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Kinda sounds like they mean it follows their personal ethics and religious rules more closely than others, not that it’s actually more ethical.

    Ethics are entirely subjective.

    I would argue that any system that follows the rules of a religious society is deeply unethical.

  • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Yeah let’s make sure AI is ethical by some religious standard before we put it in charge of the nuclear arsenal. What an ass.

  • LostMyRedditLogin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    When an air force general uses a term like Judeo-Christian that is worrying. The brainwashing runs high. There’s no such thing as Judeo-Christian. Judaism and Christianity are vastly different religions albeit related. It’s a propaganda term to create an emotional tie with the US and Israel. No one says Judeo-Islam or Judeo-Mormon because it’s idiotic.

    • GFGJewbacca@ag.batlord.org
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      1 year ago

      I came in here to say just this. I’m a Jewish clergyman, so I deal with this kind of shit a lot. The term isn’t just brainwashing; it’s actively seeking to erase Judaism as part of Christianity. It’s shit like this, combined with Christian Nationalism, which makes me jumpy at first when someone identifies as a Christian.

      • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        From an armchair political science hot take, it signals something akin to worldwide NATO, inclusive rather than anti-semetic.

        Certainly tons of baseless anti semetic crap does exist, i just don’t see this concept that way.

        • astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          On its face, I’d agree, but the term is used almost exclusively by the hyper-right wing. No one outside of that sphere uses the term (at least as far as I’ve experienced).

            • astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz
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              1 year ago

              Maybe it’s regional or a recent change; it’s been a minute since I was in high school, and my university studies were not in the humanities.

              • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Perhaps. It was mid 90s, at the onset of the Politically Correct era.

                And i went to an engineering school, but they had us take humanities courses so we would be well rounded and able to communicate good and stuff.

    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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      1 year ago

      You could talk about abrahamic religions, that encompasses Judaism, Christianism, and Islamism because in theory all three worship the same God, but of course they are never grouped like that because they don’t want to be related with Muslims.

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Can confirm.

        My uncle used to fly F-15s for the Air NG, and about 10 or 15 years ago when he had to retire for medical reasons (turns out pulling G’s all the time is bad for your back), he just broke evangelical and is now a fundamentalist pastor.

    • Colitas92@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Also 100% agreed. If anyone really wants a more inclusive term with positive vibes, i already read ‘‘abrahamic heritage’’ , to include jews, christians and muslims going for the commom ties of the mutually recognized first patriarch. It was a random french scholar though, but maybe we can gain traction. God (the abrahamic god) would be pleased.

    • Aidinthel@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      100% agreed. These people only care about Jews in so far as they are useful political props. Ask the members of the Tree of Life synagogue or the passengers of the MS St Louis how much of “Judeo-Christian” society we are.

    • toasteecup@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      God I appreciate you and this comment so much. Thank you for acknowledging something us Jews suffer to point out constantly.

  • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Judeo-Christian is such a bullshit made-up term to rope in multiple gullible idiots into the fold.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s for people that want to go full “Christians = good, other religions = bad” but know that saying “Jews = bad” won’t go down well.

      • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As an ex-christian, let me tell you, christians cannot even agree or follow a consistent moral code among themselves, nevermind including whole other religions. Catholics vs evangelicals is a whole thing. This is total bulshit.

        • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Idk about it being a racist term in general.

          1st of all because Islam is a religion not a race, and we are dealing with Christianity and Judism which are also religions.

          And yes, it is a term to group 2 of 3 Abrahamic religions. One that is an offshoot of the other.

          Islam is different in that it rejects much of the Old Testament.

          So its a term that refers to the group of people that believe the Old Testament.

          Its a term. People have used it when making racist policies, but that doesn’t make the word racist.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            It’s a term invented and popularized by racist people to make racist policies (yes even Orwell - “Shooting an Elephant” is sus af) . There is already a term that refers to all three Abrahamic religions! By specifically excluding Islam, they are able to exclude the Arab world and all those nonwhite Muslims and make them into an Other. It’s an underpinning ethical framework for shit like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, overthrowing Ghaddafi and the Muslim Brotherhood and plunging North Africa into chaos, and ethnically cleansing Palestine.

            It needs to fucking stop.

            • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              So people can never refer to judism amd christianity by them selves?

              People should be able to talk about them in any combination of one, two, or three that they want. Thats how open intellectual shit happens.

              I think your passion has clouded your logic and debate.

              • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                So people can never refer to judism amd christianity by them selves?

                You are glossing over the question of why they would be choosing to refer to only 2 out 3 related religions.

                Do the brain thing yourself before you judge people for it. Some people talk big about debate and intellectuality even though they are the first to disengage and dismiss others’ arguments.

                • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Do the brain thing yourself before you judge people for it.

                  Yours is the side telling people they cannot use the term or even consider the concept jnown as ‘Judeo-Christian’ without being an irredeamable racist.

                  I judge people who tell me what things i can and cannot think about and what words i can use.

                  I call them facists.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                People are one thing, but the fucking Pentagon shouldn’t be talking about it! There’s nothing intellectual about this shit.

                • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah, the Pentagon kills just about as many innocent people as God did in that Old Testament this General masturbates to.

        • yeather@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Islam has a completely different code of ethics and morals compared to Judaism and Christianity. That much is self evident.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            lol I bet you actually believe that

            Christians 1000 years ago were basically the same and in many places in Latin America and Africa they still are.

            And well, they the nailed Jesus to a tree for being a trouble maker.

            Y’all’s the same.

            • yeather@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              I’m not a christian, and if I remember correctly, all three abrahamic religions have changed over 1000 years. Christianity for the better while Islam has stayed stagnant in its views. Popular christian sects that accept new, western values are available seemingly everywhere while the same cannot be said about Islam.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Other popular Christian sects want to torture women to death instead of letting them get abortions and want to specifically kill me for being trans.

                Different assholes, all the same shit.

  • febra@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    our society is a Judeo-Christian society and we have a moral compass.

    And here I thought the US was a secular country. Very worrisome that some government employees are using these words.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    tl;dr: The headline is false; the general did not actually say that. I thought it sounded wrong, so I watched the video that the article linked to, to check. Sure enough, it was wrong. However, the reality may not be any more reassuring.


    Hypothesis: Like, no, that’s obviously wrong; either the headline is trash or the general made a whole tossed salad with mango sauce out of whatever the people working on it said. (stated before further investigation; stay tuned)


    Updating: https://youtu.be/wn1yEovtYRM?t=3459


    Okay, wow.

    So the speaker is saying this at the end of the panel, in response to a question asking about the use of autonomous weapons.

    They want to talk about who’s trusted to make the decision of whether to employ lethal force in a combat situation: a human American soldier, who might be exhausted and not thinking clearly, or an algorithm that doesn’t get tired.

    And one thing they mention is that an enemy might not have ethics that would lead them them even care about that distinction. And they express that as “Judeo-Christian morality”.

    That doesn’t sit right with me. It sounds to me, in that moment, like they’re implying that people from other cultures could be less moral, and that we should be willing to be more free with our weapons towards such people. That sounds to me like the sort of bullshit that came out of the Vietnam War.

    But the rest of the answer sounds like they’re trying to point at the problem of making command decisions in scenarios where the opponent might deploy autonomous weapons first. If the enemy has already handed decision-making over to an algorithm, how does that affect what we should do?

    And they’re maybe expressing that to their expected audience — mind you, the Air Force is heavily infiltrated by far-right Christian radicals — in a way that they hope makes sense.


    Conclusion: The headline is incorrect; the general did not actually say that a Pentagon AI would be more ethical for any reason; he was talking about the human ethical decision of whether to trust AI to make decisions. But what he did say is complicated and scary for different reasons, including the internal culture of the US Air Force.

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yes, because the Old Testament is all peace and love and kumbaya.
    Another dipshit military lifer inserting subjective religious arrogance - whatever religion it may be - into his spiel, details at eleven.

    • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I think if you taught ethics to an AI based on the Bible and gave it the power it would quickly destroy the world. Oh that’s right, they made a bunch of sci-fi movies about that starring an Austrian body builder.

  • jmhdBV8l@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As I understand it, of the branches, the Air Force is the worst for neocon evangelicals. What a quote! It gives me shivers.

  • spicysoup@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    is there nottheonion on Lemmy yet? because this belongs on there. jfc what a time to be alive