Sermon 38 - Truth, Rhetoric, and Generative Artificial Intelligence
John 18:37-38
"You are a king, then!" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." "What is truth?" retorted Pilate.
Matthew 7:13,14
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Because of my background in information technology, I have recently written and presented material on artificial intelligence, and particularly the problems with the new large language models and generative artificial intelligence. I have presented this to multiple groups. Over the months that I have been presenting it, I have been expanding it, to the point that the current version is possibly unrecognisable from the first version that I presented. Every week, it seems, we have new developments pointing out new problems with this new generative AI tool.
In addition, at the same time, I have been dealing with an individual who has a particular problem with communications and relationship. He disputes that he has any problem and claims that he is very effective in this particular area. Recently, after yet another conversation on this topic, I was worrying and trying to analyse the different examples that I have seen that obviously demonstrates his problem, so that I could present it to him more clearly. Because of working on the artificial intelligence presentation, I suddenly came to the realisation that he was making the same mistakes that two completely different artificial intelligence technologies make. This realisation impressed upon me the possibility that we can use the *mistakes* that we are seeing artificial intelligence make, to analyse our own problems with communications, analysis, relationships, and our use of normal psychological tools.
In discussing this with a minister, his response was that I should turn it into a sermon, and that if I did, he would steal it. Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that, yes, it is, very definitely, sermon material. It does point out a failing in our religious and spiritual lives. It is something we need to be aware of and something we need to address.
Jesus said that he came to testify to, to bear witness to, the truth. We have failed in that regard.
Pilate's response to Jesus statement was the question, what is truth? There is a whole field of philosophy, in fact, one of the most basic of the fields of philosophy, devoted to that question. As a matter of fact, most of the original and classic fields of philosophy address this question. There is metaphysics, which addresses the question of what is reality, and what is the truth about reality? There is the field of epistemology, which addresses the question of how do we know the truth? And how sure are we that we know the truth. And then there is the field of logic. Logic is the tool that we are most certain (well, according to Kurt Godel, not *entirely*, certain, but *most* certain) leads us the truth, or lets us examine what we perceive to be the truth. These three areas, then, comprise three quarters of the four classic fields of philosophy.
The fourth area of classical philosophy is, unfortunately, rhetoric. Rhetoric is not necessarily anti-truth, but it is just a tool. It can be used as a tool to convince people of the truth, if you wish. But it is about *convincing* people. It is a tool for persuading people. And therefore, it is not, strictly speaking, concerned with the truth. We can use rhetoric to convince people of *un*truths. And that's the problem. We have taught generative artificial intelligence rhetoric rather than the truth.
As it happens, at the same time that much of the rest of this happened, I had an interesting conversation with someone who admitted that she had not actually told the truth. I asked why it was that people did not just simply tell the truth. Well, she said, and launched into a rant about how lying supported the Father of Lies rather than God, and how lying promoted sin in the world. And while everything she said was perfectly orthodox, and full of Christian cliches and platitudes, she seemed blissfully unaware that, applied to herself, her statements about the Father of Lies, and our sin, and failing to tell the exact truth at all times, damned her with every breath.
And I was reminded of an extremely old artificial intelligence program, called ELIZA. ELIZA is at least six decades old, and was an extremely simple program. It actually worked very well, for its purpose, but it did so by stripping out all the common words it was fed, and responding only to the keywords. In technical terms, we call this "lossy compression." As I said, it can be useful, but it loses any nuance, and, in particular, it loses all the context. And, like my lying friend, if we respond only to the keywords that trigger us, we have lost any chance at the truth of our situation. We are, then, simply regurgitating a canned response, with no thought for whether it really relates to what has happened, or whether it is relevant to what is going on.
So why *don't* we simply tell the truth? I can't remember who it was that said that it's always best to tell the truth because that way you don't have to remember so much.
But we are supposed to tell the truth. There is a possibility, and a strong one, that the bit in the Ten Commandments about bearing false witness is not simply about telling the truth, but rather is more of a legal injunction that we should not provide false testimony in a court case. But we do seem to feel that God likes the truth. That God is the God of Truth. That God wants us to tell the truth. That it is *important*, for us, that we tell the truth. And yet, it seems to be so difficult. Not just in terms of outright lies. But the truth seems to be so hard for us.
I have written other sermons in regard to the truth. Well, to be honest, more about lies, I suppose. In one I pointed out that we are too eager to believe lies about people and groups of whom we do not approve. I have talked about the fact that the overwhelming prevalence of lies is actually a kind of proof that God exists. But I suppose that I haven't really talked about the truth, and so I guess it's time.
To tell the truth, I am an information security specialist. In terms of information security, we professionals talk about multiple aspects of security. Too long in our profession, if it is a profession, we were fixated on the idea of confidentiality and privacy. Keeping our information away from other people whom we didn't want to have it. But there are other, equally important, aspects of security. Two of them are the availability of information, and ensuring that information, and by extension the truth, is available. And there is also the issue of integrity: ensuring that the information that is available is, in fact, the truth. So professionally I have an obligation to, and respect for, the truth.
However, even before I got into the information security profession, personally, I have always felt that information was valuable. Information was important. And information wasn't information if it wasn't, in fact, the truth. So, the truth, in my perspective, is and always was vitally important.
I can't always say that I have kept up my end of the bargain with truth. Partly because I find truth to be so important, I am able to analyse lies. And because I can tell how people may be presenting *part* of the truth, but not all of it, I am, myself, extremely capable of telling the truth and yet completely misleading people. I hope that, for the most part, I simply use this for comedic purposes. But I know that, all too easily, I would be able to tell very credible lies very convincingly. Mostly using the truth, but not necessarily all of it.
As part of the conversation that sparked this sermon, I pointed out that I am able to tell the absolute, and very dark, truth about how I am feeling, when people ask. That I feel terrible, and wish I were dead. Most people don't wish to know about my pain or suffering. But I don't particularly want to lie to them by saying that I'm fine. I'm not. So, I tell the truth. But I do it in such a way that most people assume that I am making a joke.
There's an irony in there, somewhere. Am I really telling the truth? If I tell it in such a way that people don't believe me? Even if I'm doing it to avoid upsetting them?
Truth really can be very difficult at times.
There are truths that we avoid. There are many truths that we don't wish to acknowledge and don't wish to talk about. Grief and suffering are among them. Why should I upset people by talking about my pain? They don't particularly care about my pain. And pointing out that they don't care is another thing that people don't want to face in our society.
We tell ourselves lies in order to make our lives easier. Well, maybe they aren't exactly lies. Maybe it's just part of the truth. We have our cliches and our platitudes. We use them to protect ourselves from truths that are too painful. Jesus, at the last supper, told the Disciples that they couldn't go where He was going. We tend to see this in terms of the fact that it was not the Disciples time to die, and, as Jesus was dying, they literally couldn't die with him. But it might easily be a reference to the fact that we can't handle the whole truth. We don't understand the whole truth. We don't even *know* the whole truth. Even if the full truth were told to us, we probably would not be able to understand it. To comprehend it. To understand the totality of what we might be told. And all the implications that that entails. So, how much truth are we capable of?
Once again, the truth can be pretty difficult.
But I started out by mentioning a friend with a communication problem. And the problem is, ironically, that he knows too much. He is educated and erudite. He has answers to problems, and he is eager to help. Unfortunately he has, as we *also* often say in technology, solutions in search of problems. In his eagerness to be of service, he misses the step of ensuring that what he *does* know fits the trouble in front of him.
He's not alone. Pretty much everyone does, actually, want to help, want to support those around us, want even to assist total strangers. This desire to help is so strong that we often jump in to help even when our "help" isn't particularly helpful to those we are helping. Many, many years ago, a good friend preached a sermon entitled "Love is Not Enough," and it has stuck with me through all these years. We want to help, and that's good, but we also have to have the humility to understand that what we want to give may not be what is needed. We first have to give our attention to those in need, and to the situation, and do the analysis of what the problem really is. And to do *that*, we need to give our time. And time is valuable. And it's not just thirty seconds we need to give, or five minutes: sometimes it's hours, or even years. Recently I ran into an acquaintance who was very upset. I had rather a lot on that day, and was on my way to the first of a number of tasks. But I stood there, on the street, for two hours, while she poured out her anguish. And I had no advice to give, or special insight, or help I could offer. And she talked on and on, repeating herself a number of times. (People who are disturbed, or upset, or hurt don't organize their thoughts particularly well. We have to be patient, and listen, and sort out the "stream of conciousness" later. And it takes time.) And I *didn't* solve her problem. *She* probably did, because I gave her the time and attention that allowed *her* to sort out her thoughts, by spilling them all out to me.
I mentioned the ELIZA program. That's basically what ELIZA does: it just listens. It doesn't even understand. It just gives a chance for you to talk.
But, back to my friend with the communication problem. He's not ELIZA. He's ChatGPT. You can give generative artificial intelligence a short question, or sentence, or even just a phrase, and it'll give you back hundreds, maybe *thousands* of words. And it is well-written, readable stuff. But it may not, in fact, be true. Or really address the problem we need to solve. Because generative artificial intelligence doesn't understand any of it.
We have a joke in technology: What is the difference between a computer salesman and a used-car salesman? Answer: The used car salesman *knows* when he is lying to you. This joke points out that a lot of people selling technology don't understand what they are selling. So now we have a new joke: what is the difference between a computer salesman and ChatGPT? Answer: Not much.
We have taught generative AI/large language models to be glib, facile, convincing, plausible and persuasive. We have taught them rhetoric. (Or we have taught, or allowed, them to teach *themselves* rhetoric.) We have not taught them epistemology, metaphysics, or the other analytical tools that lead to truth.
We consume rhetoric. We reject analysis. Analysis is hard both to do and to listen to. Therefore, we prefer the easy rhetoric. And we have taught generative AI rhetoric. We have not taught it analysis. We have not taught it logic.
We have taught it, or allowed it to teach itself, the easier facile route of persuasion. We like easy generation and easy listening. Our documentaries are easy listening. Our sermons are easy listening. Our conversations are easy listening. They are rhetoric. We have, as C.S. Lewis has said, used the Bible, and many other forms of wisdom and education, like a drunkard uses a lamp post: more for support than for illumination.
Many say that we are living in a post-truth world. We have allowed ourselves, even *encouraged* ourselves, to accept a post-truth world. We are not interested in truth. We are not interested in doing the work and analysis that leads us to be able to judge whether or not something is true. We have accepted the easy road. We have accepted what seems plausible rather than doing the hard work of determining whether the plausible is, in fact, true. We have taken the broad and easy road. We need to find the harder, narrow, path.
cf Sermon 5 - Heretics
https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/02/sermon-5-heretics.html
cf Sermon 17 - False News Proves God Exists
https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/sermon-17-false-news-proves-god-exists.html
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ngU3uHw8sjXJX1xkWXhQK
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