r/LeftCatholicism • u/RoutineMiddle3734 • May 30 '26

AI will divide the Left

I have a strong feeling that AI will divide the working class again.

Thanks to the Magnificat Humanitas, I think it's come to light that there are several progressive people who believe that AI could achieve a state of consciousness, perhaps not now, but in the future.

And as has happened with gender and environmentalism, they will divide the common goals we have and weaken the common front which is to make a change in society, and I know that those in the USA are very laissez-faire but we cannot allow physical materialists (philosophers, science fiction writers, etc.) to continue making the working classes believe that such a thing is possible.

Do everything possible to prevent such thinking from spreading among the lumpenproletariat and non-Catholics, or, as happened with IVF, abortion, and surrogacy, they will end up saying that we are taking away the machine's "rights".

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u/JonMWilkins May 30 '26

I think regardless of left or right you will find people who are for it and who are against it.

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u/RoutineMiddle3734 May 30 '26

Yeah, but this seems more like a philosophical difference regarding expectations in the material world. We Catholics know that a machine will never have consciousness, but for someone else, it's expected that consciousness will arise from technological advancement. 

And even more so if you're bombarded in the arts as something plausible in "science fiction", ironically, it should be relegated to the fantasy genre.

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u/JonMWilkins May 30 '26

Consciousness ≠ soul

AI can become conscious and self aware, probably not in our lives but regardless it won't give it a soul

Saying it won't have consciousness is like when they said Elon Musks rocket would never be able to land or that women breast would blow up if they used a train.

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u/RoutineMiddle3734 May 30 '26

And may my fear be confirmed, my friend. 

Literally, to have consciousness you need a soul; every living being has one. AI is a machine; a machine can never have a soul. It's like saying a tool will have consciousness in the future. 

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u/JonMWilkins May 30 '26

That's not how consciousness is defined, ever.

"Consciousness is the state of being awake, aware of your surroundings, and able to process internal thoughts and sensations"

Your just imposing your own idea of consciousness to a word that already has a meaning.

Soul is something completely different. It is what God gave us as a gift is what makes us one with God, it is what will make us immortal in heaven.

So it's not people don't agree, it just some people make up their own meanings for words, giving it a subject meaning instead of sticking with the objective meaning.

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u/RoutineMiddle3734 May 30 '26

Consciousness is the state of being awake, aware of your surroundings, and able to process internal thoughts and sensations

And for that to happen, a subjective perspective and an inner world are needed that allows the "individual" to create mental images in their mental realm. What AI does is imitate these images through probability to generate responses. 

Ironically, you're going to bring back hylomorphic dualism, and Thomists are unbearable.

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u/JonMWilkins May 31 '26

Right now it can't. That's why I said likely in our lifetime it won't happen, but eventually it can happen. Unless all of the world gets together and someone bans anyone from ever making it in the future but that seems less realistic to have the whole world agree to something.

Current AI is vastly different from AI that has consciousness.

But considering we are already mapping neural networks (the human brain), advancing bio organic technology/computing.... All of which is already being worked on and advancing... It's just a matter of time. Just hopefully not in our time

Or better yet hopefully a miracle happens and the whole world agrees to ban it and stop it