Today I have a special edition report -- a talk I was asked to give today in church. And this is here is the script of what I said (though the actual words I said may have been slightly different):
In this talk Renlund warns us about deception. Jesus says ...
“Take heed that no man deceive you.“For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.”
And then Renlund said:
This model is a very useful and impressive tool. We have some nets that can mimic speech convincingly. Some nets can consistently beat our smartest humans in chess.
The scary thing is, these same nets are also being used to deceive people, especially through social media. We mathematicians know this is happening, because we can often trace the sources of individual posts and most are coming from our foreign enemies. We even have a database where people can go to analyze these tweets and posts, and we can see that people are using AI to construct messages that intentionally make us angry at each other. And we can see that they are targeting people of all political leanings, all religions, all belief systems.
Chances are, if you are like me, you've seen something on social media in the past few days that makes us angry. And chances are, we could trace the source of it all back to any of these AI - generated hate messages. And the goal of these bad actors is to destabilize us and get us angry at each other. And the ultimate source of this deception is our Adversary. He's working all sides, and with this powerful tool, he is succeeding. As long as he can keep us angry, he can hold us in his power and make it harder for us to prepare for the Second Coming.
And even though I can see all of this is going on -- all the AI and the deception machine, I still often find myself getting caught up in it all.
Because, you see, if these AI models can beat our smartest chess players, what chance do we have to overcome these deception models on our own? How can we rise over this machine of deception?
Luckily, Renlund gives us the answer in his talk. We can call it the "Matthew 25" strategy. He goes over three parables.
First comes the parable of the Ten Virgins. How many times did this come up in Conference? Five virgins were ready, and five were not.
Second comes the parable about the talents. Those who grew their talents were rewarded, and the person who did nothing at all was punished.
And last comes the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep are on the Savior's right hand, and the goats are on the left.
The notice the theme? Half are ready, and the other half are not? It's not enough to have knowledge, or belong to the True Church, but we must continually endure to the end and always strive to do good and improve.
The Ten Virgins parable encourages us to do tasks that can help us to prepare. Scripture study and temple attendance can help us to have proper perspective and help us to avoid deception. How can we tell a disciple from a deceiver? To quote Renlund: "Disciples always promote believing in God, serving Him, and doing good."
The Talents parable teaches us that preparation is action, not just knowledge. As we use our own talents to help edify others, we are also edified, which can also help us against this deception. We come to realize that all our "anger" items are small in the grand scheme of things, while our ability to do good can overcome it all.
The Sheep and Goats parable teaches us that we can serve others -- feed the hungry, give them drink, help to shelter and clothe them, and visit them. If we do this to the poor and needy, we likewise do it unto the Savior. And those who do it not, don't do it unto the Savior.
With this in mind, we can see that some of the deceptions on social media urge us to despise certain groups of people, even some who are fleeing persecutions, or some who are simply voting according to their own consciousness. And how do we know these are deceptions? Because God would have us to love and serve everyone.
In our ward alone, there are many opportunities to serve. Fast offerings are a great way to provide monetary assistance, and so are other charities. We can devote some of our time at Just Serve. There are also opportunities to give rides to some who can't drive, but really want to come to church. And plenty of fellowship opportunities. And just think -- if we were to spend more time on these efforts to help others -- not just in our church, but also in our neighborhoods, and in our workplaces -- rather than wasting time getting angry on social media, these activities could help us to better prepare for the Second Coming and also overcome this overwhelming deception machine. With God on our side, we can win.
[Bear testimony and close up -- I said something about how General Conference basically taught me that the "anger" items are small in the grand scheme of things, and no one can take away our direct connections to God.]
The Savior knew pretenders would try to deceive the very elect and that many disciples would be duped.And I understand this. In my day job, I'm a mathematician, an actuary, a data scientist, and let me tell you about Deep Neural Nets -- what the media usually calls Artificial Intelligence or "AI." You see, we can connect many neurons together to make a net. Fifty neurons, or nodes, can support thousands of connections. And then we can throw a whole bunch of data at this net. Inputs and desired outputs. And each individual neuron practically tunes itself -- kind of like memorizing a very complex algorithm. Basically, these nets can learn patterns that we humans can't see.
This model is a very useful and impressive tool. We have some nets that can mimic speech convincingly. Some nets can consistently beat our smartest humans in chess.
The scary thing is, these same nets are also being used to deceive people, especially through social media. We mathematicians know this is happening, because we can often trace the sources of individual posts and most are coming from our foreign enemies. We even have a database where people can go to analyze these tweets and posts, and we can see that people are using AI to construct messages that intentionally make us angry at each other. And we can see that they are targeting people of all political leanings, all religions, all belief systems.
Chances are, if you are like me, you've seen something on social media in the past few days that makes us angry. And chances are, we could trace the source of it all back to any of these AI - generated hate messages. And the goal of these bad actors is to destabilize us and get us angry at each other. And the ultimate source of this deception is our Adversary. He's working all sides, and with this powerful tool, he is succeeding. As long as he can keep us angry, he can hold us in his power and make it harder for us to prepare for the Second Coming.
And even though I can see all of this is going on -- all the AI and the deception machine, I still often find myself getting caught up in it all.
Because, you see, if these AI models can beat our smartest chess players, what chance do we have to overcome these deception models on our own? How can we rise over this machine of deception?
Luckily, Renlund gives us the answer in his talk. We can call it the "Matthew 25" strategy. He goes over three parables.
First comes the parable of the Ten Virgins. How many times did this come up in Conference? Five virgins were ready, and five were not.
Second comes the parable about the talents. Those who grew their talents were rewarded, and the person who did nothing at all was punished.
And last comes the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep are on the Savior's right hand, and the goats are on the left.
The notice the theme? Half are ready, and the other half are not? It's not enough to have knowledge, or belong to the True Church, but we must continually endure to the end and always strive to do good and improve.
The Ten Virgins parable encourages us to do tasks that can help us to prepare. Scripture study and temple attendance can help us to have proper perspective and help us to avoid deception. How can we tell a disciple from a deceiver? To quote Renlund: "Disciples always promote believing in God, serving Him, and doing good."
The Talents parable teaches us that preparation is action, not just knowledge. As we use our own talents to help edify others, we are also edified, which can also help us against this deception. We come to realize that all our "anger" items are small in the grand scheme of things, while our ability to do good can overcome it all.
The Sheep and Goats parable teaches us that we can serve others -- feed the hungry, give them drink, help to shelter and clothe them, and visit them. If we do this to the poor and needy, we likewise do it unto the Savior. And those who do it not, don't do it unto the Savior.
With this in mind, we can see that some of the deceptions on social media urge us to despise certain groups of people, even some who are fleeing persecutions, or some who are simply voting according to their own consciousness. And how do we know these are deceptions? Because God would have us to love and serve everyone.
In our ward alone, there are many opportunities to serve. Fast offerings are a great way to provide monetary assistance, and so are other charities. We can devote some of our time at Just Serve. There are also opportunities to give rides to some who can't drive, but really want to come to church. And plenty of fellowship opportunities. And just think -- if we were to spend more time on these efforts to help others -- not just in our church, but also in our neighborhoods, and in our workplaces -- rather than wasting time getting angry on social media, these activities could help us to better prepare for the Second Coming and also overcome this overwhelming deception machine. With God on our side, we can win.
[Bear testimony and close up -- I said something about how General Conference basically taught me that the "anger" items are small in the grand scheme of things, and no one can take away our direct connections to God.]
Excellent talk! Wish I could have been there to hear it. I, too, realized that anger and kaos are tools of the adversary and have limited my time on social media. I find I am much more at peace. It is hard to be spiritual when AI is keeping us rattled.
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