A Note About Shameless Bots

A teachable moment: generative AI is like a brash friend – thick-skinned and confident. Writer and programmer Paul Ford marvels at the shamelessness of LLM and generative image software: “It does everything badly and confidently. And I want to be it. I want to be that confident, that unembarrassed, that ridiculously sure of myself”.

Insightfully, he writes that shame (and guilt and remorse) is an intrinsic part of the human experience. “As with most people on Earth, shame is a part of my life, installed at a young age and frequently updated with shame service packs.”

Ford believes AI’s bravado will one day be toned down. “I must assume that eventually an army of shame engineers will rise up, writing guilt-inducing code in order to make their robots more convincingly human.”

To be free of shame is indeed a wonderful desire, also, to care less about what others think is quite liberating. How marvelous for the Christian whose shame is taken away!

The Lord is on my side;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
The Lord is for me among those who help me;
Therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me.