Valerie Pavilonis writes about how mentions of sin seem to be increasing, even in secular spaces.
But it looks like sin might be in the zeitgeist. The Marxist writer Tyler Austin Harper recently wrote a piece on how “sin” is pretty much the only word to describe some of the unsettling, I-know-it’s-wrong-but-can’t-quite-say-why stuff that’s happening in AI. “The problem is, I don’t know what else to call it when companies market digital girlfriends to the heartsick and young,” Harper writes. “Or when they hawk robot companions to the lonely and old. Or when a billionaire explains that he intends to sell intelligence—trained on humanity’s stolen intellectual property—back to us as a utility, like electricity or water. These developments are not just wrong. They feel to me like something deeper and darker.”
She also reflects on the the parable of the return of the unclean spirit found in Luke 11:24-26 about the man who was rid of an unclean spirit only to have it return to him with several other unclean spirits. This particular teaching has always puzzled me, but Pavilonis explains her belief about the need, once someone has purged sin, to fill themselves up with the opposite.
I suppose an empty space invites guests of one kind or another.
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