Relying on the Holy Spirit, wisdom, and trusted sources can help us recognize deepfakes.
— from LDS365.com
When the county commissioners in Box Elder County, Utah, indicated their intention to approve a 40,000-acre data center campus, proposed by billionaire Kevin O’Leary, the audience at the meeting was so angry and unruly that the commissioners reconvened in a private, closed-door meeting to approve the project.
We don’t have proof that the citizens who were protesting the data center so aggressively that they drove the commissioners out of the meeting room, were Mormons. But this was, after all, rural Utah. Apparently, about 60% of the residents of Box Elder County attend the Church of Latter Day Saints. The Mormon Church.
The angry anti-development protests struck many of us as rather shocking, considering the Mormons’ well-deserved reputation for politeness.
How polite? Consider this…
When Trey Parker and Matt Stone — the creators of the animated television show South Park — wrote a satirical musical called The Book of Mormon about two Mormon missionaries preaching their faith (unsuccessfully?) to the inhabitants of a remote Ugandan village, the LDS Church bought an advertisement in the playbill.
If you’re going to see the musical, you should also read the book.
The ads are consistent with the tone of the church’s original statement on the musical, released in early 2011: “The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people’s lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ.”
“The playbill ad is another example of the LDS Church’s savvy response to ‘The Book of Mormon’ musical,” said Chris Thomas, co-owner of Intrepid Communications in Salt Lake City. “Instead of protesting the musical, which is something that many would do, especially religious organizations, they made a bold and deliberate decision to embrace the situation. They have taken something that could have been detrimental to the church’s missionary efforts and made it positive.”
Reportedly, The Book of Mormon has grossed over $800 million, making it one of the most successful musicals of all time. And one of the funniest, I hear.
I seriously doubt a similar satirical musical by the creators of the animated television show South Park, called The Books of the Holy Bible, would be met with such a polite response. But I’m willing to be proved wrong.
But what we’re really interested in, these days, is data centers.
The Mormon citizens in Box Elder County were not universally polite in their reaction to Kevin O’Leary’s application for a 40,000-acre data center project. Some of them were downright pissed off.
Because, deep down, we already hate AI. Large Language Models have been publicly available for less than 5 years, and we already hate them. Practically all of us do.
Especially, perhaps, Catholics.
1.4 billion of them.
I mentioned Pope Leo XIV and his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, in my column last week.
Apparently, Catholics have somewhat stronger objections to data centers and artificial intelligence than the Mormons have. From the pope’s 51-page encyclical (which, incidentally, includes a seven-page bibliography):
Let us remain faithful to the truth! Living amid incessant flows of information, opinions and images, we know how easy it can be to influence decisions and preferences through increasingly sophisticated algorithms. In this context, it is imperative to cultivate hearts that love the truth, prefer what is right despite the most appealing content and pursue wisdom rather than immediate results…
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Especially the part about increasingly sophisticated algorithms.
When I was a kid, algorithms didn’t even exist. If we wanted sophisticated information, we had to rely on sophisticated people.
From what I have read of it, the pope’s encyclical was polite, and sophisticated. So maybe there’s actually hope for the future.
If we can embrace religions?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.