Artificial intelligence researching religion and violence

in #neuroscience5 years ago
Religion based conflicts are as old as religions themselves. There is a constant battle between people on which God is stronger, better and of course, real. Reasons why humanity not only justifies its doings by holy messages but promote them too lies in our neurons. Today, we will dive into reasons behind religion-based violence and what our neurons have to do with it. Using computer science for cognitive research is a relatively new field but it is expanding rapidly and helping us to understand the human brain, the most complexed intelligence system there is.

"It's a uniquely exciting time to be working at the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive science, and AI."
-Dr. Nikolaus Kriegeskorte of Columbia University

Cognitive neuroscientists are now using multiple forms of artificial intelligence with neural brain-inspired network models in order to create better diagnostic tools, repair the brain, and ensure it's proper development. Some of the findings along the way are quite interesting. I was all caught up in the news from Pakistan and the majority of the country protesting and demanding the death of one woman so these kinds of research bring hope.


CC0 image, Pixabay, author: geralt, adapted by me

There are AI systems that are able to mimic human religiosity. This opened a doorway into understanding conditions, triggers and patterns for religious violence and can, hopefully, be used to control it. One day that is. The field is young but is already showing great potential and growing exponentially with time. I personally am keen to follow up on its progress and see just how far it would lead and what answers on human behavior it will provide.

Before we continue, we have to make something perfectly clear. Intelligence is a mental quality that consists of the abilities to learn from experience, understand abstract concepts, and adapt to new situations by using knowledge to manipulate our stand in the environment. "To adapt" is the main point here and the best way to simplify what intelligence is would be to say that it is our behavior in new situations.

The artificial neural networks
serve as mini-brains

Both computer modeling and cognitive psychology have systems made of components they are working with. One group has neurons and the other has units of code but they are both determining how much data and in what way is being calculated. "Artificial neurons" are programmed to create neural network models that can recognize a specific place, object or a concept. The machine intelligence programs learn very quickly when given lots of data which enables them to parse contextual learning at a fine level. Those mini-brains are completely transparent and compared to responses given by human neural networks.


CC0 image, Pixabay, author: geralt

Computer vision and biological neurons

Aude Oliva of MIT presented one of her studies at the CNS symposium. She and her colleagues taught an artificial network to recognize 350 different places when presented with more than 10 million images. That network was supposed to recognize rooms like a kitchen or bedroom after learning to associate objects with them. The unexpected part was that network learned to recognize people and animals too and acknowledged parks as parks after seeing animals and rooms as rooms when it saw people. This worked helped neuroscientists to better understand human brains for they too process large amounts of data. When we see a dog in a street, millions of signals emanate from the retina, sweep through a sequence of layers of neurons, and extract semantic information.

"Current neural network models can perform this kind of task using only computations that biological neurons can perform. Moreover, these neural network models can predict to some extent how a neuron deep in the brain will respond to any image."

-Nikolaus Kriegeskorte of Columbia University

You can read the entire press release from CNS 2018 that held place in Boston on March 25, by following this link: Dissecting Artificial Intelligence to Better Understand the Human Brain

I am not delusional. Many of today' conflicts are provoked and people all over the world are being used and manipulated for financial gain of certain interest groups. It is not even a new concept in dividing people, it has been done many times before throughout history when leaders wanted new territory and resources. All they had to do is provoke religious feelings and play the card of God wants us to and is on our side to get people to blindly go into their death. The funny thing is, every religion "promotes" love and peace. Why do they then sanctify weapons? Why is it easier for people to focus on violent messages from holy books than on loving ones?

History of religion
is written in blood

Every religious "holy" book has violence in it. The old testament of Bible could be a plot of a decent horror movie with all the killing, slaves, child marriage and of course, killing of children. This is justified with children carrying the sins of their fathers and not being innocent and do not get me started on male dominance and woman knowing their place. What Christianity has been doing for centuries, Islam is doing now, they just have more technologically advanced weapons than Crusaders did.

Why is it so easy
to manipulate people with religion?

The fact remains that not all people can be manipulated. Not all Muslims are violent just like not all Christians are. Why are some following the message of love while others want to destroy everything that differs from their worldview? The answer, of course, lies in psychology. Exclusive religions show absolutistic beliefs in “one” truth. Fundamentalists have that "one truth" as a motivator of their behavior. They persuade others to join their way of life, defend their views against possible threats and can be violent when their faith is questioned. The reason lies in them identifying with the religion so every critique of that religion is considered as a direct critique of them. Their religion is such a strong part of them that it has become them and the evolutionary need for survival comes in place and is blown out of proportion. They feel honestly threatened with anything different than their religion and are in their way, fighting for their lives. When a religious person is not identifying his entire being with religion but considering it only a part of his life then it is much harder to manipulate that person to perform violent acts in the name of his faith.

A recent study combined computer modeling and cognitive psychology to create an AI system able to mimic human religiosity. This allowed a better understanding of human behavior when it comes to patterns of religious violence. It is one of the first that used psychologically realistic AI and was published in The Journal for Artificial Societies and Social Stimulation.

Is religion causing factors
that lead to religious violence?

The findings of the study revealed that people are generally a nonviolent and peaceful species. However, humans are capable of endorsing violence, especially when others go against the core beliefs which define their identity. Universities behind this research are Oxford, Boston University and the University of Agder, Norway. They hope that findings could help governments to better understand this behavior and possibly control it. The human brain being like a computer programme was up until now considered only an analogy. This team took it a step further and actually programmed realistic AI agents using theories in cognitive psychology to mimic how a human being would naturally think and process information.

"99% of the general public are most familiar with AI that uses machine learning to automate human tasks like - classifying something, such as tweets to be positive or negative etc., but our study uses something called multi-agent AI to create a psychologically realistic model of a human, for example – how do they think, and particularly how do we identify with groups? Why would someone identify as Christian, Jewish or Muslim etc. Essentially how do our personal beliefs align with how a group defines itself?"
-DPhil Justin E. Laned

What this research did is it looked at how humans process information that goes against their own personal experiences. A simulated environment was created with millions of human model agents who had a certain probability that they will interact with natural disasters, disease, and each other. When people's core belief systems have been challenged or they felt like their commitment to their own beliefs was questioned, anxiety and agitations occurred. That anxiety led to violence in 20% of the scenarios created and was triggered by people who were going against the group's core beliefs and identity.

You can read the full research paper by following this link:
A Generative Model of the Mutual Escalation of Anxiety Between Religious Groups by F. LeRon Shults, Ross Gore, Wesley J. Wildman, Christopher Lynch, Justin E. Lane, Monica Toft

Community is a set of individuals. By changing individuals, community changes and it starts with you and me. It starts by questioning our core beliefs and recognizing the patterns in our behavior. Are convictions shaping how we respond to the outside world or are we strong enough to refuse manipulation of our national and religious emotions?

Leaving fingerprints on everything and everyone

Our senses are always receiving outside impulses, translating them and sending signals to our brains that then interpret them. Your every action and your every word have consequences. People around you are looking and listening to you. Lead by example. Everything you do will impact someone or something so consider the cause-effect relationship and think globally. A community is a set of individuals, remember? You are an individual and are in your own small way shaping every community you are a part of. Accept the responsibility for your actions and your thoughts. Now and then, stop for a moment and think about your convictions and are they benefiting everyone. Do not let your emotions be the means you are manipulated with.

If you are interested in more about this subject, check out these REFERENCES:

Until next time,
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Thank you for your lovely support 💚

The findings of the study revealed that people are generally a nonviolent and peaceful species.

That sorta goes against what ever book you happen to follow, doesn't it?

It made me giggle that the authors of one of the papers were hoping that governments could use their findings to control the violent urges. Governments PROMOTE them.

Government isn't going to come bail you out on this one. It's why I'm so hopeful for the future, knowing some millennials that seem to be connected across borders.

In the end, it comes down to people. "Be the change you want to see." If you like the hypocrisy and manipulation of organized religion, by all means continue. But at the very least please KNOW that you are being manipulated.

Urrrggghhh. It's all so un needed. And so ingrained.

Thanks Petra. Per normal you've knocked it out of the park with this article.

Well... Not all governments promote it actually, most of them do but there are some who do not. Unfortunately, moving there is out of the questions because I do not like their climate :)

Fascinating and thought-provoking. It's certainly not just religion, but any deeply-embedded beliefs that can provoke anger and even violence. Some people treat politics like a religion, and even if they mean well, even the slightest challenge to those beliefs can provoke a violent reaction.
A few years ago I did a lot of study into the history of the Pacific Islands. One thing that interested me is that the first Europeans to travel to the Pacific islands found large differences in various island groups that were very remote from each other. Some communities did seem to be very peaceful, while others were quite warlike. The Fijians were actually excellent surgeons, because they fought so many wars that they'd learned how to patch up wounded people!
I personally doubt that these peaceful or warlike tendencies are in people's DNA - it's because societies go through changes and variations, and the Europeans probably encountered the Fijians when they were in the midst of lots of power struggles, while the Marquesans were going through a period of stability. And certainly the Fijians (and the Tongans) had very complex social structures and complex beliefs. It's a fascinating subject.

That is why many languages (my included) have a saying you are acting religious about it when they want to point out that someone has gone too far in his protective behavior towards something. Thank you for your nice comment and for adding value with the knowledge you shared 💚

Good point!

The thing that is really puzzling me is the machine-learning part and the fact that religiosity has been simulated. I am very new in the field of machine learning myself (this is for now one of my hobbies). I will read the full study tomorrow in the train. I am really curious about the technical details!

I think you will find it quite interesting ;)

Wow!! My mind is blown by your article! I was brought up hard core Christian and the violent nature of scripture never sat well with me.. if you want to teach peace, teach peace not recounts of violent war.. also, the hypocrisy that creeps up... god loves unconditionally yet there are so many conditions to “salvation” and god’s approval / love.. thank you for your insight taking the time to put this awesome article together!

Thank you for your lovely feedback, I appreciate it 💚

Hell of a read hun! Glad you got some good recognition for it. And yes, written in blood. Probably my favorite part because it really touches on the passion of belief itself. People willing to die for a cause. That's powerful magic there😉

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Yeah, powerful and used by governments and churches for ages :D I am glad you enjoyed the read honey 💚

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Thank you for your lovely support, I really appreciate it 💚

There's Alot to talk about in this article

Your every action and your every word have >consequences.

Yea we create our own world but I would go further and say it starts with our.
It doesn't help to act good when we carry negative thoughts with us all the time.
Good actions come automatically afterwards.
I enjoyed reading it. I'm looking forward to see more!

I am glad you have enjoyed the read.

I really like this topic! I did not finish the reading until half only but I do understand the point. I did discuss this before to @papa-pepper and it was a long discussion or explanation but let me make it short and give all others to think of in their own idea. Because my idea came from the Bible.

Bible is the Math, science, history and even physics. Everything is there, even the Good and Evil was talking about in the Bible. Bible is not the word of God, it was the love letter of God to us. It is not written in the Bible but if people are observant they will notice that the Bible is full of LOGIC.

That's it! Thank you... (^_^)

I have read the Bible more than a dozen times, every letter and every word. I have studied it with nuns and priests, attended lectures, seminars and have more knowledge about it then you would believe. There is no science in it, no logic and it is most definitely not a love letter.

I did not finish the reading until half only but I do understand the point

Your comment is kind of providing backup for everything I have written in the post, I hope someday you will actually read the entire text. Thank you for your comment and for adding value to this topic with your opinion. Keep following the love, if you think that is Bible, so be it, but keep following the love 💚

Thanks... Let me finish the reading now. (^_^)

Perhaps they will make a god fearing machine that knows our very souls and can manipulate us to its wishes as it pleases

Sounds like a plot of a horror movie wow :D

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