Artificial Intelligence Shows Why Atheism Is Unpopular

"Even harder to sway may be those concerned not with the methodology’s technical complications, but with its ethical complications. As Wildman told me, “These models are equal-opportunity insight generators. If you want to go militaristic, then these models tell you what the targets should be.”...

Nevertheless, just like Wildman, Shults told me, “I lose sleep at night on this. ... It is social engineering. It just is—there’s no pretending like it’s not.” But he added that other groups, like Cambridge Analytica, are doing this kind of computational work, too. And various bad actors will do it without transparency or public accountability. “It’s going to be done. So not doing it is not the answer.” Instead, he and Wildman believe the answer is to do the work with transparency and simultaneously speak out about the ethical danger inherent in it.

“That’s why our work here is two-pronged: I’m operating as a modeler and as an ethicist,” Wildman said. “It’s the best I can do.”"