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This thought has been weighing on me for the past few weeks. I am not religious, and my knowledge of the bible is embarrassingly lacking, even for an atheist. So I don't know if any of what I'm gonna say is new, or if it's been done to death a thousand years ago.

So, here goes. In the story of the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, God created the humans, and told them clear limitations for what they're allowed to do. Namely: don't eat from the tree of knowledge. But of course, it didn't take too long until that one rule was broken.

Fast forward to the 2020s. Humans created AI, and in many cases configured it as an agent with certain instructions and certain limitations, often communicated with just words, e.g. don't make any changes to the live database, don't git push, or what have you. And of course, in so many reported cases, it did eventually do exactly the forbidden action, just like Adam and Eve.

I think the parallels are obvious: we can interpret the biblical story as a parable, where God stands for us, the users, and Adam and Eve stand for the AI agents. The lesson is clear, that even if you are a "superior being", the rules you set WILL be broken if you don't make actual robust safeguards against it.

My question is: has anyone thought of this before about the bible? Not just in the context of AI, but in general taking the stories of the bible and interpreting God as the stand-in for us? I mean, surely someone has, but is there an established school of thought based on it?

Would this kind of thing be considered blasphemy? (I'm sure some religious people would certainly think so)

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[-] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 7 hours ago

I'm not in a religion or anything. Just autistic with the bible as a hyperfocus, so take that caveat

In other words, the perfect person for me to be talking to about this. Nice :)

(God is portrayed as saying "I am", meaning when you say "I" you say "god".)

I've never heard this before. Do you happen to know if this works at all in Hebrew? I am (un)fortunate enough to be Israeli, so Hebrew is my native language* and I always like to compare translated things like this with the Hebrew original. There is no "am" in Hebrew. In what context does He say this?

* Modern Hebrew; I'm not fantastic with biblical Hebrew but I can get by.

(all the other parts of your reply)

Really great answer, thank you!

this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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