Artificial nethermost intelligence

Aleteia

"the wealth of intelligence employed by the engineers [of such machines] does not in any way raise the machine towards intelligence.  [Quite] the contrary:  what the[ engineers] testify to is [rather] the [enormous] effort required to reduce rational tasks to the level of a natural [(which is to say, sub-intelligent and inanimate, corpse-like and inert)] operation among the most impoverished [of them all]."

"Dans la conception de telles machines, les trésors d’intelligence déversés par les ingénieurs n’élèvent donc aucunement la machine vers l’intelligence, ils témoignent au contraire de l’effort nécessaire à l’homme pour abaisser des tâches rationnelles au niveau d’une opération naturelle parmi les plus pauvres."

     Fr. Emmanuel Perrier, O.P., "Que fait l’intelligence artificielle?," Revue thomiste website, October (?) 2025.  "Artificial nethermost intelligence" is my attempt to reproduce the number of syllables in the phrase "Artificial general intelligence."

"'faith and love' . . . can be maintained only when docetism is rejected"

"Therefore adopt meekness and be renewed in faith, which is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, which is the blood of Jesus Christ."

ὑμεις οὖν τὴν πραϋπάθειαν ἀναλαβόντες ἀνακτήσασθε ἑαυτοὺς ἐν πίστει ὅ ἐστιν σὰρξ τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ ἐν ἀγάπῃ, ὅ ἐστιν αἷμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

     St. Ignatius, Trallians 8.1, as trans. Kirsopp Lake.  Cf. J. B. Lightfoot, The apostolic fathers:  Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp 2.2 (1889), 171; Walter Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief, Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Ergänzungsband 2 (Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1920), 236; William R. Schoedel & Helmut Koester, Ignatius of Antioch:  a commentary on the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1985), 149-150; etc. (I have not looked for any scholarship on this beyond (but not exhaustively!) the genre of the handy "commentary").  Schoedel & Koester, on the basis of a "study of the linking formula ('which is')":  "The basic concern seems to be the affirmation of the reality of the flesh (and hence of the suffering) of the historical Jesus. And this, in turn, is linked by Ignatius with the maintenance of true obedience and love (Sm. 6.2; cf. Tr. 2.1). For in Ignatius' mind 'faith and love' (cf. Sm. 6.1) can be maintained only when docetism is rejected."
     Cf. Romans 7.2-3, as trans. Lake, modifications mine:

[living (ζῶν)] I write to you[,] desiring [(ἐρῶν)] death.  My [desire (ἐρως)] has been crucified, and there is in me no fire of love [(πῦρ φιλόυλον)] for material things; but only water living and speaking in me [(ζῶν καὶ λαλοῦν, emended by Lightfoot (II.2 (1889), pp. 224-25) to ἁλλόμενον, from Jn 4:14 as interpolated into the long recension, welling up)] in me, and saying to me from within, 'Come to the Father.'  I have no pleasure in the food of corruption or in the delights of this life.  I desire [(θέλω)] the 'bread [(ἄρτον)] of God,' which is the flesh [(σὰρξ)] of Jesus Christ, who was 'of the seed of David,' and for drink I desire [(θέλω)] his blood [(αἷμα)], which is incorruptible love [(ἀγάπη ἄφθαρτος)].