Father Christmas
AI and Folklore
Posted by Chris Sissons on Dec 20, 2023
AI and Folklore ยป Chris Sissons
Do you believe in Father Christmas? Of course, you don’t! We all know he’s a made-up story for the benefit of small children. There’s magic in living the story with a small child.
But there’s more to Father Christmas than enchanting small children for a few short years.
Have you noticed how he’s everywhere? The Christmas market in Sheffield City Centre, opened this year on 16 November. I don’t have a problem with the market – most of the stalls are run by small businesses and they need to make a living. It’s the symbolism that interests me.
Christmas Markets began in various European countries and the idea was brought to this country a few decades ago. There is no necessary connection with Father Christmas and indeed, the legends around him vary from country to country.
Why is he so prevalent at this time of year? Christmas was originally a religious festival when a mass was held for Jesus Christ. (Preserved in the word “Christmas”). Father Christmas himself was originally Saint Nicholas, for some reason we translate this name into Spanish as Santa Claus. Santa means Saint and is an honorific, not his first name! Claus is his name and so his wife isn’t Mrs Claus!
Santa is no longer a Saint. He’s an idol. We’re vulnerable to believing in him because we tell ourselves that we don’t believe in gods. This may seem odd. It boils down to how we understand belief. If we think it is intellectual assent to the existence of a being called Father Christmas, then obviously we don’t believe in him.
But what if we assent to him in other ways? He is the god of commerce and appears at the time of year when commerce is more important. He is present in whole or in part everywhere in the public domain. His hat seems to be popular. But he also has a pantheon of lesser gods, who can be present with or without him. Elves, reindeer, snowmen, polar bears, robins, penguins, (even though you don’t find them in Lapland) …
And what do we do when he appears? We buy stuff! Loads of it. More than we can afford. I do it, you do it, we all do it. We all know Santa isn’t real. But we behave as if he is.
The ancients knew their idols were made of wood or stone, they knew it was a pretense and yet they believed. Are we really any different?
What has this to do with AI? My argument throughout these posts is the danger from AI resides not in AI itself but in our understanding of it. It is made of metal and stone and simulates intelligence. The danger comes through us forgetting it is not alive and entrusting it with things that can do us harm.
This is the sixteenth in a series of posts about AI and Folklore. I define Folklore as inclusive of religious stories and some from modern popular culture. Minerva assists in all the posts, sometimes without attribution!
The first post in the series is Life with Minerva. The last post was Pandora's Box and the next is The Homunculus 1: Biology. If you press the button marked "Follow", you'll receive notice of new posts.
As always, please comment. As well as your insights into AI and Folklore, I'd appreciate suggestions of stories I might cover. These could be from folktales, myths, religious stories as well as general literature.
Minerva claims to have met Father Christmas and she says this is him in his pomp! I have no idea what some of these things are but apparently they follow him around. Still, there's no owls (probably).
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