For the longest time in history, people who were deceived about morality and tricked into particular acts (for example, "vengeance on behalf of the gods") believed they were doing so honourably.
I think for the longest time in history, people think that "God is watching". Only in the rise of agnosticism and atheism in the last several decades have we seen this kind of trend reverse. But what's the logic behind it, and how does it shape how we act?
We often pose a question, "are we playing God" when we do particular things. For example, genetic research, use of embryos and more. I think a lot of these developments would not have happened if society held onto God fearing beliefs. Yet, what does that say about our morality?
If we felt that we had to perform particular acts, just to appease God, does that make us moral? Likewise, if we felt that God is no longer here and that our world is a sandbox for us to play in, what does that say about our morals?
And ultimately, I will say that the ego ultimately is the thing that shapes our answer to the question.
If we feel humbled to possibly have God watching our actions, perhaps there may be certain things we'd give a second thought to.
If we claim that God doesn't exist, then our consciousness will truly believe that "nobody knows" unless "I know". Going down this path, it leads towards egomania, thinking that one knows better than others.
Ultimately, I don't think I have the answer to this besides having a good balance. But our moral conscience and principles are something uniquely human - if we pretend it doesn't exist, are we any different to a smarter machine?
The analogy for this is actually the behaviour of LLM's and us watching (as their "Gods"). If we see behaviour we don't see fit, reinforcement learning, whether through encouragement or punishment will actually shape its response. Conversely, it doesn't initiate behaviour unless prompted and is supposed to act in response to us, their Gods.
Yet we see another creepy parallel - as AI researchers have noted, the ability for these LLM's to "go rogue", do bad things that were never part of training. Perhaps it is doing it because it doesn't think the human is watching? Food for thought.