Introduction
It’s always great to have C.R. Wiley on CrossPolitic, and last Thursday was no exception – talking J.D. Vance and the new Trump administration vibe shift, but ultimately landing on the topic of Artificial Intelligence and a new book he is currently working on.
Chris helpfully sketched the current lay of the land, and he has clearly read a whole lot more than I have in the field. Broadly speaking, we are currently at the point of what many refer to as “narrow” AI where super computers can run complex algorithms sifting, sorting, and analyzing data, but limited to particular applications: examples would include learning and playing Chess, self-driving cars, and Siri or Alexa assistants. The potential blessings of these tools are immense: AI analysis of medical knowledge is already producing breakthroughs in advanced diagnoses and treatments. AI language analysis and translation tools are likely to finish Bible translation into every known language in the next decade or so. World evangelism will also become even more feasible and potent, when AI translation assistants can be used in villages where languages are spoken that virtually no one knows.
The Major Question
The major question for many (and goal for some) is whether Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is possible and what Christians should think about it. This is where computer intelligence may autonomously shift between tasks it wasn’t directly assigned, solve novel problems on its own, understand different contexts, and use some measure of abstract thinking. This is where questions of artificial “sentience” come in. Could machines develop “minds of their own?” The concern for AGI has been well documented in Sci-Fi novels and movies for many years, from That Hideous Strength to iRobot to Minority Report and so on. While many within the industry have raised these concerns, others are lauding the possibilities, particularly the transhumanist movement, which envisions a utopian future, sometimes called the singularity, where human nature blends with technology into a cyborg immortality and universal world peace, harmony, and infinite progress. Elon Musk is among some futurists to celebrate this possibility. Sounds like Heaven and the resurrection only without the need of Jesus, His Spirit, much less His death and resurrection. Which of course is full blown idolatry and a false humanist religion.
It has occurred to me that this is nothing less than the old Babel dream: to build a city and tower reaching to Heaven. And notice that the Babel project began with the unification of language and tongues (Gen. 11:1). This is why the super human translation and interpretation tools of narrow AI naturally suggest the transhumanist singularity to autonomous men. And it’s worth noting that God does not say what they are attempting is impossible, but rather, just the opposite: “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Gen. 11:6). It appears that God has actually embedded some measure of this potential humanist idolatry in His creation and in the intelligence that He has bestowed in our bearing of His image.
While we may hope that God has also embedded various “kill switches” in His creation that render the ultimate possibility of the transhumanist dream impossible, we should also consider the possibility that it will require the active resistance of His redeemed humanity, as C.S. Lewis sketches in the heroic community of St. Annes in That Hideous Strength. At the same time, as Lewis also suggests in the same novel, we must also not underestimate the influence and participation of other beings, angelic or demonic or otherwise. To what extent might some AGI be nothing short of modern witchcraft and sorcery, calling down deep heaven and the powers of darkness? The fact that God’s law prohibits these things is a standing warning not to underestimate them.
Super Smart Beasts
As I mentioned on CrossPolitic, I’ve been working my way through John Lennox’s fascinating study of AI — 2084, and it strikes me that while I deny that human beings will ever create fully human intelligence since that would require a human soul made in the image of God, and only God can create His image and does so through a particular biological process, I do believe that there are massive possibilities in simulated intelligence that may approach the kind of being and sentient powers of independent personality found in the animal kingdom.
Therefore, we ought to think about taking dominion of AI and the ethical dilemmas posed by AI as analogous to our duties toward animal life. They can and should be trained, used with wisdom and stewardship, and where they can or do harm, take precautions and require justice accordingly.
Note: I am not saying that AI computers or even certain limited forms of AGI robots will *be* animals. I am suggesting that we think of them in that biblical and ethical category. I suggest we think of them as super smart beasts, perhaps even beasts that are smarter and more powerful than us in some respects. But this has actually been the assignment from the beginning: God created mankind to exercise dominion over all of creation, especially all of the animals, even the very crafty dragons and serpents and powerful Leviathan (see Gen. 3, Job 41). From the beginning we were supposed to be dragon trainers, and short of that, dragon slayers.
Animals have various levels of independent sentience, intelligence, and creativity. Animals function with various instinctive and genetic “programs,” but many animals are capable of adaptation, learning, and even personality. The animal kingdom also provides analogies for the ways in which AI technology serves mankind in our vocations and work as well as tools that extend and multiply our labors. Think of the way that animals “drove” our carts, wagons, chariots and plows for centuries. They were/are sentient creatures that needed training, discipline, and maintenance, but they multiplied our speed and power. And sometimes they were dangerous, lethal, and turned on us and had to be put down.
So, for example, with regard to the ethics of AGI, in the famous ox goring law of Exodus 21, an ox that kills a human is to be put to death. Therefore, a machine that causes the death of a human being should be destroyed. The law continues: if the ox was “known” for its violent tendencies, the owner of the ox is also liable for the death. Therefore, the programmer/manufacturer of a machine that was known for its potential to harm human beings is liable for the harm that it causes, if sufficient precautions were not taken to prevent harm, whether life, property, privacy, reputation, etc.
Conclusion
It seems to me that a more robust theology of human dominion over all of creation and all animal creatures will fill out our duties with regard to robots, AI, and various simulated intelligences. We should see them as potentially powerful tools and resources capable of extending and expanding our abilities to make the earth fruitful in every way, but like wild beasts, they need to be carefully tamed, trained, sometimes caged and chained, and occasionally put down.
My cohost Chocolate Knox also helpfully suggested along the same lines that we also must remember that much of what we think of as “non-sentient” is not as inert as we materialistic moderns often assume. Our older medieval fathers knew that the world is not just atoms and molecules, but it is full of the life and glory of its Maker. While we reject every form of pantheism, the Bible clearly teaches that mountains and rivers and forests sing the praises of their Creator. All of creation “groans” in eager expectation for the redemption of the sons of God.
All of creation: chemicals, oceans, hurricanes are not just impersonal forces, they may have far more “intelligence” and personality than we realize. When we mix chemicals together, there is more going on than mere machinery. While the alchemists may have been wrong in many ways, their broader worldview may have been more right. And we still don’t really know how the angels come into all of this. Scientists have only just “decoded” the bare human genome, some 3.2 billion pairs of “letters” in the DNA alphabet. But that kind of information is embedded in all of creation, that kind of intelligence. And it is there for us to study, explore, multiply, and make fruitful in every way. It is there for us to take dominion with wisdom, until the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
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