The prophet Isaiah speaks of the foolishness of those who bow down to the work of their own hands, idols made of wood that cannot speak and have no power of their own. And yet the irony of idolatry is that idols come to have a strange power over us and our actions.
John Wyatt of the Faraday Institute sees this biblical image of the idol as a powerful lens for assessing the spiritual, ethical, and philosophical repercussions of AI. Although AI is developed with the goal of helping mankind shape a better future, in many ways it is us who are changed by the technology we’ve created. From children forming relationships with analogous persons like Siri and Alexa, to engineers who believe that programs can become sentient, to people who prefer interacting with chatbots over human relationships—in these and many other ways, we are only beginning to feel the impact of AI on the human person.
John and Gretchen discuss these issues and more, and bring up important questions that Christians must ask in the age of AI. If we are image bearers created in the likeness of God, is mankind then making AI in its own image? How do we respond to the desire to “upgrade” humanity in light of the Incarnation and Resurrection?
Each time technology advances, it raises the questions of what it means to be human, and what kind of society we’re building
Humans anthropomorphize technology which appears to be intelligent, simulates human speech or human relationship
There’s evidence that children exposed to AI develop a third category for being: living, non-living, and not-quite-living
Because of their constant availability and lack of human flaws, interacting with bots could change our concept of what relationships look like, what their purpose is, and our concern for the other
Analogous personhood: an entity that we know is not a person, but is capable of playing the role of a person in specific contexts
Whether it’s a wooden statue or a computer program, part of us knows an idol isn’t real even as we worship it
Although idols are ultimately powerless by their very nature, they paradoxically exert power and mastery over those who revere them
Humans do not make things in our own image; an image is a profound reflection that only God can create
“Because these are artifacts created by human beings, and because human beings are fallen, we should not be surprised that the artifacts we create are contaminated by our fallenness. And that includes AI”
Because tech companies don’t have a conception of the immaterial or spiritual, they are surprised when so much evil happens because of advances in technology
“Christian theology always takes evil very seriously. It always treats evil with respect. It sees it as a powerful destructive force that has to be reckoned with and even anticipated. So I don't think Christians were particularly surprised that connecting people across the world led to a vast amount of evil, because of course in Christian thinking there's a much greater awareness that the human heart is itself—this hidden reality within us—is contaminated by evil”
George Grant, a Canadian philosopher defined technology as “an interpenetration of knowing and making oriented towards the mastery of human and non-human nature;” technology is oriented towards mastery
“If this kind of humanity is good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me. I don't need to crave a robotically or digitally enhanced kind of humanity, because the original form of humanity has been vindicated in the incarnate Christ”
Our God-implanted longing for something more often gets redirected into technology
The idea that we control and direct history rather than God comes with a fatalistic, crushing sense responsibility
Heresies and challenges often lead to a flowering of Christian thought; why does authenticity matter if we can’t tell the difference? Truth
Personhood is not based on a certain level of rationality (cogito ergo sum) but on being loved and in relation (amor ego sum)