A Skeptic’s Dilemma: Unraveling the Threads of Technological Trust
Some Leaders I Know
Leaders that I work with do not have enough time to do their jobs. With every moment of their day scheduled, they are trying to address tensions, labor shortages, and financial constraints unlike any I have seen in my 25 years in the field. These mission-minded individuals are continually asked to do more, learn more, and communicate more than ever before to deliver on the promise the organization has made to its community to improve the health of those they serve. There is no expectation of this situation easing.
With this tension on my mind, my ears perked up when, sitting around a lunch table with a sampling of these leaders the other day, someone brought up Artificial Intelligence. Within seconds, the conversation veered to one about mistrust and conspiracy theories. Many of the group compared the introduction of AI tools with the implementation of virtual assistants, such as Alexa or Google. Their primary concern was with an invasion of their privacy and with the potential of algorithmic manipulation. It seems the mistrust around tools like Chat GPT and virtual assistants stems from a suspicion regarding the intentions behind the technology.
These are valid concerns of course,[1] but when professionals whose most scarce resource is time are immediately dismissing a set of tools that could help them operate more efficiently, I wonder if there is an overlooked opportunity to relieve the burden of their time constraints.
Societal AI Angst
A recent AP article titled: 2023: The year we played with artificial intelligence — and weren’t sure what to do about it[2] recaps the headlines of Artificial Intelligence that seemed to be everywhere in 2023. My summary of that piece would be that on a global scale, society has been at once mesmerized and horrified by the rapid development and release of AI technology. The social narrative has oscillated between preemptively attributing either the destruction or salvation of humanity to a category of technology that can trick us into doing a double take of a rendering of the Pope in a Balenciaga jacket.[3]
Eve Poole’s Thorough Assessment
My personality predisposes me to dismiss the steady drumbeat of AI headlines as alarmist hype. So Eve Poole’s Robot Souls,[4], systematic dissection of the technology into a series of metaphysical and ethical concepts for us to consider is good for me to read. This deconstructive approach helps us to think carefully about the content of the technology and then prompts us to reflect on how we should respond to this information. Diving deeper into subjects such as the distinctive properties of humans and their proper role in the world she wades into heady topics such as the nature of our souls. Instead of fixating on if AI has gone too far and if we are on the verge of a technology-driven apocalypse, Poole provides a thoughtful assessment around emerging issues related to AI and its implications to society at large. Poole dissects what AI is, and why it is causing such a powerful response. In doing so she also helps us understand more about the nature of what it is to be human.
Junk Code is What Makes Us…. Human?
A blog[5] on Robot Souls summarized Poole’s treatment of junk code well:
“Poole breaks human junk code down into seven elements: emotions, mistakes, story-telling, sixth sense, uncertainty, free will and meaning. None of these elements improves the efficiency of transactions but all are integral to making life richer. They are elements that make us human. Having identified them, we also see that they are fundamental to society, that is without them we would be hugely challenged to build community, and without community we lose the ‘human magic’ that keeps us at the top of the animal hierarchy.”
This idea of junk code reminds me of how in Spellbound,[6] Daniel Lieberman encourages us to explore the mystery of our unconscious and his call to transcendence; finding the balance between the ego and unconscious. Perhaps AI is presenting us with this sort of challenge. Poole goes further by asserting that in today’s world, we reinforce the areas of certainty and devalue the ambiguity that our unconscious generates.[7] So, leveraging our junk code goes against the grain and feels inefficient and risky. In change management terms, our culture reinforces the work that AI is good at which is threatening to leaders. After all: if AI is doing what we think we are good at, then where does that leave us?
Back to Those Busy Leaders
Poole’s work has given me clarity on a challenge that lies before us with AI. As a species, we will always have this unconscious and wonderful junk code that makes us distinctly human, and that is to be celebrated and utilized to its fullest. The task ahead is to find ways to use AI to help us gain efficiencies where we can leaving us more space for the mystery of creative, unconscious work. To use a term from Liberman, perhaps this is a way that we can find a type of transcendence; helping us live into the imago dei attributes that make us special.[8]
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[1] I did not have space to go into the current attempts at regulation for AI. I did find an interesting article about some emerging work here: Joshua Dupuy and Joshua Dupuy, “Beyond the Imitation Game: The World Begins Construction on a Global Legal Framework for AI,” Reuters, January 5, 2024, sec. Legal Industry, https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/beyond-imitation-game-world-begins-construction-global-legal-framework-ai-2024-01-05/.
[2] “2023: The Year We Played with Artificial Intelligence — and Weren’t Sure What to Do about It,” December 14, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/ai-2023-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-dangers-565ff5b817b5db0d4e74829ae3d68611.
[3] Kalley Huang, “Why Pope Francis Is the Star of A.I.-Generated Photos,” The New York Times, April 8, 2023, sec. Technology, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/technology/ai-photos-pope-francis.html.
[4] Eve Poole, Robot Souls: Programming in Humanity, 1st edition (CRC Press, 2023).
[5] “Robot Souls,” Ideas for Leaders (blog), accessed January 13, 2024, https://ideasforleaders.com/book_reviews/robot-souls/.
[6] Daniel Z. Lieberman MD, Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind (BenBella Books, 2022).
[7] Poole, Robot Souls, 166–67.
[8] For Irony, the title was generated by AI.
About the Author
Jennifer Vernam
13 responses to “A Skeptic’s Dilemma: Unraveling the Threads of Technological Trust”
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What a breath of fresh air this was. Seriously I was (and still am) struggling with the dark implications of attempting to program our “junk code” into AI.
Not that I will drop all concern, but I appreciate being redirected, even if for a moment. The reality is I’m one of those people who have less and less precious time, and there are amazing, miraculous tools out there that use AI to help me reclaim the time and make the most of it.
I guess I need to be more careful to discern bathwater from baby. Thanks for the reminder!!!
Jen, you wrote, “Leaders that I work with do not have enough time to do their jobs.” That would be a great topic to discuss in a focus group…what to do when we don’t have time to do our jobs, and what might be some of the underlying causes — if they had time for a focus group. Seriously though, that would be a great NPO to explore. The question could be accompanied by…”and how A.I. might be able to help (or NOT!).”
If you had to guess, what would be the top two or three ways people would say that A.I. might help them (or put their work at risk)?
One idea I had recently was the ability of AI to synthesize meeting transcripts (which could also be collected through AI), summarize the conversation and then alert leaders to topics that are relevant to them in the meetings they miss. It would almost like delegating someone to be a set of ears in rooms that leaders just cannot make it into.
What do you think?
Hi, Jen,
You mentioned “the task ahead is to find ways to use AI to help us gain efficiencies where we can leave more space for the mystery of creative, unconscious work.” Amen to that! I just introduced AI to my husband four months ago and his writing to the church has gotten so much better. He would always have me edit and then rewrite for him (especially important emails). It has taken much time off of his plate and mine.
Also, I just had a zoom meeting that was very interesting where the Zoom meeting was rated by AI. It was a recruiter we were working with to hire a staff person. He says AI rates him and instructs him on what can be improved on. That could be helpful or extremely annoying.
Anyway, thanks for your positive post. I always gain many good resources from you to follow up on.
I am not sure how I feel about having AI rate my meetings! That could be kind of uncomfortable! Which, I guess, is the whole issue we are unpacking here. How vulnerable do we want to be with this technology?
Jen, You wrote, “Poole’s work has given me clarity on a challenge that lies before us with AI. As a species, we will always have this unconscious and wonderful junk code that makes us distinctly human, and that is to be celebrated and utilized to its fullest. The task ahead is to find ways to use AI to help us gain efficiencies where we can leaving us more space for the mystery of creative, unconscious work. To use a term from Liberman, perhaps this is a way that we can find a type of transcendence; helping us live into the imago dei attributes that make us special.”
In reading about the leaders you work with day in and day out, how would you dream of practically helping them if AI could do anything for you in light of your paragraph above?
You asked a similar question to Travis, to which I responded that I think AI could be helpful in “auditing” meetings that leaders are not able to attend. Just yesterday, a colleague and I were discussing another idea: what if AI could do an assessment of a group of leaders who are in a lot of similar meetings and make some suggestions as to how we could either consolidate meetings, and/or strategies for delegation? All of this is in an attempt to reduce meeting fatigue.
Hi Jennifer,
I really appreciate this statement and I realize others have noted it as well, “The task ahead is to find ways to use AI to help us gain efficiencies where we can leaving us more space for the mystery of creative, unconscious work.” This is the practical goal of AI and the clarity I needed. In your view is programming soul in to AI necessary to achieve that goal?
Hi Jenny!
Not only do I NOT think it is necessary, I think that doing so is dangerously close to swimming outside our lane. Isn’t our soul the imago dei part of us? Esther and I dialogue a bit about this in her post… it feels very Tower of Babble-like to attempt trying to recreate in a robot what God intended for humans. What do you think?
I really appreciate your opinion and I do agree with you. After reading through everyone’s post and reflecting on my own questions, I think our human souls are to be treasured, nurtured, and attended to with curiosity and wonder as a precious and miraculous gift. God is the rightful creator of soul. I think we would be wise to stay in our lane and out of God’s.
Jen, you write, “Instead of fixating on if AI has gone too far and if we are on the verge of a technology-driven apocalypse, Poole provides a thoughtful assessment around emerging issues related to AI and its implications to society at large. Poole dissects what AI is, and why it is causing such a powerful response. In doing so she also helps us understand more about the nature of what it is to be human.” This is what I so appreciated about her book and, let’s be honest, her podcasts I listened to instead of reading the whole book. She doesn’t use scare tactics instead helping us to consider what is unique about humans – deepening our appreciation of humanity.
You also write, “The task ahead is to find ways to use AI to help us gain efficiencies where we can leaving us more space for the mystery of creative, unconscious work.” I’m curious – do you agree that we should learn to program “soul” or junk code into AI or that it should simply be used to make our work more efficient – leaving the human stuff up to the real humans? That is where I would want to go but I’m worried that we won’t be satisfied with robots that can simply make our work more efficient – but for better or for worse will keep striving to make robots that are “human.”
Hi Kally-
Thanks for your reflections on my post. To answer your question: I am of the opinion that we need to let the robots be robots and the humans be humans. (I guess I am old-fashioned that way!) I share your concern that in our hubris we will keep trying to push the envelop. And, I don’t necessarily think that greater regulation will resolve that. However, the cat is out of the proverbial bag, so I guess flawed regulation is better than none?
Hey Jennifer, your thought process is always so organized and deeply insightful. I really could not get past your first paragraph because it spoke so loud. So here is my question:
Why do the leaders you work with do not have enough time to do their work?
Finally, I love near the end of your post how you saw our junk code as something that keeps us distinctly human, which should be celebrated. So I wonder how AI will celebrate our flaws? Thanks for your brilliance, Jennifer.