{"id":35014,"date":"2024-01-18T12:25:34","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T20:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35014"},"modified":"2024-01-18T12:25:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T20:25:34","slug":"ai-robots-and-the-divine-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/ai-robots-and-the-divine-council\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Robots and The Divine Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the original Jurassic Park film, where prehistoric titans are brought back to life and wreak havoc on an island, Dr. Ian Malcom famously says, \u201cYeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should<\/em>.\u201d This question seems to be on a lot of people\u2019s minds concerning AI these days.<\/p>\n

Should<\/em> we keep developing and using AI and robotics?<\/p>\n

Guess what\u2026we just can\u2019t help ourselves. If humans can create something, we are going to take it to its limits. Progress, improvement, evolution, and technological development are in our blood. As Eve Poole, referring to AI, states, in Robot Souls<\/em>, \u201cNot to do so, when we increasingly have the technology, is to voluntarily embrace our limitations.\u201d[1]<\/a> If creating the atomic bomb, which could wipe out the world in the wrong hands, did not stop us, risking machines taking over the world would not either.<\/p>\n

Creation is in our DNA. It is in \u201cour code\u201d. The Judeo-Christian faith tradition believes humans are made in God\u2019s image. The first thing ancient Israel records God doing in Genesis is creating<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Robot Souls<\/em> was much more fascinating than I anticipated. For a short read, it covered a lot of deep issues surrounding big philosophical concepts like ontology, epistemology, and existentialism. However, it surprisingly got my theological wheels turning. AI has put humanity into a unique situation, especially if we could somehow code souls into robots. As Poole was exploring rules, boundaries, and laws for both humans and AI to coexist, I thought, \u201cWe are attempting to think like a divine creator as we make something that may, or may not, have some kind of consciousness.\u201d This special time in history is forcing us to reflect on and examine who and what we are as humans and who we want to be as we create this complex, and possibly sentient, technology.<\/p>\n

Responsibility was the main theological and moral issue I found myself thinking about while reading. Poole says, \u201cTherefore we are morally responsible for them\u2026This is not because of what they are due, but because of who we <\/em>are\u2026It dehumanizes us<\/em> if we abuse them.\u201d[2]<\/a> The fact that Poole is already referring to AI robots as conscious beings is already a bit eerie, but challenging us to be loving and benevolent creators, as we develop this technology seems like we are sitting around a heavenly table as a divine council.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s think about this. Part of \u201ccoding a soul\u201d is allowing mistakes, free will, subjective meaning, emotions, uncertainty, and storytelling. Poole insinuates that higher degrees of\u00a0free will<\/em> should be the final things coded into robots once certain levels of maturity and choice-making have reached a safe threshold. That’s right, we are thinking about robots learning and maturing like humans.<\/p>\n

Hang with me here. I could not help but think about Paul, when he says in 2 Corinthians 2:3 \u201cYou show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God,\u00a0not on tablets of stone\u00a0but on tablets of human hearts<\/em>.\u201d The New Testament depicts a new Spirit emerging in the early church that writes the law on their hearts. Tom Holland in his book Dominion,<\/em> argues that this concept of conscience<\/em> is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the Judeo-Christian faith developed by Paul. [3]<\/a> He believes to be guided by a certain type of moral conscience is to be Christian.<\/p>\n

Over the years I\u2019ve read several theories and theologians who have noticed a developmental process in Israel\u2019s history. Early on, like children, the law, which was concrete and rigid, was necessary for Israel’s collective stage of development. However, once a threshold was reached, similar to what Poole says about AI robots, more rope could be given, and the rules could be relaxed. Similar to what parents do with their children as they develop as Erik Erikson, the Harvard psychiatrist, lays out in his theories on human development.[4]<\/a> Eve explicitly says, \u201cThis theme of taking responsibility for \u2018family members\u2019 is why many have argued that the metaphor of parenting is the best way to frame our relationships with AI.\u201d[5]<\/a> What a wild thought right? Humanity has put itself in a situation where we are forced to entertain the idea and wrestle with being wise and benevolent parents of something other than biological beings.<\/p>\n

As stated earlier, this whole AI scenario has challenged and forced me to think through my faith tradition, Christian theology, and human nature. I mentioned Timothy Keller\u2019s book, the Prodigal God<\/em>, last semester which argues that the Gospel has way more to do with who God is as a loving parent than our mistakes or even good works as human children with free will, who constantly search for meaning, and navigate their emotions and brain chemistry. I believe much of the beauty of our faith tradition has been a gradual revelation of who God is and who we are as children of God. We are still standing in this tradition of discovery by thinking through our relationship to AI robots in the 21st<\/sup> century, something unfathomable in Moses\u2019, David\u2019s, or Paul\u2019s day. Could we as humans, as we think about how to be loving, wise, and benevolent \u2018parents\u2019 to robots<\/em>, surpass the love, wisdom, and heart of our creator? I think not. This AI conversation not only causes me to think about who we are as we create, <\/em>develop, and especially use<\/em> this technology but also prompts me to reflect on God’s nature as the creator and parent to a global community created or \u2018coded\u2019 with an extremely complex nature.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Poole, Eve. Robot Souls: Programming in Humanity<\/em>. (New York: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2024), 29.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Poole, Robot Souls<\/em>, 16.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Holland, Tom. Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind<\/em>, (London: ABACUS, 2020), 77.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Erikson, Erik H., Robert Coles, and Erik H. Erikson. The Erik Erikson Reader<\/em>, (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), 191.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Poole, Robot Souls<\/em>, 113.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the original Jurassic Park film, where prehistoric titans are brought back to life and wreak havoc on an island, Dr. Ian Malcom famously says, \u201cYeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.\u201d This question seems to be on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2616,2988],"class_list":["post-35014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02-poole","tag-robotsouls","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35024,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35014\/revisions\/35024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}