A Theology of AI

I was texting a Christian friend yesterday. The poor guy is stuck in the middle of a disagreement with the CRA (Canada’s IRS) over his assessment for a previous year. Everybody he talks to at the tax office tells him a different story about what he owes and why.

Having a little inside knowledge about the way bureaucracies operate, I could assure him this will continue to be the case, and to suggest that he keep talking until he finds an auditor who agrees with him. Enough calls and polite appeals, and there’s a good chance one eventually will. I see it happening all the time. People have a tendency to give up too easily when they are in the right.

The big illusion about both tax law and every other kind of law is that putting instructions in writing with exacting precision leads to greater certainty and a single, predictable outcome. In fact, the more we multiply words, the more interpretations proliferate.

Too Many Interpretations

Unbelievers often complain that there are way too many diverse interpretations of every Christian text. This is hardly an issue unique to the Christian faith. There are way too many interpretations of every text in existence, no matter how brilliant the mind that wrote it. In many cases, that’s the not fault of the law or of the lawyers who write laws, as much as I would like to blame them. Human beings are endlessly capable of twisting words to suit their diverse agendas, and readers tend to embrace new interpretations most congenial to their own situation. We like best the legal explanations that tell us what we want or expect to hear. Which, I guess, is just another way of saying that God found fault with the people. That, and even the best laws are not God’s final answer to a fallen world.

One of the fascinating features of the diversity of eschatological positions within the church is how they impact our view of new technology. Broadly speaking, Postmillennialists believe one of the church’s duties is to fix the world, and that once they have accomplished this, the Lord Jesus will return. Given the size of the task before them, they expect to be plugging away at that job for a good long time. Understandably then, Postmillennialists view themselves as living somewhere around the mid-point of human history.

Premillennialists do not. We are waiting for God’s Son from heaven, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. We believe he could be along for us at any moment and every new development tends to feed what some people call our confirmation bias on that front.

Reliable Pessimism and Inordinate Optimism

As a result, most of us are reliably pessimistic about artificial intelligence, viewing AI not just as a handy tool in the present moment, but as a convenient potential medium for demonic deception a very little distance down the road, assuming it is not being used that way already. After all, we are expecting a huge, demonic deception. The scriptures predict it. Currently, AI seems the most likely means by which it could be engineered.

That’s not an unrealistically pessimistic view of human nature. All technologies have the potential for both good and bad outcomes because they are the product of good and bad people. Personally, I think each leap forward into the virtual universe brings humanity closer to the literal fulfillment of Revelation’s apocalyptic prophecies. I make use of the new tech with much frustration and considerable suspicion. Developing a “theology of AI” is about the last thing on my mind.

Not so our dear brothers and sisters in Christ who expect to be working away at improving our world for the next ten thousand years or so. While some are appropriately cautious, others are wildly optimistic about potential “Christian” uses for the new tech.

A Kingdom Role or a Potential Disaster

One recent example:

“I contend that AI is this generation’s Gutenberg Press. The Gutenberg Press played an obvious role in the proliferation of Scripture in the vulgar tongue, (which, in turn, contributed to the Reformation, by the grace of God). I wonder what kingdom role God may have in mind for AI? Where the Gutenberg Press made every man a Bible-reader, might AI be in a position to make every man a (true) theologian, in a similar sense?”

Great googly moogly! Kingdom role? Every man a true theologian while our Lord and Savior is still sitting at the right hand of God waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool? That is one wildly optimistic way of looking at the world.

Then there’s this:

“It’s either Christ or chaos, and societies degrade when Christ is rejected. But the Internet, smartphones, and AI represent the exponential hastening of our degradation. We are neither wise enough nor moral enough to be trusted with these things.”

Time will tell, but I find myself more in sympathy with the latter view.