Theology and AI (Efficient or Humanistic Society)

Humans have many biases, and any tool created by humans can have bias inbuilt. AI will be inherently subject to bias as data generated by humans is utilized by algorithms. These biases must be accounted for, minimized, or removed through continual human oversight and discretion. It is a challenge to design and use AI in such a way that it treats all human beings as having equal worth and dignity.  AI should be utilized as a tool to identify and eliminate bias inherent in human decision-making. AI systems are only as good as the data it is provided. Bad data contain implicit racial, gender, or ideological biases, and many AI systems will continue to be trained using these data, which makes this an ongoing problem. Bias in AI does not come from the algorithm being used but from people. Back in 2015, Jacky Alciné, a software engineer, pointed out that the image recognition algorithms in Google Photos were classifying his black friends as “gorillas.” Google said it was “appalled” at ...

Technology advancements are happening at a fast pace, and humans are achieving what could not be imagined a few decades ago. In Genesis Chapter 1, God spoke, and it came into being. Now people can talk to their smart devices, and it will perform the actions requested or commanded. The children are growing up with a different worldview as humans have become Techno sapiens. Today most people rely on Google or similar search engines to find answers and expect these search engines to know everything. Psalms 115 talks about the idols made by human hands which have a mouth, but cannot speak, they have eyes, but cannot see, they have ears, but cannot hear, they have noses, but cannot smell, they have hands, but cannot feel, they have feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Now humans are creating robots that can speak, see, hear, smell, walk, touch, and talk. God created humankind in His image and gave them different abilities, including intelligence, knowledge...

Narrow or weak AI has already impacted how humans interact with each other, share information, and how they access information. Home automation, including security, has been achieved using AI, and it is being used now in health care and other industries, which have proved to be very beneficial to society. There are many ethical issues raised by AI. Eliezer Yudkowsky suggests that AI researchers need to focus on producing humane AI, which he calls Friendly AI. He says that if AI researchers create intelligence without morality, super-intelligent AI could threaten humanity. The advances in computing power and nanotechnology mean that the creation of inhumane AI is a real possibility. [1] The issue with viewing AI as humane or inhumane is that machines cannot be considered moral or immoral. Humane or inhumane would not be an inherent characteristic of the AI itself. AI could be humane or inhumane only in the sense that it produces a positive or negative impact on humankind. Noel Shar...

From the Christian perspective, there are different arguments about the possibility of AI and its implications when compared to the creation of humans by God. In April 2019, sixty evangelical leaders released a statement addressing AI. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention spent nine months working on “Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles,” a document designed to equip the church with an ethical framework for thinking about this emergent technology. [1]  The goal of this document was to help the church to think about AI from a biblical viewpoint. Leaders of many Christian institutions signed this document. Russell C. Bjork is a professor of computer science at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, argues that theologically that the soul may emerge from bodily processes. [2]  He also argues that in Christian teaching, human specialness need not be based on what humans are, but rather on what God intends for ...

A Turing Test is a method of inquiry in AI for determining whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being. The test is named after Alan Turing, the founder of the Turing Test and an English computer scientist, cryptanalyst, mathematician, and theoretical biologist. Turing proposed that if a computer can mimic human responses under some particular condition, then it can be said to possess AI. The original Turing Test requires three terminals, each of which is physically separated from the other two. One terminal is operated by a computer, while the other two are operated by humans. During the test, one of the humans functions as the questioner, while the second human and the computer function as respondents. [1] The questioner interrogates the respondents within a specific subject area, using a specified format and context. After a preset length of time or number of questions, the questioner is then asked to decide which respondent was human and which was a compute...