Artificial Intelligence and Christian Faith and Life
By Rick Plasterer, Juicy Ecumenism.
Artificial intelligence continues to be a prominent topic of public interest and concern. An article last year reviewed Christian mathematician and apologist John Lennox’s assessment of AI from a Christian worldview. The possible threat AI poses to Christian faith and life was the topic of a pre-conference event on October 11 of the Southern Evangelical Seminary’s annual apologetics conference in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
AI and Metaphysics
Christian apologist and software developer Kristen Davis of DoubtLessFaith.com addressed specifically implications of artificial intelligence for belief in God, which was the topic of her dissertation. She observed that it has been proposed that artificial intelligence is evidence for atheism. Silicon-based intelligence, it is claimed, “would be a litmus test for thousands of years of religious preaching.” The possibility of a self-conscious machine is being held as evidence that intelligence first emerged from “evolutionary darkness,” with no need for a creator.
Although AI proponents anticipate the “singularity,” when humans “lose control” of AI due to its power and sophistication, Davis pointed out that it remains a machine, programmed to imitate the mental processes of humans, with no evidence of awareness or self-will. A computer may have many new technical capabilities, but that does not make it a conscious being. Google recently developed a chatbot (a computer program that simulates conversation) which it was claimed was “sentient,” but this involved “mixing up categories.” A technical ability to respond does not demonstrate consciousness. Just as microevolution should not be given as evidence of macroevolution in the creation/evolution debate, so task-specific (narrow) artificial intelligence should not be confused with general artificial intelligence, or with consciousness.
Davis identified three types of artificial intelligence: narrow, general, and super intelligence. Narrow artificial intelligence is an algorithm or set of algorithms that perform a specific task or tasks, such showing an advertisement for merchandise based on earlier purchases. General artificial intelligence is proposed to be an ability to interact with the environment generally, as a human would. Super artificial intelligence would be both general and superior to human intelligence. Chess playing programs are indeed superior to human intelligence, but they are “specific” to the task of playing chess, they do not interact generally with the world. Chess playing algorithms are not able to “paint a picture, they’re not able to write a discourse, [and] they’re not able to generate text.” The algorithms “are trained to do one set of things.” They are not “continuously learning.”
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