Thoughts on artificial intelligence

I love listening to cultural and political issues. I’ll listen to podcasts and video interviews about all sorts of topics. Even topics I know little or nothing about can intersect with the issues I do care about. This intersection is usually at the corner where values and beliefs meet the subject at hand. A great example of this is Artificial Intelligence.

This is the next great technological front. The brightest scientists seem to be putting their energies into this study. I have listened to long, complex and often boring discussions about AI. I have no interest in the technology, except how it may impact my life. This is of course hard to tell until the technologies are fully explored. Having said that, basic AI is already impacting how we get news, what we think, what we buy and how we behave.

I do hear, in these discussions, great hubris and vanity. If you do not believe in God and you believe that humans are the pinnacle of evolution, then the sky’s the limit. But… if you believe that man is a lovingly made expression of a wildly powerful and all-knowing God, then the achievements of mankind are less impressive.

Human exploration and ingenuity is great and God given. But we are foolish if we think we fully understand God’s creation. We are only barely scratching the surface.

I love the story of Babel in the old testament. The people were going to build the greatest building and reach the sky and be like the gods. The work or their minds and hands were to rival that of the Creator.

Genesis 11: 5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

Again it’s a question of scale. The humans are building the highest building ever and God has to come ‘down’ to see it. It’s a little throw away line, and yet it says so much.

If this is a topic that is of interest to you, I love what John Lennox has to say about it.

2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity | John C. Lennox – YouTube