The threat to our future posed by artificial intelligence is made exponentially worse by another threat to our future posed by cultural intelligence, or actually the lack thereof. In a pivotal Wall Street Journal article, Aaron Zitner reports that the values which helped define America’s national character for generations are receding in importance to Americans.
We must remember that AI is not inherently evil. After all, if you go looking for funny animal videos, cooking tips, or sports highlights, it can fill your feed with content that brings happiness and laughter. But if you go with a darker purpose in mind, it can easily exacerbate those intentions as well. And those darker intentions have been around since humanity first left Eden. Ultimately, the problem with AI is the degree to which it makes feeding our sinful impulses so much simpler.
ChatGPT is, to borrow a phrase, “breaking the internet.” So far, what it has produced ranges from the impressive to the hilarious. It is also forcing a series of existential crises. For example, teachers are scrambling to discern the work of their students from the work of compelling AI counterfeits. The tech industry now faces what The New York Times calls “an AI arms race,” as competitors like Google apply their own AI to search engines and ad generators. Technology has made searching for errors in code, sifting through mountains of data, and summarizing complex issues in a few paragraphs exponentially easier and more user-friendly.
Given our fallen nature, how confident are you that we will master AI before it masters us?
Is a truly “sentient” AI even possible? How could code develop the capacity for feelings, experiences, or intentionality? Even if our best algorithms can one day perfectly mirror the behavior of people, would they be conscious? How one answers such questions depends on one’s anthropology. What are people? Are we merely “computers made of flesh?” Or is there something more to us than the sum of our parts, a true ghost in the machine? A true ghost in the shell?
A Google engineer has been placed on paid administrative leave for violating policy after he claimed the company's artificial intelligence (AI) appears to have a consciousness and perhaps even a soul.
Digital technology has transformed the modern world, opening vistas that previous generations would have thought impossible. Yet to fully master artificial intelligence, our brightest scientists are forced to direct their attention back to God’s original design specs.
Earlier this week, The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) urged President Joe Biden to allow faith leaders to provide input on the ethicality of artificial intelligence (AI) development.
A Christian entertainment and media company has released a new single that is performed by a virtual gospel artist made from artificial intelligence.
