Who Am I?Sample

Flowing directly from what we looked at yesterday, let’s think Biblically about humanity and Artificial Intelligence. How does our humanity relate to machines when those machines are on an entirely new level, a level that most of us have never thought about before?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is non-biological intelligence involving a machine programmed to accomplish complex goals. This rapidly advancing technology leads to so many questions, like: What’s the difference between a human and a machine? The more we put the two together, the more that line is blurred. What are the dangers associated with adding components of machines to human development? Is there any moral code that should legislate the development of AI?

Instead of reinventing the wheel, I want to borrow from the statements that the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission developed to provide Biblical guidance around AI. Here are a few of those statements in condensed form:

• As a part of our God-given creative nature, human beings should develop and harness technology in ways that lead to greater flourishing and the alleviation of human suffering. Yet AI is not worthy of man’s hope, worship, or love. Exodus 20:3 alludes to humanity’s constant temptation to look to things for that which only God can do, and we know that the Lord Jesus alone can atone for sin and reconcile humanity to its Creator.
• While AI excels in data-based computation, technology is incapable of possessing the capacity for moral agency or responsibility. Machines are not made in the Image of God. Humans alone bear the responsibility before God for moral decision-making.
• AI-related advances in medical technologies are expressions of God’s common Grace through and for people created in His Image, yet—as today’s passage from 1 Corinthians makes clear—death and disease cannot ultimately be eradicated apart from Jesus Christ.
• Work is part of God’s plan for human beings participating in the cultivation and stewardship of Creation (Isaiah 65:21–24), and AI can be used in ways that aid our work or allow us to make fuller use of our gifts. Yet AI should not be a reason to move toward lives of pure leisure, even if greater social wealth creates such possibilities.
• God alone has the Power to create Life, and no future advancements in AI will usurp Him as the Creator of Life. The Church has a unique role in proclaiming human dignity for all and calling for the humane use of AI in all aspects of society. While we are not able to comprehend or know the future, we do not fear what is to come because we know that God is Omniscient and nothing we create will be able to thwart His Redemptive Plan for Creation or supplant Humanity as His Image-Bearers.