Beware of artificial intelligence in the coming decades, before it’s too late.
AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don’t think people fully appreciate that, …”
“It will bring great disruption to our economy, and in the future AI could develop a will of its own that is in conflict with ours.”
Who said those things?
and –
is the fear realistic?
Who said that?
The first quote is from Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft. Now – one might think that someone with his background and intelligence really should know and understand the threat from Artificial Intelligence. It’s from an article recently published on cnet.com.
In an ironic twist, the very same Microsoft that Gates co-founded and is still very much involved with, is working on a project known as Cortana:
Gates’ warning comes as Microsoft is developing a machine intelligence called Cortana. The software, based off the well-known AI character from the company’s Halo series of video games, is available in Microsoft’s Windows Phone mobile software. Cortana will soon make its way onto PCs as part of Windows 10, the new version of the company’s popular operating system. Windows 10 with Cortana is due later this year.
Full disclosure – seeing as how I’ll be downloading and installing an early version of Windows 10 (hopefully tomorrow), I’m hoping to see an early version of Cortana. However – I don’t feel like I have anything to be afraid of.
I wrote the original version of this in January, 2015. It’s not August, 2017. I’ll be adding things to it, and providing some updates. The new stuff will be in text like this, so you can identify it.
First off – I’m thoroughly unimpressed with Cortana so far, especially when I have to open some sites in Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer in order to do things. I still use Google Chrome much of the time. It’s much more dependable and has features not (yet?) available in Cortana.
Moving beyond the technical issues though – my original reason for updating this was because of something Elon Musk (founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; a co-founder, a Series A investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Inc.; co-chairman of OpenAI; founder and CEO of Neuralink. He was previously co-founder and chairman of SolarCity; co-founder of Zip2; and founder of X.com, which merged with Confinity and took the name PayPal.) That’s so much stuff I feel like I should have put it in a footnote.
Anyway – that same cnet article says of Elon Musk –
Musk in October called AI development “summoning the demon,” and has invested in the space to keep his eye on it.
Also in the cnet article is a reference to something from Stephen Hawking –
Hawking, writing for The Independent in May 2014, also expressed his concerns. “Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all,” Hawking wrote.
Based on the colors of the text, you can now identify the authors of the quotes. For those viewing in black and white, using screen readers, and the like – the second quote is from Elon Musk – and the third from Stephen Hawking.
Let’s look at each of these three men, and then see where that leads us, in terms of God and religion – since that’s what we’re about here.
Bill Gates and religion
I suspected that Bill Gates wasn’t really a Christian, but didn’t know for sure, so I checked it out.
The results were fascinating. The answer is yes, no, sort-of. Which, “in the end” (pun definitely intended) will likely be a “No”.
Rev 3:14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
Wow. Could there be a better description of someone like Gates?
If you’ve read / heard some of what he has said – you probably think I’ve either missed something or am being unfair. Well – here’s the full story. Actually – stories. Because he’s said more than one thing.
Bill Gates Explains His Faith
In an article titled Bill Gates Explains His Faith in denisonforum.org (sorry – the original article is no longer available) one could easily get the impression that Gates is either a committed Catholic, or at least rapidly becoming one.
However, Gates is now involved in his local Catholic church. In an interview for the current issue of Rolling Stone, he says, “The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We’ve raised our kids in a religious way; they’ve gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in.”
The article goes on to talk about how our hearts yearn for Jesus – how Jesus is the most written about figure in history – and how to start the week of with a moment of worship. Sounds good.
But there’s a problem here. There are no quote marks around any of this. Not like the part I highlighted above.
That’s because Bill Gates didn’t say any of it! It’s all written by the author of the article.
Not like the one below – that does have quotes –
“In terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.”
Ouch! Not something one would expect to hear from a committed Catholic!
Bill Gates Reveals Family Goes to Catholic Church: ‘It Makes Sense to Believe in God’
This one is from christianpost.com.
It makes sense to believe in God. OK – I agree with that. After everything I’ve been through / done / read / Etc. – I agree.
But what does that mean?
“The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We’ve raised our kids in a religious way; they’ve gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in. I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief. I mean, it’s at least a moral belief,” Gates says in an interview with Rolling Stone in the March 27 issue of the magazine.
When asked if he believed in God, he responded, “I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don’t know.”
Translation – it makes sense to believe in God – but nothing comes out of that belief.
Doesn’t sound very committed to me.
The religion and political views of Bill Gates
This last one is from hollowverse.com.
Growing up, his family attended a Congregationalist church, a now-extinct version of Protestantism.
Now, Gates doesn’t seem too interested in religion. He doesn’t believe anything without evidence. He was once asked about the human soul, and he replied:
I don’t have any evidence on that.
I’d say this is the one article that actually got it right. Now, Gates doesn’t seem too interested in religion. Regardless of the words coming our of his mouth – he really doesn’t seem to interested in religion. He doesn’t see anything in his life that would be affected by a belief in God – and doesn’t believe we have a soul since he hasn’t seen any evidence. That sounds very much like disinterest to me,
So where does all of this leave him?
First off – I’m not making light of Bill Gates’ intelligence.
I worked in the IT field for 36 years. Back when Microsoft was just getting into what’s now called the “enterprise” space, I was managing the computer center at a large university. I was the first one in California to actually run Microsoft Server products in a university production environment. That got me bi-weekly phone calls from the MS VP in charge of those products. I say this to show that even from the early days I thought MS had a good product and mostly to set the stage for what comes next.
The key part of the previous paragraph is that people were in charge of the software that Microsoft was producing. This is still the case.
The only “intelligence” that any piece of software has is what the people writing it put into it. Short of a bug – badly written code or a mistake – software can only do what it’s told to do. (Even then – it’s still what it was told to do, although maybe not what was intended.) Yes – it can do things a whole lot faster than people can. But it can still only do what the people tell it to do – and people can only tell it to do something they already know how to do! Computers don’t “think”. Computers don’t make mistakes. Computers relentlessly do exactly what they were told to do – by people.
When we read about AI (artificial intelligence) – it can sound scary. And when we watch sci-fi movies – it looks scary.
But the bottom line is still – any machine with artificial intelligence can only do what it’s programmed (some would claim taught) to do by the humans who programmed (taught) it!
Elon Musk and religion
It’s very difficult to find a reliable / trustworthy source to find out whether Elon Musk is Christian or not – or even what he believes.
After a long time searching, I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer is no. I won’t even go into much of what I found – it’s not worth repeating.
The bottom line though, I can’t write up anything like what we just read about Bill Gates. However, having said that, we can look at something –
Mt 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Mt 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Obviously, that’s from the Bible, not from Elon Musk. But there’s something about verse 37 that is very much like him.
Note – not being Catholic (any more), there’s a lot of what the author of the following excerpt says that I totally disagree with – such as the Scriptures from the Hebrews and Bible literacy from the Protestants (which I am one) are bad and need to decay and die. I believe that when we examine the New Testament in light of what God told His chosen people (and by the new covenant – us) we truly come to understand both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures much better. At any rate – his comments on Elon Musk are very telling, especially since he is a fan of both this driving force of Musk and the Catholic Church.
Working for Elon is more than a job. It’s a way of life. It consumes you.
…
Two large posters of Mars hang side by side in the hallway that leads to Elon’s cubicle at Space X. That’s the mission: inter-planetary travel. Everything and everyone is consumed by it. Elon plans to retire there. Seriously.
Elon seems to be an atheist from the fragments I’ve gathered. Theology aside (and perhaps philosophy too) I think that Church people have a lot to learn from him.
John Henry Newman had it right when he said that one of the notes of Catholicism’s veracity is its power of assimilation. Throughout the past two thousand years, the Church has embraced truths found in many surprising places, and brought them to fulfillment in the Person of the Truth. It takes the good. Redeems it. And leaves the bad to decay and die. Examples: The Scriptures from the Hebrews. Philosophy from the Greeks. Biblical literacy from the Protestants.
…
We Church people often say that there is nothing more important to us than our faith. But, why is that Elon and his people at Tesla and Space X often seem more dedicated to making cars and launching rockets than we are to making known the saving encounter with Jesus Christ?
This Task, this Cause, this Mars is as complex and fascinating as the interplay of grace and nature within the heart of every human person. The goal is NOT to be quicker or cheaper. But we can certainly be better: “…for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8). Let’s learn from Elon. For Mars. 1http://thosecatholicmen.com/articles/what-church-people-can-learn-from-elon-musk-tesla-space-x/
Clearly, the only thing Elon Musk loves with all his heart, soul and mind is his work. Well, maybe the money and fame as well. But clearly not God.
Stephen Hawking and religion
Stephen Hawking is (was?) known as the man who set out to know the mind of God. He decided that God doesn’t exist. He now says, when asked if he fears anything about death –
I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
In a previous article, The will – or my will – Be Done, I reached the following conclusion about this statement and the person who made it –
I would submit to you that Stephen Hawking really isn’t afraid of dying.
It’s living that people like this are afraid of.
Living the life we were meant to live.
Living a life where we realize and acknowledge that God is greater than we are.
Living a life where we try to have our will molded to match up with God’s will.
Living a life where we live to the fullest – more than we could ever have accomplished on our own.
That’s enough to give you a good idea of what Stephen Hawking now thinks about God. Feel free to read more about Stephen Hawking in that article.
The passage below is certainly one he could use – but probably wouldn’t understand –
Jn 10:7 Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
So – what does this have to do with us as people – as children of God?
For all their technical brilliance, the people who are at the forefront of a lot of technology innovations – barring a miraculous change of attitude towards God – are on their way to being the poster children for this warning from God –
Isa 29:11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” 12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”
I know – obviously all three of these guys can read. And yet – what about when Jesus said –
Lk 8:9 His disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10 He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
“ ‘though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand.’
Looking at something – even being able to recognize the words and read them – doesn’t necessarily mean that understanding will follow. These men can read – but the wisdom in the words they read is sealed from them, by their own actions and thoughts.
Isa 29:13 The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
Consider this passage, when trying to figure out how the prophecy in Isaiah applies here –
Dt 5:7 “You shall have no other gods before me.
Dt 5:8 “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Artificial Intelligence, and maybe even those who create it – are the “gods” here, and they have replaced God. As for the “mean” side that many see in God with passages like this – the punishment to the “children” will be for those of us who replace God with our use of – read that as worship of – the AI god(s).
Isa 29:14 Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
The “wisdom” of the “wise”. People like this think they are so wise. Many of us think they are so wise too. However, with an all-knowing / all-powerful God – what is our “wisdom”?
1Co 13:8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
1Co 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Oops. Our wisdom will pass away. So much for AI. God has no need for it, and therefore neither do we.
Isa 29:15 Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
“Who sees us? Who will know?”
One may say that things like AI, and the people who work on them, don’t hide anything from God. But is that really true? When we were kids, chances are that every one of us used to think that if we didn’t see our parents – then they couldn’t see us. Eventually, we found out that wasn’t true. Is pretending that God doesn’t exist really any different? When we convince ourselves that God doesn’t exist – it follows that we also convince ourselves that someone who doesn’t exist cannot possibly see us. Eventually, everyone will learn that logic is just as faulty as what we used to think about our parents.
Lk 11:33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.”
Pretending / convincing ourselves that God doesn’t exist is living in darkness. Is it fear of not being seen as so great that drives a desire to not believe in God? Maybe it’s the fame and glory – which, with belief in God, wouldn’t be anything like the high that it is when we believe in God. That’s because when we believe in God, we rightly give Him the credit for our successes. Ultimately, the question is – what drives us to feel like we need to hide from God?
Isa 29:16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
“He did not make me”?
Can the pot say of the potter,
“He knows nothing”?
Can it get any more upside down than to think that we humans can create something better than ourselves – something better than what God created? That seems like the height of arrogance and pride.
2Ki 19:22 Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
It seems that we are left in a bad place when we worship at the altar of Artificial Intelligence.
What about the concern these men show for us?
So – what about the concern these three claim to have about Artificial Intelligence?
And presumably, the concern they have for us?
Bill Gates / Microsoft
While he’s no longer the CEO, Bill Gates is still involved in Microsoft, so let’s look at what Microsoft is doing.
From a CNBC article earlier this month, we see this headline –
Microsoft just officially listed AI as one of its top priorities, replacing mobile
Are you thinking they made it the number one priority in order to ensure that it’s done appropriately?
I guess the answer to that is – who defines “appropriately”?
The annual report for the company’s 2017 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, now includes six references to AI, up from zero in the previous annual report.
And the company has plunked AI into its corporate vision statement, too.
“Our strategic vision is to compete and grow by building best-in-class platforms and productivity services for an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge infused with AI,” the company wrote in the annual report, which was released on Wednesday.
For the sake of comparison, here’s last year’s version: “Our strategic vision is to compete and grow as a productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.”
Obviously, Microsoft is putting AI into everything to be sure everything they do is “appropriate” – right?
That might be the case, except that the article continues –
Microsoft has acquired a few AI startups, like Maluuba and Swiftkey, since Nadella took over, and has established a formal AI and Research group. That team “focuses on our AI development and other forward-looking research and development efforts spanning infrastructure, services, applications, and search,” the annual report says.
Microsoft’s vision reset comes after Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet’s Google, began saying that the world is shifting from being mobile-first to AI-first. Facebook has also invested in both long-term AI research and AI product enhancements alongside Microsoft and Alphabet.
Oh – it’s about competition and money. Being the best.
We already saw the arrogance and pride part.
And most remember what the Bible said about money –
1Ti 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Oh yeah – it’s got all three covered – money, arrogance and pride.
I wouldn’t count on any help from Microsoft when it comes to being protected from inappropriate use of AI, in spite of what Bill Gates said –
Beware of artificial intelligence in the coming decades, before it’s too late.
If anything, maybe he was warning us about his own company?
Elon Musk
We’ve already seen what it’s like to work for one of his companies. The employees are pretty much expected to have that company as their “god”.
However – there’s more – from an article in christianpost.com.
The future, at least in terms of economic activity, may well be dominated by artificial intelligence (AI), Tesla founder Elon Musk predicts while speaking at an event in Dubai. Humans must become part-machine to be able to interact and keep up with these form of technology, or risk irrelevance, Musk claims.
Humans must become part machine in order to stay relevant? Wow. That sounds a bit like Artificial Intelligence is going to be the Antichrist. I’m not going there though – I don’t believe we can or should predict who will be the Antichrist. I mention it only to show just how far away Elon Musk is from believing that God creating us as He did was even a good thing. Far from it, he thinks he can do better.
Musk is worried about our employment though –
A more imminent problem, according to Musk, is the autonomous car. Musk agrees that it will be a great convenience — after all, it is one of the central concepts upon which Tesla is built. “But there are many people whose jobs are to drive. In fact I think it might be the single largest employer of people” Musk muses, warning that the change could come before people are prepared. “It will be very disruptive and very quick,” he added.
And yet – he keeps going back to this thought –
The key to keeping humans competitive is “a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence,” Musk adds, as he explains his reasoning. Humans, according to the billionaire, must close the gap: “It’s mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output.”
People who communicate and obtain information by talking, typing or reading can do so at a handful of bits per second. Compare that with the speed that computers can communicate — “a trillion bits per second,” Musk explains, and proposes that humans will need to develop a way to directly connect with machines.
Which is more than a little problematic when considering –
Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Ge 1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Ge 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Ge 1:29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Ge 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
After God created man – us – and looked at everything, it was very good.
But apparently Elon Musk thinks he can make us better with Artificial Intelligence.
How does that line up with his statement that we looked at earlier?
AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don’t think people fully appreciate that, …”
Maybe some of us realize the risk – and he doesn’t?
Either that, or he does realize the risk and he’s going full speed ahead anyway?
Stephen Hawking
I almost don’t know what to say here. I’ve written about him before – you can use the search box at the top to find more.
In an article in The Telegraph ( from the U.K.), it said this –
The invention of artificial intelligence could be the biggest disaster in humanity’s history, Professor Stephen Hawking has said, warning that if they are not properly managed, thinking machines could spell the end for civilisation.
To me, it’s a bit difficult to understand why someone who seems to have almost contempt for life would even care if civilization comes to an end. In his world – what difference can it possibly make?
In another article, this one from Extreme Tech, we read this –
In a book that’s become the darling of many a Silicon Valley billionaire — Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — the historian Yuval Harari paints a picture of humanity’s inexorable march towards ever greater forms of collectivization. From the tribal clans of pre-history, people gathered to create city-states, then nations, and finally empires. While certain recent political trends, namely Brexit and the nativism of Donald Trump would seem to belie this trend, now another luminary of academia has added his voice to the chorus calling for stronger forms of world government. Far from citing some ancient historical trends though, Stephen Hawking points to artificial intelligence as a defining reason for needing stronger forms of globally enforced cooperation.
And there we see another statement that seems to be ushering in the End Times. Again – I’m not predicting anything.
From a BBC article, we read –
“I believe there is no deep difference between what can be achieved by a biological brain and what can be achieved by a computer. It therefore follows that computers can, in theory, emulate human intelligence — and exceed it.”
That, he said, could lead to the eradication of disease and poverty and the conquest of climate change. But it could also bring us all sorts of things we didn’t like – autonomous weapons, economic disruption and machines that developed a will of their own, in conflict with humanity.
“In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity. We do not yet know which.”
And so, along with his call for a one world government, he also plans on Artificial Intelligence moving right along with creating something that’s better than us. Or worse than us.
It seems then, that is spite of his warning –
“It will bring great disruption to our economy, and in the future AI could develop a will of its own that is in conflict with ours.”
Stephen Hawking is in favor of the entire world being under control of the one person who manages to take control of the one world government. That’s not exactly a promising scenario to me. Sounds more like the worst possible side of AI will come out of his vision – rather than any appropriate use of the technology.
What’s missing?
So where’s the disconnect?
What’s missing?
Why are so many super intelligent people afraid of AI?
Or are they really afraid? Are they actually trying to get the rest of us to be afraid, while they proceed in spite of their “warnings”?
Either way – or even if it’s something else – there’s a problem with their views.
Because they don’t know or don’t believe this:
Ge 2:4 … When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens— 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground— 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
The breath of life from God.
Without recognizing that we are special because we have the breath of life from God – I supposed there’s a lot to be afraid of.
Thinking that machines will self-actualize, like HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey, could lead one to be afraid of AI.
Knowing that it takes the breath of God to make us what we are, leads one to not be afraid of AI. No matter how smart we may think we are – we don’t have, and never will have, the ability to give anything the breath of life from God.
No. It’s not AI that we need to be afraid of.
It’s not even people – with the ability to “teach” machines to do the horrible things that we will inevitably program them to do.
Mt 10:17 “Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Mt 10:21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
Mt 10:24 “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!
Mt 10:26 “So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
If we have something to be afraid of, it’s related to what John wrote in the book of Revelation –
Rev 4:1 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
As I said – I’m long past trying to figure out what current events line up with which prophecies. The important thing to know – the end is coming. And from the first few and last few chapters of Revelation, we can either have hope or hopelessness. It all depends on how we look at it.
One of the questions is who do we look to for answers with things like how Artificial Intelligence relates to us humans. Will we look to someone like these three people – or will we look to God?
If you need a pointer to recognize the importance of the choice and how to choose – consider this –
Mt 10:32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
These three men do not (currently, at least) acknowledge Jesus.
I acknowledge Jesus.
Do you?
Again, I ask –
Who said those things?
and –
is the fear realistic?
image from science.dodlive.mil
Footnotes
- 1http://thosecatholicmen.com/articles/what-church-people-can-learn-from-elon-musk-tesla-space-x/