Thought for Today

1 Kings 3:5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask what I should give you." . . . 9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?" . . . 12 I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.   

Luke 2:40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This morning, as I drank my first cup of coffee, I watched a news segment about the development of self-driving 18-wheelers. I could not decide which concept is the most terrifying, an autonomous semi-truck or one driven by an average teamster. “A fully loaded semi-truck  in the United States can weigh up to 80,000 pounds, including the tractor, trailer cargo, fuel, and driver.” (Copilot Search) Even if we deduct the weight of the driver, that’s almost 40 tons! How comfortable am I (or you) with a 40-ton missile thundering along a highway at 60+ miles per hour guided by nothing more than a computer? Especially as so many of us patiently wait each day for our computers to (hopefully!) boot-up?

Autonomous autos and semi-trucks are probably an inevitability in our current AI-obsessed world, but, as I ponder that 40-ton behemoth coming straight at me on some interstate without a human driver, I find myself much less enamored by the exciting potential of AI.

As I so often and so understandingly do, I turned to my Bible for some illumination. The word intelligence appears in 1-9 verses in the translations I checked. Interestingly, the word wisdom appears in 212-234 verses in those same translations. The most common Greek word translated as wisdom is “σοφία, ας, ἡ wisdom; (1) generally, the ability to use knowledge for correct behavior insight, understanding (CO 4.5) or in a clever way skill, cleverness.” (Friberg, Analytical Greek Lexicon) Transliterated, the word is pronounced in English as sophia and is often used as a name, especially for girls. I categorically refuse to consider the Freudian aspects of why a name meaning wisdom is used in our culture only as a feminine name!

Interestingly, the various translators sometimes translated sophia as wisdom and sometimes as intelligence, making no clear distinction between the two. My Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms defines wisdom as “Knowledge of what is good and true; the basis for knowing what is true or false. The term has a long philosophical history, since ‘philosophy’ means ‘love of wisdom.’ It is an attribute of God and a gift of the Spirit.” (pg. 303) That tome does not have a definition for intelligence.

We see and hear a lot currently about Artificial Intelligence. I wish there were more discussion about wisdom. Could we somehow give computers Artificial Wisdom, AW? For that matter, could we somehow encourage more wisdom throughout all of our societies and civil societies?

AI can (hopefully) control that 40-ton behemoth coming straight at me on some interstate without a human driver. Probably!?! What would AW think of AI’s doing so?

Wisdom seems to me to be a rare commodity. Some days intelligence also seems to be rare. Our world does include many people who are educated, some even highly educated. Certainly, most who deal with AI are at least educated. As I watch the migration of AI into society, however, I cannot help but feel concerned at the seemingly apparent lack of intelligence, much less wisdom, in many of the applications and almost all of the discussions about controlling that migration. I would love to hear or read about some AI executive or any politician offering a plea similar to Solomon’s prayer for an understanding mind able to discern between good and evil.

Maybe I’ve watched too many movies, but as I watched that news report this morning, I could not help but remember Terminator and The Matrix. I remember WarGames and watching Matthew Broderick play Global Thermonuclear Warfare against a computer. Our world could use an epidemic of Wisdom, artificial or natural.

Use your knowledge wisely, think before you speak or act, trust God,

Pastor Ray