Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, . . . 2:7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
Exodus 31:3 I have filled him with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft,
Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants;
Intelligence - the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information; and to retain it as knowledge to be applied to adaptive behaviors within an environment or context (en.wikipedia.org)
Artificial – synonyms include: synthetic; imitation; simulated; manmade; reproduction (MSWord search)
It is hard to avoid AI today. In almost everything we read or hear, we find some reference to AI. I continue to warn Greta that sooner or later someone is going to advertise toothpaste capitalizing somehow on AI.
Already this morning, as we have begun our daily rituals and routines, we have heard references on the television news about AI influencing something. We have already had a conversation about AI. Certainly, during this election campaign we have seen and heard about how AI has generated false news stories, produced seemingly ‘real’ videos and otherwise intruded into our political process.
Wall Street and stock markets all over the globe are rife with speculation about how AI will transform our world and how to capitalize on AI in investment strategies, which companies in which to invest to obtain maximum return on investment. What’s next!?!
I do not know whether AI will prove to be the paradigm change anticipated by so many. I do not know whether or not this is the opening salvo in the war where the computers and machines take over the world. I have read many science fiction stories; I saw the movie The Matrix. The jury is still out for deliberations on whether there will be a war between cyborgs and humans, whether human civilization is doomed. Those sorts of debates have been going on for centuries. Notably, today’s Nobel Prizes are linked back to similar debates associated with the invention of dynamite.
As a Christian and as a minister, I do know that the only non-artificial intelligence is evident in the Creation Narrative in Genesis. Those verses above identify that the real, true intelligence is God’s. Everything around us, our societies, our inventions and our technologies are all derivative from the occurrence related in Genesis 1:1 and 2:7. Our earliest ancestors-in-the-faith understood that. Sometimes, we lose sight of the reality that it all began with and all has evolved from God’s words of creation, “Let there be . . . “
And, when things got off the track, the solution implemented had nothing to do with AI. Instead, God sent those same words of creation incarnate to show God’s creatures the way back on track. I often refer to Jesus, the Christ, as the Incarnate Creative Word of God. That’s not my original idea, it’s not my AI. I developed my understanding of that from the Bible, especially from the first chapter of the Gospel of John.
All of the intelligence I perceive in the universe comes from God’s words of creation. It stems from God’s initial creation, especially from God’s breathing the breath of life, God’s own breath into Adam. Regrettably, even from the beginning, humanity has shown a distressing tendency to ignore our God-given intelligence to the issues around us. That too is recorded in those first chapters of Genesis. Read about Adam and the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Read about Cain’s concept of conflict resolution.
Humanity doesn’t especially need more AI (particularly in politics or toothpaste!). Humanity needs to apply the intelligence God has given us to life all around us.
Stay safe, think, trust God,
Pastor Ray