Faster, better, stronger, smarter. These are, with no exaggerations, the revolutionary goals of AI. Faster trading is revolutionizing capitalism.[1] Better diagnostics is revolutionizing health care.[2] Stronger defense systems are revolutionizing warfare.[3] And smarter everything will revolutionize all aspects of our lives, from transportation,[4] to criminal justice,[5] to manufacturing,[6] to science,[7] and so forth. But can AI also revolutionize our relationship to the poor?
According to International Data Corporation, AI is a $157 billion industry and expected to surpass $300 billion by 2024.[8] What’s behind this figure, however, is that “AI” is being developed by companies for specifically targeted goals. While some organizations, like Google’s Deep Mind, have their goal as Artificial General Intelligence, nearly every current breakthrough and application of AI is targeted toward specific industries. The money spent on AI is, therefore, seen primarily as an investment—the technology will yield much greater profit than human-based approaches.
This shouldn’t surprise us. As they say, money makes the world go around. But it does create a moral problem for Christians. Is it really a good thing for AI to be developed around the primary goal of increasing wealth? According to Latin American Liberation Theology, the answer is no.
Liberation Theology
Latin American Liberation Theology, distinct from, say, Black Liberation Theology or Minjung Theology, is a theological tradition rooted in Roman Catholic communities in Latin America. The tradition, as explained by Gustavo Gutierrez, is rooted in a Marxian approach to society that develops theology through “praxis.” Praxis, for Gutierrez, is a cyclical process of letting one’s theology and activity in the world mutually influence each other.[9] Theology should not be removed from the experiences of the campesinos. A theology stuck in the “ivory tower” is, in the view of liberation theology, a dead theology.
Liberation theology has had a large impact on Catholic Social Teaching from the late 60s on. One of the most popular contributions is the so-called “option for the poor,” an idea taken from the 1968 Latin American Episcopal Conference in Medellin, Colombia. The basic idea of this, which Pope John Paul II validated in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, is that our social perspective should prioritize the needs and experiences of the poor above all else. The idea has undergone some modifications in more recent theologians use of it, but the core remains that those most underprivileged by society should get the greatest attention from Christians.
But what does this have to do with AI?
The Civilization of Wealth and the Civilization of Poverty
The Jesuit martyr Ignacio Ellacuría proposed the concepts of a “Civilization of Wealth” and a “Civilization of Poverty.” Like Luther’s Two Kingdoms or St Augustine’s Two Cities, these antagonistic civilizations sit as dipoles for Christians. The Civilization of Wealth, for Ellacuría, is modeled by so-called “first world” countries like the United States and Western Europe. It’s the goal of growth, of efficiency, of progress and wealth. In this model, it is “the possessive accumulation, by individuals or families, of the maximum possible wealth [that is] the fundamental basis of one’s own security and the possibility of an ever-increasing consumerism as the basis of one’s own happiness.”[10] The problem with this model, Ellcuría’s student Jon Sobrino notes, is that it “does not meet the basic needs of everyone, and…that it does not build spirit or values that can humanize people and societies.”[11] In short, the goal of technological progress and “faster, better, stronger, smarter” that the Civilization of Wealth pursues is a goal that lets some people starve while others are rich (cf: Thomas Malthus), but also reduces human beings and the world around us to use objects. Max Weber called this phenomenon “instrumental rationality”—the world becomes an assemblage of numerical values, which, for capitalists, can be converted to money while, for data scientists, can be converted to data.
I don’t think it is too much to suggest that nearly all AI projects currently underway operate under these goals of the Civilization of Wealth. The Civilization of Poverty, in contrast, “rejects the accumulation of capital as the engine of history, and the possession-enjoyment of wealth as the principle of humanization; rather, it makes the universal satisfaction of basic needs the principle of development, and the growth of shared solidarity the basis of humanization.”[12] This model may not be the “wealth of nations” Adam Smith promised nearly 250 years ago, but it is a civilization where the poor and hungry are not reduced to poverty statistics. The dedication to human rights and the virtue of solidarity over progress leads to collective flourishing, even if it does not lead to leaps and bounds in science and technology. There may be no AGI in the Civilization of Poverty, but there will also be no discarded human beings.
A New Role for AI: The Voice of the Poor?
The place of AI in liberation theology I have presented is quite unfavorable, but I believe it is not the last word. The “option for the poor” is a privileged, but poorly developed notion in Catholic thought. As both an undergraduate and a grad student, I often heard this phrase tied to the call to be “voices for the voiceless.” The sentiment is noble, but how can we really have an “option” for the poor if we don’t actually hear from the poor? Why not give the “voiceless” their own voice? Therein lies my biggest problem with liberation theology as well: while Ellacuría and Sobrino are prophetic voices, they were also middle-class Spanish Jesuits, not formed within the third-world poverty they encountered.
Since AI develops its “understanding” based on the data and rules programmed into it, the problem of AI serving the Civilization of Wealth extends as far as the programmers themselves pursue those goals. AI programmed on data sets created by the poor, or AI programmed by the poor could, theoretically, be able to be an actual voice for the poor. An AI that can help shape policies directed toward the Civilization of Poverty because its references are taken from the voices of the poor does not have the same limitations or blind spots that current AI projects suffer from.
Ultimately, it remains to be seen whether AI can or will be an instrument to promote the flourishing of the poor or if its uses will remain tethered to the Civilization of Wealth. As Christians, our task must be toward building the Kingdom of God, a place where, Isaiah reminds us, all eat and drink without money and without cost (Isaiah 55:1).
Levi Checketts is an incoming Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Hong Kong Baptist University and an assistant pastor at Jesus Love Korean United Methodist Church in Cupertino, California. His research focuses on ethical issues related to new technologies, with a special interest for the transhumanist movement and Artificial Intelligence. He has been published in Religions, Theology and Science and Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology and is currently working on a book related to the challenge of our obligations to the poor and AI. When not teaching or preaching, Levi likes to play RPGs and point-and-click adventure games and go site-seeing with his wife and daughter.
[1] https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-trading-stock-market-tech
[2] https://www.healtheuropa.eu/technological-innovations-of-ai-in-medical-diagnostics/103457/
[3] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF11150.pdf
[4] https://indatalabs.com/blog/ai-in-logistics-and-transportation
[5] https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/252038.pdf
[6] https://www.plantautomation-technology.com/articles/the-future-of-artificial-intelligence-in-manufacturing-industries
[7] https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/ai-and-society/AI-revolution-in-science.pdf?la=en-GB&hash=5240F21B56364A00053538A0BC29FF5F
[8] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS46757920
[9] Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation, trans. Sr. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 10-13.
[10] Ignacio Ellacuría, “Utopía y Profetismo,” Revista Lationamericana de Teología 17 (1989): 170.
[11] Jon Sobrino, “The Crucified People and the Civilization of Poverty: Ignacio Ellcuría’s ‘Taking Hold of Reality,’” in No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays, trans. Margaret Wilde (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008), 9.
[12] Ellcauría, 170.
