February 2022

What is the Connection Between Liberation Theology, Data, and Employment Law?

In the second part summary of our November AITAB meeting, we explored AI for good in Europe, Industry, and Academia. This final blog closes out our summary of our meeting in November. In this piece, you will find varied insights that range from Biblical interpretation, law, liberation theology, and exploring different definitions of data.

Model Training and Biblical Wisdom

Brian: I’ll jump to the question of the theological and biblical frameworks for AI for good. Something Scott said sparked a direction I hadn’t considered but could be an interesting resource. When Scott mentioned taking one model that was already trained and then training it differently, that opens up exciting new avenues of meaning in terms of how AI is formed, what inputs guide its development. Everything the Scripture has to say about how people are formed can potentially guide the way that we do machine learning.

The book of Proverbs and other Wisdom literature in the Bible address the way people are formed, the way sound instruction can shape people. And what’s really interesting is that these books approach wisdom in a variety of dimensions, all aspects of our lives. Wisdom means not only insight or understanding but practical skill, morality, experience, sound judgment. And that multivalence is important. We as people are formed by so many different inputs: we don’t exist in discrete bundles of attributes. I’m not only a student. I’m a student and a person from my family, a member of my local community. Those things overlap and can’t be easily separated. I don’t stop being from middle Tennessee when I enter the classroom. So teaching and learning must take account of this overlap and strive for our integration, the formation of the whole person. And Wisdom literature exemplifies that in some respects.

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Elias: That’s a great point. One of the biggest searches of my life has been the search for integration. Even AI Theology started as a journey of integration of my work, machine learning, and my theological and Christian faith. I love when we start seeing these connections. It may seem a little awkward. How can the book of Proverbs connect to machine learning? As you stay with it, eventually something comes up, something you haven’t thought about.

Liberation Theology and Employment Law

Levi: In a different lens of what Brian was talking about: I’m working on a book project right now from the question about “preferential option for the poor ” (Catholic term). It comes from liberation theology and how it is understood. How you typically hear and study about it in theology. Being voices for the voiceless and champions of justice.

Yet, one of the biggest problems that are overlooked within this perspective is a recognition that the poor experience the world differently. The dignity of the poor is typically overlooked in societies where the ruling class identities are the ones that get imposed.

You mentioned the question of bias. We know for the most part, like facial recognition bias, isn’t because the programmers thought “I hate people from different races, so I’ll make sure this technology doesn’t work.” Most of the time, it’s because they weren’t aware of these problems. And that happens when you are a part of the dominant group.

When we look at the people who write about preferential options for the poor, they are people who aren’t poor. On the one hand, that is a great problem, that AI has currently, has been, and will continue to have the bias of the people who program. And these people are mostly upper-middle-class of white men. Even in places outside of Western countries, they still mostly are men.

The way AI works is based on what data it receives. If the data is given by white men, it’s going to be data they have curated. But if you bring data from different people, you will have different perspectives. And this perspective has great potential. When I listen to people from different countries, backgrounds, social economics classes, I can be sympathetic but I won’t ever understand fully.

If AI is trained by the data from people of different backgrounds, it can potentially be a better advocate of those things. One of the great advantages is that we think of AI as objective, and we think of the perspective of outcasts as being jaded. It’s harder to say that the computer’s outputs and ideas are not conducive to the realities of the poor. This is one of the great opportunities that help to bring the theological concept of preferential option for the poor and make it a preferential option “of the poor”, instead of only on their behalf.

Davi: Trying to navigate these waters as an attorney. The EEOC, is the US agency that handles employment discrimination cases. It just launched an initiative called “listening sessions”. They are starting to tackle the problem of algorithmic bias in the law. They are starting to see a lot of cases related to selection tests and association tests (IQ tests) that companies use to hire people. The right answer is based on a specific type of cultural background. If you come from a different background, make different associations, you score badly.

These listening sessions are open to the public. You can see how the government of the US is dealing with these problems. In Congress and other legal areas, you still have fewer folks raising these issues. So the law is being decided in the court in big cases, like FB on FR. AI for good may be creating some democratization through these listening sessions, and I hope this will be one way to get input from other people besides big companies only.

Data as the Voice of the Poor

Wen: I’d like to contribute by reflecting on what others have said and adding some thoughts. Several others have mentioned the democratization of AI with open source courses and data. Additionally, as different AI toolsets become more powerful and simpler to use, these will allow non-technical people who are not data scientists to work with AI. An analogy is how it used to be difficult to create fancy data visualizations, but now there are tools for anyone to create them with just a few clicks. As AI tools do increasingly more, the role of data scientists will differ in the years to come.

Scott mentioned a lot of AI tools are from ivory tower and/or homogenous model developers. There is a lot of bias encoded in those AI tools. Levi mentioned AI algorithms and training data tend to favor upper-class white men and overlook the experiences of the poor.

When we think about amplifying the views and voices of the poor, I’d like to speak from my perspective of Data Strategy: How are we defining “data”? What data is collected? Who collects the data? How is the data structured?

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Most people who work with data think of spreadsheets, tables, and numbers. We need to also think about qualitative data, things in the realm of social science and anthropology. And audio and visual data, such as from self-driving cars, selfies, and surveillance cameras.

How can these datasets be used to serve poor and marginalized communities? For example, spf.io is a platform that captions and translates live events and church services into many languages, including less common languages; this increases the accessibility of informative content for people in lesser-known communities.

I want to widen this conversation on data. There are things we don’t currently collect as data, things that are happening but aren’t being captured, such as someone’s intuition in making decisions. We also need to explore the realm of epistemology – what is knowledge and information? And what are categories we haven’t considered yet?

Teilhard’s Hope: Technology as an Enabler of Cosmic Evolution

In a previous piece, we explored faithfulness in a technological age through Jacques Ellul’s critical view. In his view, technology, with its fixation on perfection, was stifling to the human spirit and an antithesis to nature. While providing an important contribution to the debate, Ellul’s perspective falls short by failing to recognize that technology is, in its essence, a human phenomenon. In doing so, he highlights the dangers and pitfalls but fails to see their potentialities. What if technology is not opposed to but a result of nature through cosmic evolution?

To complement the previous view, we must turn to another 20th century Frenchman, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. This Jesuit Paleontologist offered a paradigm-changing perspective by fusing evolution with Christianity. Because of his faith, Teilhard saw evolution not as a heresy to be disproven but as the mechanism through which God created the cosmos. It is this integrative vision that sheds a very different life on what technology is and how it can lead to a flourishing future.

Humanity as a Cosmic Phenomenom

To understand Teilhard’s view of technology one must first turn to his view of the universe. Published in 1955, Le Phénomène human is probably Teilhard’s most complete vision of a purposeful human evolution. To the French Jesuit, evolution is not just a mechanism to explain the diversity of being on earth. It is instead the process by which the cosmos came to be. It is God’s way of bringing us out of stardust, slowly creating order and harmony from the primordial chaos of the Big Bang.

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In his perspective, cosmic evolution was leading to both diversity and complexity. At the pinnacle of this complexity was human consciousness. That is, evolution brought humanity to earth but as humans became self-aware, this marked a new stage of the cosmic evolution. In this new phase, evolution was pointing towards a future that transcended humanity. This future is what he called the omega point. The future of evolution would lead humanity to a convergence of consciousness, what some now call the singularity.

To fully unpack Teilhard’s teleological view of the cosmic future, one must first understand his concept of the Noosphere. While difficult to explain in a few sentences, the Noosphere is an expanded view of human intelligence that encompasses not just the material reality of human brains but also the more abstract notion of human knowledge. It is not contained in one person but it is present in between all humanity as the air we breathe. The closest analogy we can get is the Internet itself where most of human knowledge is distributed and easily accessible.

The Technological Age as part of Cosmic Evolution

How does technology fit into this rich perspective of cosmic evolution? It is part and parcel of the Noosphere. Teilhard’s expansive concept contained three main parts: 1) heredity; 2) apparatus; and 3) thoughts. The first one has to do with genetic and cultural transfer. Every person receives a set of information both from their parents and their surrounding culture that enables them to function in this world.

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The second concept encompasses the vast area of human-created tools which we often associate with technology. In addition to our genetic and cultural material, humans now rely on a complex network of artifacts that extend their reach and impact in the natural world. From clothes to fast computers, this apparatus, in Teilhard’s view, is another part of the noosphere.

The reason why this is important is that by placing technology as an extension of human evolution, the French Jesuit connects it back to nature. Unlike in Ellul’s perspective, where technology is a force opposing nature, Teilhard sees continuity. Instead, it is a vital part of the human ecosystem and therefore it is teleological. By placing technology in the noosphere, Teilhard gives it a purpose and direction. It is not a force of destruction but a result and an enabler of cosmic evolution to the omega point.

In other words, nature and cosmic history converge to create this technological age. In that, Teilhard adds a sense of inevitability around technology. This is not to say that he was a blind enthusiast. A European who lived through two world wars, Teilhard is inoculated against the illusion of perpetual progress. Instead, he takes the long view and sees technology as an essential part of the long arch of history towards Cosmic redemption promised in Christian eschatology.

Hope, Caution and Courage

I can say with no reservation that my Christian faith would not exist today if it wasn’t for Teilhard’s integrative theology. In the despair of a false choice between pre-critical Biblical faith and materialistic humanism, I found the third way of Chardian synthesis. This is a story for another time but suffice it to say that the power of Teilhard’s Christian vision is its integration between science and religion. This integration then allows us to have a different conversation about the technological age.

For one, it destroys the illusion of separation between nature and technology. Without negating the dangers and disorientation that technological progress has brought, we can rightfully see it as an extension of cosmic history. Yet, how do we account for the uneasiness we instinctively feel towards it? Why does it not feel natural? One explanation is that as any evolutionary process, it takes time to fully form. Therefore, it is not an issue of substance but of time.

With that said, I cannot shake off reservations with Teilhard’s view of technology as part of cosmic evolution. There is a quasi naivete in his optimist belief in the inevitable evolution of humanity. We all hope he is right but are too afraid to bet our lives on it. The disappointment would be too grave and devastating. Perhaps that is the greatest asset of his view, one that requires courage and faith. One does not need faith to prepare for a dystopian future of technology overlords running the world. It does, however, require a courageous and terrifying faith to believe that technology can fulfill its full potential as another step in human evolution.

Living Faithfully in a Technological Age: Heeding Ellul’s Warnings

We are living in a technological age. The acceleration and pervasiveness of technology (both as knowledge and objects) is a dominant force shaping the direction of history. No other time in history has techno-optimism, the idea that we can “techno” our way out of any problem, been such a driving force in society. As Big tech, maybe the biggest symbol of this trend, accumulate staggering profit, the narrative marches on.

Consider this, if the global technology sector were a country, its GDP would be the third-largest in the world. Even so, the pervasiveness of tech extends far beyond the economy. It has come to touch every aspect of human societies, revolutionizing how we shop, study, work, and relate to each other. The cyber-world, as it was once known, is no longer a virtual representation of reality. It is, instead, a reality of its own that now exists in parallel to our offline reality.

If technology is the defining force of our age, how can we live the good life in it? For centuries humans have asked this question as a way to engage faithfully with their environment. How do we do that in a technological age? In this case, a clarification is in order. In a time where the word technology gets thrown around a lot, what actually does it mean? To help us with this task we now turn to a 20th-century scholar.

The Danger of Technique

In 1954, French theologian and sociologist Jacques Ellul put forth one of the most complete critique of technology’s impact on humanity. His seminal work, La technique ou l’enjeu du siècle, is one of the first to recognize that we were indeed living in a technological age. In his view, that was a concerning development. He saw the rise of technology as a vortex that started in the industrial revolution but accelerated in the last two centuries. He used the French word technique that meant not just the objects themselves but a mentality, an approach to the world. Underneath it was the culmination belief that the world was a machine, and that by combining the right parts, one could solve any problem.

Technology was not a neutral force. Instead, it was marked by rationality. It obeyed prescribed rules and follow dictated patterns. It is obsessed with efficiency in every field of human activity. Not only that, but it often supplants and destroys the old, replacing them with the new. In doing so, it often leaves a trail of loss, confusion, and disorientation.

Furthermore, he believed that technology was self-perpetuating. It starts with a narrow purpose in mind but eventually, by creating new problems, it begets new objects to address it. In this way, it can raise whole new industries in a short amount of time. Thus, it can both be a fantastic driver of economic growth and job creation, even as it destroys and disrupts existing structures.

Techno-determinism and the Human-Machine Telos

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Jacques Ellul observed that technology tends to be deterministic. This is even more true today in a digital age where algorithms and decision engines are shaping our future by predicting, nudging, and optimizing human behavior toward pre-determined aims. In its pursuit of perfectionist dreams, it stubbornly seeks the most efficient method in a process which often supplants human creativity. It imposes its preferred method as a universal law, forcing all its users to follow its pre-determined principles.

At its essence, it drives the future toward a human-machine telos. Because it believes the universe is mechanistic, it further transforms us into machines. Technology, therefore, seeks to conform us to its image of mechanical perfection. It treats living beings as predictable objects built to accomplish narrow objectives.

If it wasn’t enough, Ellul believed that as it became ubiquitous, it has also become the new sacred. Supplanting religious hegemonies of the past, technology is the new god before which everyone must bow. One cannot question it, one must only accept its sovereign plan for a future of efficiency, perfection, and effectiveness. In that, he could not be more right.

A Faithful Response

It does not take much probing to realize Ellul’s proposed response to this predicament. In a technological age, where our world has turned to tech worship, Ellul is an iconoclast. Breaking down the idols through resistance and subversion is the only way. As a Christian, he believed that to be the most appropriate response in view of a mounting techno-tyranny. The faithful must throw a wrench into the whole process and work for its collapse.

By that, I don’t think he meant a complete return to nature. Yet, it starts with a recognition of the pervasive pernicious impact of technology in society. Resistance to technique, as both objects and mentality, is a return to human creativity and partnership. It most certainly entails a new way to build and operate machinery. A way in which it recognizes its limitations while upholding the sacredness of live beings.

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It means dismantling the centralizing power of techno elites and spreading their knowledge with the masses. Placing technology in its rightful place as one tool among many in the work for the flourishing of life. A subversion that returns to the human and hopefully leads us back to the ultimate. This is the type of response, I believe, Jacques Ellul could get behind and see it as a faithful rendering of his legacy.

Conclusion

Ellul’s critique of technology only gets more relevant with time. The prophetic insights that he originally saw in the half of the 20th century continue to reverberate in a world where technique has only become more predominant. Coupled with an appropriate mindset that replaces despair with action, it can lead to the type of subversion we need to see in our time.

Even so, one must ask whether subversion is enough in a technological age. Is technique only a phenomenon to be resisted, an evil to be controlled? Even if it is properly pursued as a tool, is that sufficient to capture its meaning. Are there other fascets we must see if we are to fully comprehend this technological age? That is when we turn next to another French prophet, paleontologist, and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Reshaping Christian Ministry in a Post-Covid World

It’s no secret that the church is changing in the post-Covid world. Ask any church leader and they are likely to tell you the same thing: It’s easy to draw a dividing line between the pre-pandemic world and the one we live in now. Patterns of church attendance and giving are different, as is the nature of Christian spiritual formation, the way we gather with others to learn, fellowship, and pray. As 2020 turned to 2021 and now 2022, it’s become clear that what started as a temporary suspension of life, as usual, has become a drastic shift of the status quo. “Normal” in 2022 means something different than it did in 2019.

It’s also no secret that technology is a major driver of these changes. A slew of platforms facilitate virtual small group meetings, and it’s never been easier to stream and record worship services with devices and software already on hand. The technologies that enable many people to work from home also enable us to “church from home.” Whether that’s a positive or negative shift, we can debate. What’s not debatable is the reality of it. For better or worse, technology is reshaping Christian ministry in the post-Covid world we live in.

Shifting Worship Practices

Shifts in worship and discipleship, two of the most central arenas of Christian ministry, illustrate the increasing influence of technology. Before the onset of the pandemic, in the United States, many churches offered online worship, and the number of churches doing so was increasing steadily each year. But generally, it was reserved for larger churches, usually offered through their own church website, and attendance online was sporadic. In mid-March of 2020, the Barna research group reported that 2 percent of practicing Christians attended a church with a live-streamed or other video sermons, saying “the data suggest these services are still a novelty.” Even in early 2020, streaming your worship service was a luxury for forward-thinking congregations who could afford it. Attending worship online was what you did when you were out of town and couldn’t worship in person, or a way for college students and those who had recently moved away to remain connected to the church.

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This all changed in the spring of 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic forced congregations to suspend in-person gatherings. Almost overnight, nearly every pastor and church leader faced a choice: find a way for the congregation to worship online, or forgo worship altogether. Most chose to establish online worship, and it became a vital link between the congregation and its people when the usual links had been severed. By June of 2020, Barna found that 96 percent of pastors reported they had begun streaming their worship services. The change happened swiftly, and even when a return to in-person worship became possible, churches continued to offer it online as well. They had taken the step, invested in the necessary resources, and seen the expected and unexpected benefits. Today, more congregations than ever offer worship online, many of them using one or more established tools such as Youtube or Facebook live.

Many of the questions regarding online worship have shifted as well, from “whether” to “how.” Before the pandemic, a congregation may have asked about viability and value. “Should we offer online worship? What will it cost, in money, time, and energy, and will it be worth the investment? Will people attend less often if they have the option?” Now that so many churches have taken the step, the sense appears to be that there is no going back. Questions now are geared toward best practices. “How can we offer online worship in the best possible way? What is the right time and format? Where should our cameras be placed? What streaming service(s) should we use to reach the most people?” And perhaps most importantly, “How can we follow up with those who encounter us online?”

Discipleship and Formation

Similar changes are taking place in the realm of discipleship and Christian formation, with the emergence of virtual or hybrid small groups alongside those that meet in person. In my congregation, several adult Sunday school and small groups classes began meeting weekly or bi-weekly by Zoom during the pandemic. A number of new groups began online during this time, with some continuing to gather virtually.

When gathering in person became possible once again, we maintained a way for people to connect virtually. And at least one of our Sunday school classes meets in person but uses Facebook’s Portal to allow people to attend virtually as well. Typically they have 4-8 people participating from home alongside the 20 or more in the classroom each week. Last fall, one Wednesday night class met in person with a computer in the room for people to participate via Zoom. I taught a different class that met in our chapel, but we also streamed it through Facebook Live and allowed people to interact via the comments.

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Conversations with leaders and congregants in other churches paint a similar picture elsewhere. There’s a mixture of gathering online and in person. It’s messy, inconsistent from one place to the next as leaders experiment, adapt, and do what’s right in their context. But the big picture is that gathering online has emerged as a viable way to connect with fellow Christians for Bible study and fellowship, and it’s not going away.

A Glimpse of the future

It’s difficult to say much that is specific about the long-term effects of these changes. It’s still relatively new, and churches and their leaders are still finding their way through them. And of course, my experience and observations are limited. I’m speaking primarily about congregations in the United States, while technology is driving other sorts of change in other parts of the world. Even so, I can point to three early patterns that may be trends.

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The first is a geographical shift. It’s easier than ever before to connect with a church in another city or state, because much of what they do is online now. People who move away can remain involved in the congregation by worshiping online and participating in virtual small groups. If my family member or friend across the country tells me about a positive church experience, I can see it for myself by connecting with that church online. If my favorite Christian author is a pastor, I can begin to attend their church even if I live hundreds of miles away. In this emerging reality, the quality of online worship and small group offerings becomes important, and following up effectively with those who connect online is even more important.

The second is a temporal shift. Streamed worship remains a live event, but if it’s recorded for later viewing, then “attendance” suddenly diffuses over several days instead of a single hour on Sunday. The same is true for some classes and small groups. Last fall I taught an in-person class that was streamed through Facebook Live. During the class, we had a handful of online participants, maybe 4 or 5. But when I went back a week later, I discovered Facebook had recorded more than a hundred views. Now, views alone is an unreliable metric—it may be that someone just paused on it for a few seconds as they scrolled through their feed. But even so, the class was being encountered, even in a small way, for several days after I taught it.

The third is increased recognition among church leaders of the importance and potential of digital connections. More pastors and church leaders are not only paying attention to online offerings but developing the skillsets to use them well. Church staffs and volunteer teams are beginning to include roles specifically focused on digital ministry, especially at larger churches. And forward-thinking church leaders and writers are beginning to look farther ahead, asking what implications things like cryptocurrency and the Metaverse might have for the future of Christian ministry, and what steps congregations need to take today in order to prepare for them.

Emerging technology is reshaping Christian ministry, just as it’s reshaping many aspects of our lives. It is more important than ever for us to pay attention to technology, both the systems and devices that are already well-entrenched and the emerging technology that is going to shape the world tomorrow. As the pandemic made all too clear, the distance between the present and the future is incredibly small. The present is not a static set of circumstances but a constantly evolving, dynamic landscape in which emerging tech is a major driver of change. Looking to the future, and technology’s role within it, is a faithful act in the present.

Brian Sigmon is an acquisitions editor at The United Methodist Publishing House, where he edits books, Bible studies, and official resources for The United Methodist Church. He has a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Marquette University, and has published a number of academic and popular articles on the Bible and Christian theology. Brian loves to teach and to help people of all backgrounds deepen their understanding of Scripture. When he isn’t editing, teaching, or writing about faith and technology, Brian enjoys woodworking and writing science fiction. He lives in Kingston Springs, Tennessee with his wife and their three children.

Month: February 2022