Do We Live in a Technological Age?

At our January meeting, the AI Theology Advisory Board discussed the idea that we are living in a technological age. Understanding our time and context is an important step for our discussions and everything we do in AI Theology. Our exploration of AI and theology will be most fruitful if they are connected to the time in which we live.

We began with a presentation that reviewed the three perspectives outlined in previous blogs: Teilhard, Ellul, and Arthur. Here is a summary of our discussion:

Elias: I want to start with two questions.

1) Are we living in a technological age, and if so, why?

2) If we are living in a technological age, what is the danger of not acknowledging or discussing it? What happens when we take it for granted? In other words, if we are living it, what is the danger of not naming it?

The Nature of Technology

Maggie: Technology is such a part of life. The danger is that, if we omit reflection on it, we are suppressing a part of our own lives. If you spend your whole day interacting with the digital world, 40 hours a week, that is going to impact who you are and what the world means to you. 

Wen: I see technology not as a part of ourselves, but as something we interact with, either consciously or unconsciously. The third concept, from Arthur, reminded me of “stewardship of resources.” At a broad level, it’s how we steward our natural resources. How do we use our natural resources and make things out of them? I’m thinking here not only of digital technology but various types of technologies that impact the way we use resources.  

Elias: This subtle distinction can change how we interact with and discuss technology. One view is that technology is, in some ways, “the other.” We use and interact with it. The other view is that technology is a part of who we are. I’m not saying that either way is right or wrong. But this subtle distinction can change the way we approach technology.

Every Age Is Technological

Frantisek: Are we living in a technological age? A brief answer is that we have always lived in a technological age. When human beings started to reflect on themselves, they started organizing their environment–that is using technology. Even language can be considered technology in a sense. We can discuss building a nest as a kind of technology for animals. Since we are able to reflect on our skills, craftsmanship, or any kind of ability, this is technology. It’s the Greek word Téchne, the knowledge of “how to”. 

The danger we see is that technology is a product from ourselves. This brings fear and hope, both. We fear ourselves and have hope in ourselves. It is a clash between a Promethean approach to life and a transcendental approach to life. Between our own powers, and transcendental powers. Technology is something you can control. When you try to control the transcendental, it’s called magic. There is fear and hope because technology is on the edge of the transcendental. Everything is assembled like the Jewish story of golem, a creature made to serve the master. Technology has the potential to either serve or destroy the master, and the community it is inserted into.  

The larger issue of digital technology today is, it is a kind of development of the ecosystem. We are living in a digital landscape as well as the physical world. We fear that it will destroy us if we use it too much.

Technology and Culture

Frantisek: If we think about theology and AI, then it presupposes theology of technology, and before that, a theology of culture (for context).

Elias: We’ve always had technology, but is there something about the time we are living that makes it the dominant force? And this is where we can agree or disagree. We can say that technology is a reflection of other forces, or that technology itself influences everything. I have the idea that technology is the dominant force, and when we don’t talk about it, it becomes even more powerful. 

On the other hand, some people can think differently. 

Wen:  Technology today is built for automation and speed. So technologies of the past, like a windmill or a hammer, couldn’t do very much in a short time. This technology required more human effort to “make things happen.” A hammer couldn’t do much on its own, but today if you press a single button, many things can happen.

Elias: That’s an interesting point, Wen. Let me build on that a bit. Given the compounding of technologies in our time, not only is technology self-perpetuating but it is doing so with impressive speed. In other words, there is a different level of self-perpetuation that we may no longer be in control of. It is almost as if technology has taken a life of its own.

Religion and Technology

Ben: I think we’ve always lived in a technological age. As it relates to the theological construct, I think religion is technology. It’s meant to codify and systematize entropy and suffering, and explain it in a consistent worldview. That is a technological movement. It is also an attempt to systematize and control.

Is technology a co-creator, or is technology existential? This conversation has roots in incarnation. What does it mean to be enfleshed, a human? The question I come up with is, technology is about automation and efficiency. But for what? For what end, and what is the cost of this efficiency? I wonder if technology is unable to address incarnational needs such as love, truth, beauty, and we hope to automate those things so we can seek the intangibles. So there are now studies to classify the intangible human needs. Technology is becoming part of the intangible of life as well. 

Elias: What you are saying connects with what Maggie was talking about, the idea of technique as a way of control. The totality of technique–trying to find the best technique. Trying to find the best way to love or communicate. 

Purpose and Reflection

Maggie: One view of technology is that, “now we have more time to be fully human.” I don’t know if that actually happens. We spend more time thinking about what makes a human good than we do spending time with things we enjoy. The iterative nature of technology contains a reductionist assumption that everything that is good can be reduced to a test. There isn’t a lot of stepping back to ask about the larger purpose. For instance, “I’m working to reduce retail prices,” but do the retailers want help setting prices? Is that what is going to save them time? Does this technology improve something, reduce something? Is this really going to help people save time? 

Wen: The phone being replaced every two years, I see it more as capitalist behavior than as tech getting better. I think the underlying social context is consumption. This frames how the tech manifests itself. If we changed the cultural context of the world we live in, we would see a very different manifestation of technology. The products would be different. In a world where capitalism wasn’t the center, we would see a different line of technology, both in its tools and its uses. 

The Tower of Babel

Ben: I agree with what you said. Is there a longing aspect? Are we trying to create and advance ourselves to enlightenment? And if it’s true, the kingdom on earth concept becomes more concrete. Or are we iterating because we don’t know what else to do with the opportunity, cost, and time we have lost? Where does this get us any closer to enlightenment? 

Wen: Technology is trying to be the Tower of Babel or the fountain of youth. I don’t mean just apps, but the broad range of technology and industries strive toward these ends.

Ben: To illustrate this, I’m going to use myself as a negative example. One thing I learned with a neuroscientist is about the correlation of quality of sleep and cognitive issues (like dementia and Alzheimer’s). So I became obsessed with the technology of sleep, looking for technology to help me sleep. And when I lay down, I would get anxious about the fact I wasn’t sleeping. So when technology was supposed to help me sleep better and prevent these diseases, I was actually anxious about the tech. The existential crisis is that technology creates more opportunity for existential non-incarnational presence as we rely on “external transcendent divine,” rather than on our own ability, to track and examine data.