AI Theology is embarking on an exciting new project about the future. In the next months, we’ll be exploring how faith and AI will interact decades from now. Through research, dialogue, speculation, and prayerful reflection, we hope to paint plausible pictures of what may be ahead of us. More to come on that.
You might wonder why even engage in such pursuit.
Here is one reason:
“Those who think about the future can shape it while those who do not only react to it” (Insta post)
Now that I got your attention, let me flesh this out a bit further. In the last few months, I have been discussing what AIT was about with the advisory board. We wanted to take time to re-group and re-think priorities. Like any endeavor, we have limited time and resources. Hence, choosing what to focus on is crucial if we are to have any chance of being effective.
What we realized is that any discussion about emerging technologies is inevitably a dialogue about the future. While AI technologies present daunting challenges for our time, this is little compared to where it is taking us as a society. By playing out current possibilities in decades to come, we can offer a clearer picture of the dangers and opportunities of AI so we can instigate action in the present. In a digital environment where attention is measured in milliseconds, it is time we recover the long view.
Looking into the Past for Clues
If you think this is a daunting task, you are not alone. Often, we can barely plan what to eat for dinner. Imagine looking 20 years out! At first, it seems overwhelming if not a pointless exercise. Yet, stay with me for a bit.
A good starting point, albeit imperfect, is projecting your memory back. Do you remember what life was 20 years ago? Some of you weren’t even born or were too young to remember. Others may feel a rush of nostalgia for a time long gone.
I, for one, (age alert ahead) remember very well where I was and what I was doing in 2002. It was a pivotal year when I graduated from college, got married, and started working for the same bank I still work for today (2 mergers later). What a year! One that would define the course of my life for decades to come.
As I reflect back on my younger self, I wonder what would surprise that 22-year-old if he could join me in 2042. Which technology would wow him the most and which one would horrify him? Certainly, he would be excited to learn that video calls on a handheld device were now possible. For somebody who dated 4 years long-distance that would have been a game changer! While cel phones already existed then, they were as dumb as they go, barely allowing you to make phone calls.
This is not just a trip down memory land but a way to calibrate our thoughts to the perception of change over time. That is, considering how our younger self would experience our present not only helps us understand what has changed but most importantly, how fast things have changed. The rate of change is key if we are to think about the future. Getting a sense of the rate of change is probably the best takeaway from this exercise in order to engage with the actual future projection we originally intended to do.
Peering into the future
Who is the wise older man in the right? Well, this is AI’s prediction of what I will look like in the future. Not bad, huh? I am not sure I can pull the beard off since the best I can do today are scattered patches of hair throughout my face. With that said, I am impressed with how realistic the picture looked.
If AI can draw such a compelling future of my looks how about if I ask it to tell me more about the world in 2042? Well, that’s what I did. Using Open AI GPT-3 language model, I typed in the prompt: “What will the world look like in 2042?”
Here is its response:
In 2042, the world will be a very different place. Technology will have advanced significantly, and humanity will have made great strides in solving many of the problems that plague us today. Poverty, hunger, and disease will be largely eradicated, and global warming will be under control. People will be living longer, healthier lives, and we will have colonized other planets. The internet will be even more omnipresent than it is today, and we will be able to communicate with each other instantaneously no matter where we are in the world. We will have flying cars, and robots will be a part of everyday life. The world will be a much more peaceful and prosperous place, and it will be an exciting time to be alive.
Ok, AI – dream on! That was both too general and too optimistic for my taste. No doubt, AI has a long way to go before it can give us a comprehensive picture of the future.
How about you?
What would your 20-years-younger-self notice about today? What would surprise him or her?
When you project yourself forward 20 years, considering the rate of change of the last 20 and keeping it mostly constant, what do you see?
What world do you visit?
Drop your answers in the “send us a message” section on the right or in our FB community
We would love to hear from you.
