theology Archives

Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac: How Travelers Re-visits the Biblical Story Through AI Theology

Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. Gen 22: 6-8.

One of the most powerful narratives of the Hebrew Bible is the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. The book of Genesis tells us that God, after promising and delivering a son to Abraham at old age, one day asked him to sacrifice him as an offer back to God. The absurdity of the request is matched by Abraham’s unquestioning obedience.

As he is taking Isaac to the place of sacrifice, the young boy asks where was the animal to be sacrificed. In a prophetic statement, the father of the Hebrew faith simply answered: “God will provide.” The agony and suspense continues as Abraham ties his sleeping son and raises the knife to end the young boy’s life. That is when God intervenes, relieving Abraham from the unbearable task of killing his own son. It was a gruesome test, but Abraham passed. Thinking of my 16 month-old boy, I cannot imagine ever coming this close.

Episode 3 of the third season of Travelers tells a story with too many parallels to the Old Testament story to ignore. For those not familiar with the show, let me give you a quick overview of its plot. Travelers are people from the a distant apocalyptic future whose consciousness travel to the present and take on bodies of those who are about to die. They work in teams to complete missions that are meant to change the course of history. They take their orders from an advanced AI that has the ability to work out the best alternative in other to improve the future. They refer to it simply as the Director.

In episode three, Mack (Erick McCormack) the team leader, tries to re-trace their last mission. Waking up with a gap in his memory, he suspects that his team altered his memory for some unknown reason. The episode unfolds as Mack pieces together the events from the previous day.

Misguided Good Deeds Lead to Unintended Consequences

In season one, we met an adopted boy called Alecsander. As the team is executing their mission, the historian (the team member who knows the future), throws a curve ball by sending them to save this little boy. He knew that the boy was in an abusive situation and therefore creates the intervention to save him. Seems like a noble action except that this was not in the Director’s plan. Travelers were trained to never deviate from the plan. Therefore, even though they are able to rescue the boy, the implications of this deviation are unknown.

Fast forward to episode three of season three, we eventually find out the team’s mission for the previous day. The Director, knowing that Alecsander was destined to become a psychopath, task the team to eliminate him. A reckless good deed, operating outside the director’s plan had created bigger problems for the future. It was time to course-correct.

Mack, the team leader, draws the responsibility to himself. They pick up the boy in his current foster home and their fears are confirmed. The boy was growing recluse and disturbingly violent with animals – early signs of a troubled adulthood to come.

Mack takes the boy to a deserted woods with the intention of killing him. . While walking in the woods, they find a struggling coyote who is facing a painful end of life. Mack ends his misery with a shot.

Next, they share a meal around the fire, cooking a rabbit the boy had previously caught. There, they have a heart-to-heart conversation where Mack demonstrates to the boy that he is seen, known and understood. Mack becomes the father that Alecsander never had. All of this only heightens the tension as these tender moments contrast with Mack’s dreadful mission. Just as Abraham, Mack agonizes over his assignment while also showing love to the troubled boy.

As the climactic scene begins, they dig a hole to bury the dead coyote. The altar is ready for the sacrifice. Once they place the dead animal in the designated place, Aleksander asks to say a prayer. As the boy is praying in memory of the dead animal, Mack steps back reluctantly. He pulls out his gun as he see the designated time of boy’s death approaches. He points the gun and prepares to pull the trigger. At that moment, just like Yahweh in Genesis, the director intervenes. Instead of an angel, the AI speaks through the boy : “mission abort.” Just like Isaac, the boy is spared.

Later in the episode, Mack’s teammates inform him that the director had a change of plans. Apparently, Mack’s heart-to-heart conversation with the boy changed his future. The assurance of love from a father figure was enough to halt a future of serial murders.

New Avenues of Meaning

There is so much to unpack in this episode that I can’t hardly do justice in a few paragraphs. As stated above, the episode draws some clear parallels with the biblical story but does not re-tell it outright. I honestly even wonder if the writers had the biblical story in mind when formulating the episode. Yet, using the Biblical story as a backdrop allows us to reflect deeper into the many themes addressed here.

One underlying theme throughout the show is the conflict between the AI’s plan and human action. Often times, travelers struggle to follow through with the mission as conditions on the ground change. At its core, it explores the philosophical debate between free-will and determinism.

Classical theism resolves this tension on the side of determinism, often referred to as “God’s will.” In its extreme forms, this thinking paints the picture of a detached God whose plans and will cannot be altered. Hebrew Scripture does not always support this script as it contains some examples where Yahweh changed his mind. Yet, this idea of God’s immutability made its way into Western Christian thought early on and has persisted to our time. For many, God is the absolute ruler that controls every aspect of the universe while also demanding blind loyalty from humans.

For the most part, the same is true in the relationship between the travelers and the Director. Mack, especially, is often the one who claims and demands unquestioning loyalty to the Director’s mission. This episode illustrates this well as Mack showed complete willingness to carry out the unthinkable mission of killing the young boy.

Yet, the emphasis of the episode is not on Mack’s loyalty but in how by showing love to the boy, he altered his future. Mack’s actions changed the director’s plans. It suggests that human action can bending the will of a greater being (or technology in this case).

Sacrificial love can alter divine plans.

Hence, this well-written Science-Fiction series challenges us to re-think our relationship with the divine. Is it possible to move the heart of God or is our job simply to accept his will? Do humans have real power to shape their future or is it all pre-determined by a higher power?

What do you think?

Re-Thinking Worship: Seeing Liturgy as Technology

Can the technical and the religious intersect? In this blog I want to explore what happens when we look at liturgy (the order of Christian rituals) as technology. What kind of new insights can this perspective provide?

A Personal Struggle

For a few years now, my family has struggled to plug into a church. Part of that is the phase of our lives with small children. Getting three kids ready make any outings an elaborate event! Yet, I know there is more to it. This external struggle only reflects what is happening internally with me and my wife. After growing up as active members in Christian communities we find ourselves struggling to find a spiritual home (in the way we traditionally understood it). Church is no longer an anchoring community but instead a trigger for painful memories. Going to church does not give meaning to our lives as it used to even as we still hold on to the faith it preaches.

This perception is also spilling over to our kids. Any time I mention to my two older girls (8 and 6) about going to church, protest follows. I guess they learned early to be Protestants!

When I probe further, they say that that they do not get much out of it. They don’t see the point dressing up in a Sunday morning to sit with other kids they barely know to hear stories they already know. As a father, my knee-jerk reaction is to contest these impressions, trying to affirm the slow work of grace that happens in the continual exposure to Christian rituals. Yet, the message is not getting through. Often time, I find myself being the only one at home who sees value in going to church on a Sunday morning.

This situation grieves my heart. For all its failures, I still believe in the institutional church. I also see the regular gathering of believers as an essential part of spiritual formation. Therefore, my children’s aversion to church makes me feel like I failed. I know that ultimately they will have to choose the path they need to follow. This is not under my control. Yet, I hope that by then they would have at least as much exposure as I had to the faith. Doing that without regularly participating in a Christian community is very difficult.

A Shift in Perspective

Pondering on this predicament, I wanted to understand why my view of church was so different from that of my kids. There are many differences between our upbringings in culture, language, age and technology. What I realized, however, is that through practice and study, I was encouraged and trained to see the grandeur of God in the life of the church. This has come to me through many avenues. One of them was music and the experience of worship. Another was through listening to preachers and Sunday School teachers. Additionally, I have had multiple personal mystical experiences, deeply personal and emotionally rich, that affirmed the realities being spoken in church. Through study, my vision of the body of Christ expanded beyond a group of a few hundred whom I join on a weekly basis to an unbroken communion of people affirming this faith over time in all continents of the earth. The latter, is one of the main reasons why I still believe in the institution.

The problem is that I expected my young children to simply get all that by simply dropping them off in a nursery or Sunday school class on a weekly basis. This becomes even more complicated when they are bombarded from multiple influences throughout the week that claim their attention. They are not growing up in the same world I was. A new context require different measures.

In view of this realization, I decided to take upon myself the responsibility to pass on the faith, in the best way I can, directly to my children. Relying on others to do is not working. Maybe then, they will come to yearn for gathering with other Christians on a weekly basis. That theological degree may finally come in handy after all!

Liturgy as Technology

As I considered ways to pass on the Christian faith to my children, I wondered whether I could see liturgy as technology.

To level set, liturgy means the order and content of how Christian services are conducted. It it encompasses prayers, music, reading, taking communion (or the Eucharist), baptism, etc. Liturgy is what people do when they come together for worship, hence, the “work of the people.” When ministers prepare for a Sunday service, they consider what the experience communicates. It goes beyond words but can include sounds, aromas and visuals. All these elements shape, direct and communicate through the worship experience. Over time, good liturgy changes those who regularly participate in it. There is not such thing as a liturgical church because every congregation follows a liturgy. Some are implied rather than explicitly stated.

What is the connection with technology? If technology is applied science to solve a problem, liturgy is applied theology to form character. In other words, it is a means, albeit important, to foster divine encounters. These encounters, re-order desires, transform souls and develop faith. When working properly, they have the power to make us better people.

If we are willing to accept this analogy, I wonder if the problem that my kids see no relevance in church is a technical rather than a spiritual one. I wonder if the liturgy is inadequate to do the work at their level of understanding. By that, I don’t mean that they need to experience church through more advanced technological means. The idea is not to create children’s VR church! It is much deeper than that. It is examining the elements that are not working properly and test alternatives that work better.

Can I pass on a faith that will stick over time? Will the liturgy, like a technology, work properly towards that goal? How effective are our liturgies in the goal of spiritual formation?

What do you think?

AI for Scholarship: How Machine Learning can Transform the Humanities

In a previous blog, I explored how AI will speed up scientific research. In this blog, I will examine the overlooked potential that AI has to transform the Humanities. This connection may not be clear at first since most of these fields do not include an element of science or math. They are more preoccupied with developing theories than testing hypotheses through experimentation. Subjects like Literature, Philosophy, History, Languages and Religious Studies (and Theology) rely heavily in the interpretation and qualitative analysis of texts. In such environment, how could mathematical algorithms be of any use?

Before addressing the question above, we must first look at the field of Digital Humanities that created a bridge from ancient texts to modern computation. The field dates back the 1930’s, before the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. Ironically, and interestingly relevant to this blog, the first project in this area was a collaboration between an English professor, a Jesuit Priest and IBM to create a concordance for Thomas Aquinas’ writings. As digital technology advanced and texts became digitized, the field has continued to grow in importance. Its primary purpose is to both apply digital methods to Humanities as well as reflect on its use. That is, they are not only interested in digitizing books but also evaluating how the use of digital medium affect human understanding of these texts.

Building on the foundation of Digital Humanities, the connection with AI becomes all too clear. Once computers can ingest these texts, text mining and natural language processing are now a possibility. With the recent advances in machine learning algorithms, cheapening of computing power and the availability of open source tools the conditions are ripe for an AI revolution in the Humanities.

How can that happen? The use of machine learning in combination with Natural Language Processing can open avenues of meaning that were not possible before. For centuries, these academic subjects have relied on the accumulated analysis of texts performed by humans. Yet, human capacity to interpret, analyze and absorb texts is finite. Humans do a great job in capturing meaning and nuances in texts of hundreds or even a few thousand pages. Yet, as the volume increases, machine learning can detect patterns that are not apparent to a human reader. This can be especially critical in applications such as author attribution (determining who the writer was when that information is not clear or in question), analysis of cultural trends, semantics, tone and relationship between disparate texts.

Theology is a field that is particularly poised to benefit from this combination. For those unfamiliar with Theological studies, it is a long and lonely road. Brave souls aiming to master the field must undergo more schooling than Physicians. In most cases, aspiring scholars must a complete a five-year doctorate program on top of 2-4 years of master-level studies. Part of the reason is that the field has accumulated an inordinate amount of primary sources and countless interpretations of these texts. They were written in multiple ancient and modern languages and have a span over thousands of years. In short, when reams of texts can become Big Data, machine learning can do wonders to synthesize, analyze and correlate large bodies of texts.

To be clear, that does not mean the machine learning will replace painstaking scholarly work. Quite the opposite, it has the potential to speed up and automate some tasks so scholars can focus on high level abstract thinking where humans still hold a vast advantage over machines. If anything it should make their lives easier and possibly shorter the time it takes to master the field.

Along these lines of augmentation, I am thinking about a possible project. What if we could employ machine learning algorithms in a theologian body of work and compare it to the scholarship work that interprets it? Could we find new avenues or meaning that could complement or challenge prevailing scholarship in the topic?

I am curious to see what such experiment could uncover.

Travelers Theology: Wrestling With a Powerful AI God

Recently, I was browsing through new shows on Netlflix when I stumbled upon Travelers. The premise seemed interesting enough to to make me want to check it out. From the very first episode, I was hooked. Soon after, my wife watched the first episode and it became a family affair. Starring Erick McCormack (Will & Grace) and directed by Brad Wright (Stargate), Travelers is a show about people from a distant future that come to the 21st century in an effort to change history to re-write their present.

You may wonder “Nothing new here, many shows and movies have explored this premise.” That is true. What makes Travelers unique is how they arrive in the present and how they explore emerging technologies in a thoughtful and plausible way. They travel back to time by sending the consciousness of people from the future into the bodies of those who are about to die in the 21st century. Having the benefit of knowing history allows them to pintpoint the exact time for arrival which makes for some pretty interesting situations (a wife about to be killed by her husband’s abuse, a mentally-challenged woman about to be attacked by robbers and a heroin-addict about to be overdose). The travelers then continue the life of their “host” making those around belief that they are still the same person that died.

Spoiler alert – the next paragraphs will openly discuss plots from the show

By the end of first season, we learn about the pivotal role AI plays in the plot. Throughout the first episodes, the travelers keep talking about “the director” who has a “grand plan.” That becomes their explanation for carrying out missions when they cannot understand why they are doing what they are told. They also follow 6 rules to ensure their behavior limits their interference in the past. At first, the viewers think they are talking about a person who is leading the effort. In the last episode of season 1, we learn that “the Director” is actually a Super Computer (a Quantum Frame) who is able to consider millions of possible scenarios and therefore direct travelers to their assign missions. We are really dealing with AI God, who is quasi-omniscient and demands human’s trust and devotion.

Exploring Rich Religious Imagery

While the show explores religious imagery throughout, this aspect comes to the forefront in episode 8 of Season two. In it, one of the travelers (aptly and ironically named Grace), is to be judged by three judges (programmers). The setting for that: a church. As they gathered in the sanctuary, the “Trinity” of programmers initiates proceedings under the watchful eye of the Director (through a tiny camera that records the event). Grace, an obnoxious traveler who is devoid of social skills, is charged with the crime of treason for taking action on her own initiative in direct challenge to the grand plan.

As the judgement unfolds, scenes that juxtapose the programmer judges with an empty cross in the background reinforce the explicit religious connection the writers are making here. Throughout the hearings, Grace insists that her actions, even if unorthodox, were only to save the Director. Yet, she is surprised to learn that the Director itself had summoned her judgment. She seems disappointed at that, wondering how would the Director judge her if it knew her intentions. This is an interesting assertion because it implies that the director actually knew her thoughts, raising it to the level of a god.

Grace is found guilty by the programmer trinity and is handed over to the director for her sentencing. They speculate that she will be overwritten. That is the worse punishment, which means she would not only die in the 21st century but her consciousness would cease to exist. It is the theological equivalent to eternal death or annihilation.

The next scene is probably one of the most profound and provocative of the whole show so far. Grace goes to a small room where she faces three large screens from where the Director will speak directly to her. This is the first time in the show where the audience gets to see the Director in action by itself rather than through messengers.

While she is no longer in the sanctuary, the room still has an empty cross in the background and evokes the idea of a confessional booth. At that point, I was really curious to know how they would portray the director. What kind of images would she see? Would it be of the machine itself or something else?

No machine but human faces show up in the screen. They are all older and seem to be in some type of life support. At times, they seem to represent Grace’s parents but that was not clear. In this climatic scene, Grace finds forgiveness from the Director and is not overwritten. The machine communicate divine qualities through human faces. Grace finds peace and absolution and re-affirms her trust and devotion to the Director. In short, she experiences a theophany: a watershed personal moment that reveals a new facet of the divine being to a human receiver.

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

A New Perspective on Omniscience

What to make of this? I must say that when I first learned of Levandowski’s efforts to create an AI religion, I discounted as sensational journalism. Surely there is a fringe of techno-enthusiasts that would follow that path. Yet, I could no see how such idea could be appealing to a wider audience. Seeing Traveler’s religious treatment of AI have made me re-think. Maybe an AI religion is not as far-fetched as I originally thought. An advanced AI bolstered by powerful hardware and connected to a vast digital history of information could indeed do a great job in optimizing timelines. That is, it could consider a vast amount of scenarios in ways that are unfathomable to the human mind. This could make it quasi-omniscient in a way that could elicit a god-like trust from humans. One could say such arrangement would be the triumph of secular science replacing a mythical god with a technological one.

From a Judeo-Christian perspective, an AI god would be the epitome of human idolatry. People worshiping idols except that for calf images are replaced by silicon superstructures that actually can hear, speak and think faster than any human. This would be an example of idols in steroids. As a firm believer in the benefits of AI, I do worry about human inclination towards idolizing tools. As a Christian, I owe my allegiance to a transcendent God. AI can only be formidable tool but nothing more.

Yet, the prospect of an AI god is still interesting in that it may helps us understand a transcendent God better. How so, you may ask? Religion is often defined by powerful metaphors. For some monotheistic faiths, God is a father. Such metaphor has obvious benefits as it elicits image of authority, provision and comfort. I wonder if using a powerful AI as a metaphor could reveal part of divinity that we have not explored before.

In a previous blog, I suggested that AI offered a paradigm of partnership for religion as opposed to blind obedience. Reflecting on Travelers’ portrayal of an AI God sheds light into the aspect of God’s omniscience and wisdom. A timeless being with infinite “processing capacity” could very well consider all the possible alternatives and come up with the best one that leads to the best outcome (to whatever that best is defined). In computer science terms, the best is defined by an objective function – basically the goal you are trying to achieve.

How is that different from previous views of omniscience and wisdom? In the past, omniscience was seen as the idea that God knows what decision we will make and therefor ultimately knows the future. In some traditions, this idea was amplified into the concept of Predestination. The problem with such approach is that it limits God to one outcome and makes humans “automatons.” In other words, there is really no choice or risk – everything is pre-determined from the beginning. I suspect this view of God was heavily based on our own human mind that cannot consider more than 1 scenario for the future at a time.

What if God’s omniscience was more like the Super AI knowledge that is able to simultaneously consider multiple outcomes and then guide towards the better one or correct it when that path is undermined? Wouldn’t that be a fuller view of omniscience? This scenario allows for human choice while still attributing superior knowledge and control to God. Furthermore, this metaphor reveals a “smarter” God that is not bound by the one-track linear thinking of humans. Humanity realizes that their choices matter and can create alternative futures. Even so, they still have the comfort of a God who can see through all this, and guide it from a perspective that can consider manifold outcomes.

Such God would certainly be worthy of human obedience, awe and praise.

Christian Transhumanism: A Bridge Between Theology and AI

In the previous blog, I talked about how theology has much to offer to the AI conversation. With that said, one must recognize that the conversation between AI and Theology is rather awkward at the moment. While sharing common points of references, there are still significant divides in values, worldviews and language. At the root of this disconnect is the last century and half ongoing conflict between science and religion. As a consequence, the theologian is mostly disinterested if not intimidated by technology. The technologist finds Theology antiquated and inconsequential to the rise of new technologies. To delve more deeply on this rift would take more than a blog but for now suffice it to say that work must be done to bridge this divide if we are to have a productive and meaningful conversation.

In that front, I am encouraged by the emergence of Christian Transhumanism. This budding movement shows promise in creating the space where Theology and Technology can learn from each other. How? Well, first some definitions are in order.

What is Transhumanism?

According to Nick Bostrum, Transhumanism is an “international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.”

Transhumanism is an optimistic view of the future that sees technology as the conduit for a new and improved humanity. This can translate into efforts to extend lifespan, enhance human abilities and or re-think the social order in light of these new possibilities. It is a movement driven by imagination mostly found in Science Fiction. Many of us may enjoy the thrill of watching or reading a Science Fiction story. The Transhumanist goes a step further and asks: what if those things actually happen? How would we live in these new worlds? What possibilities, conflicts and hopes would we experience? For the purpose of this blog, Transhuamanists are at the forefront of reflecting on the ethical implications of emerging technologies. That makes them an important conversation partner in the dialogue between AI and Theology.

Can Transhumanism be Christian?

In view of the description above, what would Christian Transhumanism look like? First, it is important to point out that Transhumanism in its purest form is a thoroughly secular movement. Most of its members claim no religious affiliation. This makes it for an even more intriguing proposition to espouse a Christian version of it.

The Christian Transhumanist Association (CTA) is probably one for the first attempts to pursue exactly that. At a high level, the movement merges Christian theology with Transhumanism in three meaningful ways. Firstly, it translates Transhumanism search for human evolution into growth. This growth is not limited to spiritual but more akin to what I have been describing in this blog as human flourishing – a holistic view that encompasses spiritual, physical and social dimensions. Secondly, it calibrates Tranhumanist telos towards the renewal of the Earth. That it, the goal is not progress for progress sake but it is replaced by a Christian eschatological aim – the new heaven and the new earth. Thirdly, it sees the use of technology as a way to fulfill our call to Christian discipleship. In a creative move, the group actually sees the pursue of technological advance as part of spiritual formation.

In doing so, CTA embodies a robust theology of technology laying the ground work for a dialogue between AI and Theology. This is not a problem-free path, as inevitably any deep engagement with another philosophy can lead to unbalanced syncretism or shallow proselytizing. That is, on the one hand Christian Transhumanism can alter its Christian base enough to lose its essence. On the other hand, Christian Transhumanism can engage in forceful imposition of Christian ideals into the Transhumanist community without genuine engagement. Walking this thin line is part of the challenge for the next years to come.

Intrigued? I invite you to visit their website for more information

Where do We Go From Here?

Christian Transhumanism is in its infancy stages and so it is too early to assess its role in bridging the divide between AI and Theology. It is an important line of thinking but not the only one. An alternative view would be a bioconservative Christian movement emerging as a counter-point to Christian Transhumanism. Bioconservatives are those who would advocate limiting or rejecting the use of technology in extending life or enhancing human abilities. Yet, this position will become more precarious as some of these technological advances are all but inevitable. Just think about taking a stance against automobiles in the beginning of the 20th century. I guess the Amish are a witness to this position and their legacy will live on in other movements in the coming future.

At the moment, I am leaning towards the Christian Transhumanist side. Christian history is filled with examples where the church has resisted change rather than shaping it towards desirable aims. At its best, I see Christian Transhumanism doing the latter, welcoming technological change with enthusiasm while also holding a theologically lens to expose its dangers. My hope is that CTA can live out its mission as both a reforming voice in the church and a beacon of hope in a fast-changing world.

Is Theology Relevant to Artificial Intelligence?

What does Theology have to do with Artificial Intelligence? What does Jerusalem have to do with Silicon Valley? In this blog, I want to address this question head-on to show that theology is not just relevant but much needed in the current debates about AI.

If social media is any indication, not everyone sees the connection between AI and Theology. Consider a recent discussion I had in Facebook where a contributor expressed the following view:

“The more I read [your blog, the more] I feel like you have to justify to us the introduction of the subject of theology in discussions about AI because I don’t see the relevance.”

Challenge accepted! Simply put, if I can’t answer this question satisfactorily, I have no business keeping this blog.

I acknowledge that readers come to this blog from diverse backgrounds. While a good number are Christians, there are also some that are not affiliated with Christianity or any faith at all. I want to respond having the second group in mind. The question that may arise is whether Theology (especially the Christian type, which is mostly associated with the discipline) is relevant to the topic of Artificial Intelligence. Furthermore, if it is relevant, does it have anything meaningful to say that warrants a place at the table of AI debates?

The Human Connection

For starters, I would define theology (and religion) and the development of Artificial Intelligence as human endeavors. Why point that out? I want to point to the fact that both disciplines emanate from our shared human experience. What differentiates AI from other technologies is its perennial connection with human intelligence. While human intelligence is not the only intelligence as one could argue that other animals have their own unique intelligence, it is inevitably our starting point. Technology, like all other human endeavors, is a creative expression of who we are, whether we acknowledge it or not. The primary focus of AI is to mimic human intelligence, therefore establishing humanity at the center of it.

Theology, while focused on the divine, is greatly interested in humanity. The study of the divine is incomplete without a starting point that emanates from humanity. In that sense, it is similar to AI, because it uses humanity as a primary point of reference. We cannot define or speak of the divine without bringing it analogically to a human dimension. Christian theology does not speak of an abstract idea about God but one that is deeply personal.

AI as Playing God

While the human connection is important, this is not enough to explain the relevance of theology. For that we must turn to the god connection that links these two subjects. Consider the provocative statement Kevin Kelly (one of the founders of Wired magazine) made in the turn of the century:

As we attempt to create from scratch life, and other minds, and perhaps someday other universes, we need a better catalog of god-ness, and a more exact notion of what species of god is best for what kind of creation. As we become better gods we must become better theologians. It is sort of like how the Web forces everybody to be a librarian; what once was left to esoteric professionals is now everybody’s business.

When we step in the business of creating intelligent machines, we are stepping into the realm of divine. This is new territory for humanity where we must thread with caution. If AI is playing God, can Theology offer a playbook? Yet, what if developing intelligence is a step in becoming more like God? If so, we might have something to learn from a discipline that has attempted to explain the divine for centuries.

Regardless of whether you see the divine as a human construct or a real being, theology can still be relevant. If you are in the first camp, wouldn’t it be interesting to learn how our ancestors imagined God? Wouldn’t their reflection, their cautionary tales and utopias, be instructive in helping us navigate the road to an AI future?

Hope and Imagination

In a recent article, Beth Singler explored the striking similarity between the language of techno-enthusiast and religious people. She shows how the conversation around AI today connects her to concepts she had heard in Sunday School as a child. What could be the connecting thread? Hope and imagination. To talk about an AI future, forces us to imagine what we cannot see. Faith is defined as believing in things we hope for but cannot see. In the same way, Science Fiction literature express a hope for a better future or a warning to keep what is most dear to us. They may express different values, but their method is surprisingly similar.

It is hard to do justice in a 900 word blog to a topic that deserves volumes of books. Yet, I hope this writing can challenge some established mental models and crack open new horizons. I firmly believe that the conversation around AI has much to benefit from a theological perspective. I don’t claim it should be the only or even the dominant voice. Consequently, Theology has much to learn from AI as well. The challenge is whether we’ll move forward in courageous dialogue or let fear and misunderstanding keep these disciplines apart.

I certainly hope for the first option. Do you?

Ghost in The Shell: Can Cyborgs Feel Hope?

My plan was to convince my wife to go see Ghost In the Shell last weekend. Yet, after reading the scathing reviews, I opted for a different plan. As one interested in the topic of AI, it sounded like the original animated movie (Ghost in the Shell – 1995) directed by Kazunori. A critique of the Hollywood version was its lack of depth compared to the original. Apart from the controversy about white-washing, it seemed like the biggest complaint was the the American version had watered down the content of the original Japanese-British version. This signaled to me that I needed to watch the original. With a few clicks and Amazon prime, I sat down to watch on my laptop on Saturday night.

I didn’t know what to expect but the movie did not disappoint. The quality of the animation along with the music and the rich plot drew me right in. I will not dive into the story to avoid spoiling the experience in case you decide to watch it for yourself. I just want to highlight two main observations. First, I was impressed about how visionary the writers were in painting a plausible vision of the future. They depicted a time in which humans can augment their brains with hardware and cyborgs who can upload human memories. Considering the beginning development of brain interfaces, this scenario is not far-fetched. Secondly, the movie excelled in exploring what it means to be human in a world where technology had become embedded into human bodies. This is the area I want to explore a bit in this blog.

The leading character in the story is a female cyborg who starts asking existential questions. Half-way through the movie, she engages in a dialogue with a male cyborg about the experience of diving in the ocean. She describes what is akin to a transcendent experience as her body emerges from the water. As the conversation develops, she reminisces about her unique experience and how that is similar to humanity. Suddenly, as they are talking, a voice speaks through her (something akin to the Spirit) and quotes I Cor 13:12 (about minute 2:42)

It is difficult to unpack this deep conversation in a blog but I have to say that this scene alone was worth the whole movie. Major (the female cyborg) is yearning for some type wholeness, just as the Apostle in I Corinthians is pointing his readers to the future restoration of all things in Chirst. As the movie ends, Major does experience the wholeness she is looking for (yet, you’ll have to watch the movie to see that for yourself).

Judging from other parts of the movie, it is clear that Major is not purely a cyborg. She has human parts even though she is mostly machine. Without stretching this too far, I wonder if Major is a picture of our future selves. Let me explain. As we move towards further “cyborgization”, with our bodies merging with our technological devices, are we in danger of changing our humanity beyond recognition? In that loss, are we still able to experience transcendence – that is, to move beyond our limited mortality into timeless realm? I am not even talking about religion but simply the ability to reach beyond our programmed and scripted present into a higher purpose.

Even as I write this, I sense the inadequacy of the words I am using. It is as if our vocabulary has not quite caught up with the reality we are about to experience. Yet, in all that, I am heartened to see the movie pointing to hope. In other words, it is possible, even in a body overtaken by electronics, to experience the very human trait of longing, love and expectation. They are the echoes of the restoration to come.

Much more could be said, for now I leave you with an expanded version of the passage quoted by the Major in the video above:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.For now we see in a mirror, dimly,^b] but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love – I Co 13:11-13

Why AI Theology?

My path here was certainly not intentional or carefully planned. For years, I’ve been asking ‌ how could I marry my work skills with my passion. Becoming a data scientist was not a carefully planned career. I kind of fell into it. Like many people in the workplace, my career arose out of a blend of opportunities, skill sets, curiosity and providence (a word I prefer from luck). I started working for a large bank right out of college. My initial plan was to do that for “a few years” until I would start doing what I was “called” to do. These few years turn into a decade and then more years. Throughout this time, I wondered what in the world I was doing in my job. That is also when I started pursuing a degree in Theology, in the hopes of a career change. For years, I saw these pursuits as separate endeavors, failing to see much connection between them.

As I started studying Theology while still working as a data scientist, I was constantly straddling these two worlds. They tap into different parts of our brain, requiring different skills. As a data professional, I see the world through tables organized in columns and rows. My primary function is to extract meaning out of these tables either by combining them, creating new ones or visualizing their information in clarifying ways. This can happen through summarization or modeling. At times, I am trying to answer questions while others, I am simply exploring the data.

As a Theology student, I see the world through text. We start with sacred text, written two Millennia ago in languages not spoken today. Beyond that, we work with an ungodly (no pun intended) amount of books based on reflection on the sacred text between the time the sacred texts were written and our present day. Beyond that, you reflect on the experience of the believing community and academy that enriches, confuses and at times undermines the sacred text. Yet Theology is not only about books. It is ‌about being human – how we experience the world around us and speak hope into it. Theology also informs and shapes values, morals and ideologies. That is ‌what has drawn me to it from an early age. So, even as the Sacred texts are studied and analyzed, that is a sense of gravitas often missing from most forms of knowledge.

While navigating these two world concurrently, I often saw them as incompatible. It is not that they are opposed to each other but that they seem to talk past each other. They ask different questions, seek other means to pursue answers and arrive at widely different conclusions. At its core, Theology is mostly concerned with how things should be. Data analysis strives to be a detached assessment of how things are. One example of that would be ‌global warming. Theology is mostly concerned with the moral implications of what causes global warming and how people will be affected. It then proposes an alternative way to relate to the environment, inspired by Christian revelation, that will lead to a more just future. A data analysis approach will look at past trends and then make assumptions for future forecast. Scientists gather heaps of data, develop complex models that provide benchmarks that will guide planning for the future (ie: an % increase of CO2 ‌ as the benchmark being discussed in the recent gathering of world leaders). Data analysis will also use test and control methods which determine which one has yielded the best results. A theological approach is not interested in what has worked but what is good.

As I approached the end of my theological education, I found myself longing for integration. In that pursuit, I began to ask what it would look like to interact Theology with technology. This convergence started taking shape as breakthroughs in computing power, big data and promising algorithms ushered Artificial Intelligence to the spotlight. Because data science is an essential part of AI, I saw opportunity in the horizon. As industry titans make their bet on Artificial Intelligence, data science became a promising field for employment. If these investments yield concrete applications, data science will become a regular function of organization across all industries just like finance and accounting is today.

Apart from the impact on data science, the advent of Artificial Intelligence raises profound questions. The idea that machine could act in such human-like manner that we may confuse them with people is mind-boggling. This clearly marks a new era of technological advancement requiring a multi-disciplinary engagement. Simply put, will human-made intelligence mirror our best or our worse? In that question, I believe the Christian tradition has much to contribute.

Yet, I don’t see many voices addressing the intersection of technology and Theology effectively. At best, these topics are discussed separately as if they did not interact. This in turn becomes my personal attempt to integrate the very worlds I live in, with the hopes it may bring insight and wisdom in answering the perennial question: How shall we then live in a world where Artificial Intelligence is a reality?

Here is a list of topics I plan to address in this blog:

What are the ethical implications of the increasing use of AI applications in our world?
What would it look like to do theology with AI and vice-versa – what would a theologically-informed AI look like?
Can AI be used for good and what would that look like?
Who gets to decide how AI will affect our way of life?

These are just a few questions worthy of exploration. Let the conversation begin.

Tag: theology