Why Should I Care…? | Artificial Intelligence
About this series:
Our ‘Why Should I Care?...’ series of talks is aimed at helping both Christians and non-Christians think through a varied series of topics connected with important matters in modern culture. This series will be designed to equip the church while also being accessible to non-Christians.
Our aim is to equip people of all ages with the tools to grapple with and think through complex issues - such as mental health, AI and gender and sexuality - in a biblical way.
About this talk:
Artificial intelligence is a specialty within computer science that is concerned with creating systems that can replicate human intelligence and problem-solving abilities.’ Artificial intelligence, at least in the sense of machines being created to do things that previously only humans could do, is not as new as we might often think until now we all benefit from many forms of AI every day.
Modern day questions and concerns about AI arise because of the rapidly advancing nature of what it can achieve, because of the pervasiveness of it in everyday life and because of the potential for it to develop independently of human control. John McCarthy, a founding pioneer of AI, wrote as long ago as 1955, ‘The artificial intelligence problem is taken to be that of making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving.’
AI is clearly here to stay. But in what ways should we be embracing AI and in what ways should we be concerned not to embrace all of its ‘advances’? Are there distinctions that can be made between the information aspects of AI and the relational aspects? Will companies seeking profits have the wisdom to limit the applications of AI? Will governments be able to legislate appropriately and be able to prevent criminals from exploiting AI for evil ends? Will cyber security be able to keep pace with developments in AI?
‘Embarking on a discourse about AI from a Christian perspective…[is] a reflection of how we, as believers, engage with one of the most transformative aspects of our modern age.’ Obviously the Bible has nothing directly to say about how we should view AI, but there are biblical principles we can apply to help us assess the right way to employ AI- principles relating to, for example, personhood, loving our neighbour, accountability, justice and upholding human agency.
Audio only
