A Christian Perspective on Artificial Intelligence: How Should Christians Think about Thinking Machines?

About A Christian Perspective on Artificial Intelligence: How Should Christians Think about Thinking Machines?

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a topic that deserves attention and careful thought from Christians working in technology. The technology of AI has shifted from the subject of science fiction literature to become the goal of serious engineering development. Recent developments have led to more machine-like humans with repairs and augmentation of our physical bodies through artificial limbs, artificial hearts, and replacement hips. More ambitious research plans are underway to study the brain with the goal of replicating it. Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, has publicly declared his goal to live long enough that technology will have developed far enough to allow him to download his brain into a computer and thereby achieve immortality. Accompanying recent technological developments in AI have been calls for caution, warning society that AI is different than earlier technology inventions in ways that could bring unforeseen consequences or irreversible harm. In order to understand whether it may be possible to build a human-like machine, we must first understand what it means to be human. This paper will not presume to fully answer this age-old question, but will pose some relevant questions and attempt to catalog some of the attributes that might be key to the definition. Having identified some candidate attributes of the human identity, we then turn to the scriptures, identifying some biblical principles that may be helpful in considering AI and what it means to be human, organized into the themes of creation, fall, and redemption. The paper concludes with a call to responsibility and humility.