I found this commentary of Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas extremely thought-provoking, and obviously the source document itself too.
For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change. A person’s future is not calculable, but depends on one’s freedom — elevated by the inexhaustible grace of God — and on the relationships cultivated.”
(§128)
Indeed an error in a program writ large to life could be a failure, moral or otherwise. Whilst a program would deem it an inefficiency, a flaw to be eradicated, human life failure could make all the difference between repentance, a turning away from what is wrong, and a stronger life for it.
What a massive difference.
Overall, I also think the most important thing is to make very clear the distinction between AI being “intelligent” (it is afterall, artificial intelligence) vs being sentient or conscious.
I agree that once we believe that AI is conscious and sentient ala human beings, we have bought into the lie of those whom Wyatt Graham calls “Conditioners”, those who use technology to enframe (a way of framing) society. Once we believe that the mind of AI is alive in that way, “we have transfigured our imagination by being enframed by technological society”, i.e. we have been conditioned to think that AI can be just as mind-conscious as humans.
Rather than being a 21st century Luddite, or refusing to embrace ‘new truths’, I posit that believing that AI can think on the same levels as humans, is somewhat lazy thinking. A cop-out, if you will, of extrapolating the future in an over-simplified way.
Of this list in the Magnifica Humanitas, I find the last characteristic most critical.
So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.
It cannot be held to task, convicted or punished in any meaningful sense of those words.
Which is why in the age of unparalleled speed of advancement, humanity owes it to himself and herself to keep up in the imposition of guardrails and apply human morality. As with the internet, with the mobile phone, or more primitively in the case of fire, they are good servants but bad masters.
So humanity, if not society and government structures, needs to keep its proliferation guarded. OpenAI sounds democratic until it is not. Because we know power needs to come with responsibility and accountability. Structures need to be put in place. At the risk of proliferating cliches, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
– Lord Acton, 1887
In this case, it is not absolute power in the hands of AI (at least not yet), but in the hands of those who create and have the most to gain from selling and using AI. The fallout has already begun.
The question will be what sentient humans do in the next 2, 5, 10 years that will probably have the most bearing on how we continue to exist as a race here on earth, with the minds God has given us. Will it be a case of Babel 2.0, or will there be a return to the faithful reading of God’s word and a rebuilding of God’s sanctuary as with Nehemiah?
The latter would not just be living out orthodoxy, but more specifically manifest itself in a movement to embrace human agency like never before.
Not to abdicate societal decisions, how we run our lives, or plan for the future, to unaccountable machines, but to have a heightened awareness of the dangers of AI whilst mindfully harnessing its benefits.
It would be foolish to think we can hide in hermit communes until the AI storm blows over, or Armaggadon arrives. So I agree, we must build, but not a tower of arrogance (pride always harkens a downfall) and senseless belief in humanity itself, but a sanctuary which edifies, which rightly honours God and acknowledges that He is God and we are not. And neither is AI.
Facebook Comments