Amidst a flurry of new developments within the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) many are wondering about the future effects of this kind of technology upon our societies. There are ongoing concerns about negative effects upon people's jobs as well as deeper issues around human identity itself, and even our survival. Whilst there are many efficiency benefits to AI programmes such as ChatGPT, are we sufficiently aware of the disadvantages? What do we lose, for example, when we allow machine learning to do our writing, speaking, and thinking for us? Whilst tech companies continue spending billions on AI development, are they receiving enough theological or ethical pushback in the process? Can we trust the secular values which often lie behind these brave new worlds being "created" before us? Have we so elevated the life of the mind and the life of the spirit that we've lost sight of the importance of our embodiment as humans? How might the Church speak into the inevitable shortcomings of AI to overcome the deepest challenges we face as human beings? All this and more on our latest episode!

SOURCES

- Sherry Turkle: https://www.sherryturkle.com

- Nick Bostrom, "Superintelligence" (2014)

- https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/

- Paul Kingsnorth, Alexandria: A Novel (Graywolf Press, 2020)

- David Noble, "The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention" (Penguin, 1997)

- C. S. Lewis, "The Great Divorce" (1946)

- https://a16z.com/2023/06/06/ai-will-save-the-world/

- https://slaynews.com/news/wef-ai-rewrite-bible-create-religions-actually-correct/