GROVE CITY – What role will we let artificial intelligence play in our lives, and what effect will AI have on religion and the world? Can it replace human roles that require empathy?
Dr. Derek Schuurman, a Christian computer scientist from Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich., delved into those issues Oct. 7 at Grove City College in the college’s Albert A. Hopeman Jr. Memorial Lecture in Faith & Technology.
Schuurman, is a member of the American Scientific Affiliation and adviser for AI and faith, a contributor to the Christian Scholars Review blog, a columnist for the Christian Courier and an author of Shaping the Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology and a co-author of A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers.
He said Marc Andreessen, a co-creater of the Mosaic web browser and one of the pioneers of the World Wide Web, wrote a manifesto about AI saving the world.
Schuurman said the manifesto states, “every scientist and leader will have their own assistant, productivity will accelerate, musicians and artists will go farther, death rates will be reduced and war will become unnecessary.”
“It’s a rival story to the biblical story,” he said. “It’s a substitution for the biblical story. It has a notion of what’s wrong with the world and what the remedy is. It’s a view of a utopian future of ushering in a new heaven and a new earth of sorts, but one that does not include God.”
Although he expressed the possibility of this story coming to fruition being a concern, he said AI is a good thing God put into creation.
“Things like AI and computers are part of the possibilities of creation, but direction has to do with how we actually point and implement those sort of things,” Schuurman said. “The question is not with AI itself. The question is, how are we directing it, towards obedience or disobedience?”
Schuurman said ethically, appropriate use of AI could be for predicting earthquakes, helping with climate change, helping to reduce traffic fatalities, precision medicine, cancer treatment, drug development and for saving the bees.
He said having relationships with an AI can be a negative way to use AI.
“I think a relationship with AI is a relationship with one person, and it’s all about you,” Schuurman said. “I think it actually damages you for authentic, genuine communication. It goes against the social norm.”
Schuurman said another negative way AI could be used would be to use it for cyber crime and weaponizing it.
“Cyber crime, hacking, manipulating people’s opinions and influencing elections – all those sorts of things are real dangers actually,” he said.
He said he thinks AI will take a lot of jobs in the future, which could also be a negative use of AI.
“I think at that point we have to get back to that question and say, ‘what does it mean to be human?’” Schuurman said. “What does it mean to be made in the image of God? What does that imply for certain types of relationships and work about having a human doing that, because we choose to have someone who can actually have empathy for us, someone who’s words can be influenced and shaped by the holy spirit speaking into our lives. There’s certain roles that require empathy, care (and) wisdom.”
Schuurman said he thinks some roles that require this kind of empathy, such as being a pastor or teacher, will remain untouched by AI.
He said the best way to use AI is to maintain a “hybrid approach” where “people do what people do well and machines do what machines do well.”
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