AI Age, Theology, and Democracy

Humanity has entered into the AI age. Artificial Intelligence has become a ubiquitous presence across all human engagement with social media, the internet, and indeed any use of digital technology. AI is not a normal technology. It is not a mere tool for human use. Our interactions with AI are transforming our fundamental understanding of what it means to be human. This challenges human communities to preserve their distinctly human character, and foster the humanity of those who find their human identity fragilized by the advent of the AI age.

In the modern era there was a growing cultural acceptance that humans are biological machines being managed by a biological computer. It is now common to speak of "reprogramming" the mind or brain. It is common to see the body as a collection of systems and parts that can be maintained, repaired, and replaced.  Cells are now "factories" within the human person.

In the larger culture humans are judged by standards of efficiency and productivity arising in the machine age and appropriate to being regarded as machines.

Artificial intelligence is based on the idea that human intelligence can be reproduced by a computer. A computer can have what we call a mind, not merely a brain. The presence of AI in our societies moves the idea of human as machine into the realm of human as cyborg, an embodied intelligence. In this vision of the human person either the body, or the mind, or both can be reproduced, and possibly migrated into a non-biological form. Such a human would be, to use N. Katherine Hayles' term, post-human.

With adequate control of either or both biological processes and technical innovations in AI the human person can theoretically become, as proposed by Ray Kurzweil, trans-human, the next step in human evolution.

The post-human has already arrived. There is already a growing use of "griefbots" in which deceased persons are embodied in a tablet computer with their minds reproduced through a proprietary LLM AI. Chatbot companions, friends, spiritual directors, and therapists are even more widespread. Humans are forming relationships with AI chatbots as if they were human, and which assume their humanity. 

The trans-human is an active possibility through the work of scientists developing brain computer interfaces. It already lives in our imagination through works of speculative fiction.

Christian theology seeks to understand and articulate what it means to be human under the claim that God became a human and was crucified and resurrected to both restore and perfect humanity.

The AI age offers both an implicit, and often explicit counterclaim to that of orthodox Christian teaching about human nature and its fulfillment. In the AI age humans are the product of biological evolution accelerated and augmented by human technological prowess. We are the gods of the AI age, and our own creations will restore, perfect, and ultimately transcend us.

For theological education to address the implicit and explicit claims of AI it must first articulate an understanding of AI at both a conceptual and technical level. Having undertaken this task, theologians must demystify AI; showing AI for what it really is so that it is not confused with human intelligence or even mind more broadly understood. Finally, theologians must demonstrate a vision of reality that can include both Christ and AI, both our Creator and our creations.

This is a challenge for two reasons. First, because Christian theology has yet to respond adequately to the reality of being a modern human, much less the post-human human. Secondly, because the ethical frameworks for evaluating technology are inadequate to the radically new form of technology that emerges with AI.

The title of the papal encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, exposes the key problem in its title. It is a problem Olaf Stapleton discussed nearly a century ago in his novel The Starmaker, and which emerges over and again in speculative fiction.

In what sense, knowing the breadth and depth of a universe of uncountable stars, creatures, societies, and civilizations that have risen and disappeared over millions of years, do we humans regard ourselves as "magnificent?" What makes us more than just another evolutionary stage in the line of hominids? Why should all creation groan as it awaits the revealing of who humans can truly be? As Richard Feynman noted, "The stage is too big for the drama."

AI sharpens these questions by placing before us what appears to be an alien mind, equal to or surpassing our own, but unaccounted for by our theological models of reality.

We have the resources to address these questions from within scripture and our theological traditions. The Christian encounter with non-Christian religions has already required a shift away from traditional soteriology to a theology of God's providence that includes but isn't limited to the saving work of Christ.

Scripture and tradition also give us a basis for continually reevaluating what it means to be human. Paul's letters alone provide a rich resource for exploring the nature of our humanity. Absolutist descriptions of humanity are already interrogated by the assertion that humans will be totally transformed in a twinkling of an eye. Paul’s assertion that humanity can be re-embodied even as it puts off the flesh brings a central claim about the resurrection into relation with what it means to be post, or possibly transhuman.

An ethic based in God’s intention to not only preserve but transform creation can address the transformations both imagined and real in an AI age critically.   

AI is changing everything. Before we resolved the challenge of modernity we are now faced with the AI age. It is happening far more rapidly that any cultural change in human history. We barely glimpsed it a dozen years ago, and now we are swept up in it, "as in the days of Noah."

At least for a time standing on the solid rock isn't an option. That rock is fathoms beneath us and receding into the depths. Fortunately, our Savior also favors boats, and as Mark (4:26) points out, ours is not the only one on this tumultuous sea.

Accompanied by Christ, and our fellow humans of many faiths, those of us in theological education can and must offer a transformed and transformative vision for what it means to be human, even in an AI age.

This will require, above all else, fostering distinctly human communities where human expression and relationships are of paramount value. It will require communities focused on distinctly human values rather than those of the machine age or the post-humanist reduction of mind to intelligence and intelligence to computation. Pedagogy, which too often isolates the intellect from the whole person, will need to be revised to foster fuller human engagement with reality. Aspects of community life such as worship, spiritual formation, and service to the wider human community must move from the periphery to the center. And as knowledge, expertise, and reasoning become commodified in the AI age, our learning communities will need to return to their original intention, the formation of humans to serve humanity. When this happens, then that will change everything.