In his article about AI, Tim Suffield argues that one lens we need to consider when engaging with AI, indeed with anything is the spiritual lens. He points out that something can be more than one thing at the same time, that we shouldn’t therefore over divide between spiritual and physical. I’m with him so far.
However, he then makes a step from there to argue that because we shouldn’t over divide spiritual from physical, we should consider the spiritual forces that might be at work in AI. I note here that this is actually a leap from one to another. Spiritual and physical unity does not automatically mean spiritual forces/demons.
To step back a moment and think away from the AI debate, when I talk about human-beings I recognise them as both physical and spiritual. This does not mean that every human-being is demon possessed, even though every human being outside of Christ is fallen and sinful. This doesn’t mean that Satan has no influence on lives either. It just means that we distinguish, as Jesus did, most people from those specifically under a form of demonic influence. Incidentally, I would argue that if we move straight from “everything is spiritual” to “therefore it is likely to be demonic” we are potentially denying the spiritual nature of everything else. Ironically this is taking us straight into the dualistic zone that Tim is concerned about.
Tim argues that:
“The world is riddled with spiritual powers, the majority of which seem to have rebelled against the Lord. If the air is full of demons who hate you, why wouldn’t AI be?”
I’m not sure where he gets his idea that the world is “riddled” and that “the air is full of demons.” Scripture talks about Satan as “the ruler of the kingdom of the air.” However, that is more emphasising his extensive but still limited and finite power and status in this fallen and rebellious world.
So, I don’t find the language of “riddled with” helpful. It’s potentially confusing and doesn’t really help us think about what it means to live godly lives for Christ in this fallen world. It misses the point. What is the danger with AI? It’s not that demons have possessed your computer or mobile phone (I know it feels like that at times when auto-correct and fill get to work. Rather the issue is, as with all of our engagement that those who develop the software and those who have supplied the knowledge content are fallen human beings. This means that they are influenced by sin, their own fleshly desires and the influence of Satanic deception and temptation.
This means that we need to be alert to two dangers. First, how the technology does shape and mould us, not because we are chatting to demons but because often when fallen human beings design and develop anything it has both the potential to be useful and nourishing and the potential to be addictive and draining. We already know that about the internet, social media etc just as we know it about food and drink. It’s true too of sports, recreation, music, art, theatre but we are perhaps less aware of how that is so in those cases.
The second danger is to do with content. What tools like ChatGPT are doing right now is using algorithms to draw together, synthesis, structure and communicate existing knowledge available to them, something that the internet has enabled. When you read something written by ChatGPT, this becomes obvious. A great risk with it is that the processing doesn’t seem to properly acknowledge sources. That’s one reason as to why I’m particularly cautious about it. The point though is that this knowledge is never neutral, it will be shaped by the perspectives of those who have pooled it together, it will contain truth and lies about God and it will have originally been communicated with a purpose or agenda in mind. The content is shaped both by the sinful, selfish desires of the originators and by the way in which they have been influenced by Satanic or demonic deceit and temptation.
Of course, there is another category of problem. We are fallible and finite. Sometimes we are just wrong. Tim’s article and mine are both now available on the internet and therefore available to AI algorithms. Ask ChatGPT to write an essay on the question “Is AI dehumanising” and there is now the possibility that your AI generated essay will draw from either of our articles. It will therefore potentially be drawing in from all those things that Tim and I get wrong as well as the things we get right.
We do well to be alert to the spiritual lens. There are both positive and negative things about this. We should seek to do all things to the glory of God.
Faithroots 