Editor’s note: Part One of this essay can be read here.
The Dangers of AI in Ministry
AI’s development potentially has profound implications for various fields of ministry, where it could serve as a powerful adjunct for evangelization, education, and community building. But does this mean that it should be used in these fields? Not everything that can be done should be done. There are many cases in which there is no room for doubt about technological abilities that should never be employed, such as abortion, IVF, so-called sex change surgeries, human embryonic stem cell research, etc. There are areas in which the technology itself may not be intrinsically evil, but its application has mostly negative potential, such as nuclear weapons technology, chemical weapons technology, and human cloning.
However, there are many technologies in which the prudence of particular applications is not so clear because the benefits are potentially great but the potential for catastrophic and widespread abuse is also high. Artificial intelligence is one of these. Yet, there is almost no conceivable scenario in which the genie might be put back in the bottle on this technology, so ongoing debate about its use is needed and will certainly provide helpful insights and cautions, and lead to restraint in its use, but the technology is here to stay.
As a matter of full disclosure, I will say that I have been surprised by its capabilities. I have been familiar with artificial intelligence since the 1990s through study and research when the main focus was on expert systems driven by fuzzy logic and increasing the performance of neural networks (my first two degrees are in electrical engineering and I worked for 20 years in weapon systems development). Back then, I could not have imagined its current capability would be possible. By “nature” I tend to be cautious and risk averse. As such, my initial reaction to this technology for direct human interaction in such things as education, pastoral ministry, and the lay apostolate has been in the direction of severe restraint.
My concerns are primarily in its likely negative anthropological impacts. My experience of teaching in higher education has been of a widespread and persistent decline in students’ intellectual performance over at least the last 25 years. There are certainly many factors that have contributed to this, but I think a significant negative contribution has been the wide availability of the internet and effective search engines. It has become the rare student who can think cogently, write clearly, and be orally articulate. When I find one, my first guess is that the student was homeschooled and protected from overexposure to technology, and I find this is usually a correct guess.
Too many students have been habituated to believe they are supposed to be fed answers and their success as students is to be found in their ability to regurgitate information. This “information brokering” is the approach so many students take to “research,” using the internet to tell them answers to their questions and stitching these answers verbatim into a confused mess of text. Forming young minds for thinking, understanding, and reasoning has largely been left aside within the contemporary education system, replaced by inculcation with information, and increasingly, indoctrination with ideological tropes. Irrespective of causation, this decline has corresponded with the rise in communications technologies. I fear the situation will get significantly worse with the misuse of AI chat bots within and outside of contemporary education. It very well could be the final nail in the coffin for public education and all private educational institutions that follow the current trends of the overuse of technology in education.17
I am also concerned about the excessive amount of time people of all ages are spending with computing technology, mostly interacting with others through this technology. It is making us all dopamine addicts at increasingly young ages, with less and less attention spans and developing dopamine induced vices that stunt the development of affective maturity. The human person is a unity of body and soul, who requires regular, nurturing, incarnational interpersonal interchange for his flourishing. I am extremely cautious about contributing to the amount of time people will spend online and using AI to give them answers rather than reading books, thinking through issues on their own, and discussing them incarnationally with others. I am also wary about fostering more activities that may limit or even prevent authentic, incarnational interpersonal engagement.
Moreover, it is only through this incarnational, interpersonal exchange in which Jesus Christ is encountered in His disciples, that faith in Him is shared, the struggling are encouraged, the doubtful find reassurance, the weary receive strength, the lost are guided, the wounded find healing, those seeking are effectively catechized, and the broken experience restoration. Because faith is only shared by those with faith, it goes without saying that AI cannot possibly substitute for Christian disciples. It seems like there should be no place for AI even in education, much less Christian discipleship. My initial and cautious proclivities urge me in this direction. However, Jesus’ final missionary discourse as St. Mark records it keeps coming back to me. “Go out into all the world…”, and so much of the world is now spending much of its time in cyberspace.
Disciples must be wherever there are people who need to hear the Good News. Catholic Answers decision to employ AI also provides some points to consider. They seem to be one of the more well-funded apostolates out there and even they do not have the resources to address even a significant portion of those who go to them for help. In addition, there is a quickly increasing number of people out there who will rely first on AI as more complex search engines for their initial introduction to the Catholic faith. AI apps can be more effective in getting them to real people to assist them pastorally than would be possible by relying on the current AI driven search engines.
The potential of AI in ministry
If used with prudence, AI could be used effectively to assist in ministry. It might be considered for such matters as aiding in homily preparation, aiding with identifying patterns in one’s nightly examination of conscience and other spiritual growth activities, and facilitating the dissemination and understanding of catechetical materials. AI can also analyze data to understand better the needs of a congregation, which can help to tailor pastoral care more effectively. However, it is essential to recognize that AI should augment, not replace the interpersonal interaction that is the hallmark of authentic ministry.
As we navigate this new frontier, we must do so with discernment, ensuring that AI serves the greater good and its use comports with the authentic fulfillment of the human person. AI at its best, could be a tool for enhancing aspects of ministry and the lay apostolate, and assisting in bringing the light of faith into the dark places of our digital age.
The safeguards required
Generative AI is a technology with an almost certain likelihood of significantly changing our society. I will admit that such transformative technologies seem to arrive well before a society has much of an idea about their potential negative consequences, much less the wherewithal to minimize or even deal with these impacts. In a perfect world, I would have preferred that Generative AI be developed and rolled out more slowly and with more caution. However, I don’t think this is likely or even possible at this point. Nor will it do for Christians to ignore or carte blanche condemn it.
The Gospel needs to be proclaimed every place there are ears to hear. Today, the venues for reaching people are changing, and much of this is due to technology. Therefore, Christians need to know where technology is moving people. For example, there is a virtual world that is developing, connecting people in virtual, 3D immersive environments in which they need not leave for anything but the most basic human functions. We should expect that incarnational access to coming generations may become increasingly limited. While we cannot accept leaving people in such an anti-human situation, the Gospel first needs to reach them there.
Perhaps the approach might be something like St. John Bosco who would visit the gambling dens of gutter snipes, begin betting with them only to steal their betting pots and run to the church with the youngsters hot on his heels. There, Don Bosco would require they listen to him speak before returning their money. He was able to save not a few young boys this way. So, we too must go where the people are and engage with them there. To do so, we need to employ the technologies they will be using, and we can even use the strengths of these technologies to enhance our effectiveness at reaching them. But the Gospel is proclaimed to persons by persons, and so we need to learn how to overcome the limitations inherent in such outreach. There are cautions we must take with the technologies we employ.
With Generative AI, as with other information-based technologies, we need to realize that too much of a good thing will have negative consequences. Prolonged exposure to digital displays can alter one’s state of consciousness, making him passive and fostering dopamine dependence. This reduces a person’s ability to think, concentrate, or focus on one thing for any length of time. It contributes to laziness in thinking and a dangerous habit of needing even relatively simple concepts to be explained, leaving one with the inability to understand more complex ideas, and generally needing to be told what to think. Too much time spent alone, with only virtual interactions, also has a variety of other negative consequences for integral human fulfillment as it now feeds the loneliness epidemic.
There is something about an incarnational encounter with another which permits a person to go out of himself and to experience being received by another. This is what human persons require. An authentic exchange of persons is not purely an experience of sensitive phenomena, but even more a metaphysical exchange in which the soul of each is abstracted and inheres in each other. The degree to which this exchange is done rightly, selflessly, it becomes an authentically fulfilling human experience. Such an experience is certainly mediated by such phenomena as eye contact, facial expressions, and the tonal quality of the voice, but the human person is nourished ultimately by the metaphysical exchange obtained in face-to-face encounters with other persons. Encounters mediated by technology are not adequate for this.
So, it is not surprising that encounters with simulated persons (i.e., AI apps) will lack any capacity for fulfillment. The era of virtual relationships has already begun. As such relationships become increasingly common, we can expect the phenomenon which was once called “Facebook depression” to become increasingly debilitating for persons and society. It is now recognized that increasing amounts of time spent with social media contributes to negative mental health effects. There are many phenomena that contribute to this, but the net effect of excess time spent using technology for work, communication, entertainment, leisure, etc., is that it turns a person in on himself rather than out toward another. This diminishes rather than fulfils the human person. The earlier in life that a person begins to limit his incarnational encounters with others, the more it will diminish his ability to engage normally with others and increase long term negative impacts preventing his integral fulfillment. In order to avoid allowing the use of AI and other technology-based efforts at outreach to deform persons by its misuse and/or overuse, there are cautions that must be put in place.
To avoid promoting habits of having to be told what to think, we can use AI to help encourage thinking and reflection by training the AI system to engage users in a Socratic manner. We should develop systems that avoid simply giving answer after answer but help develop thinking and understanding by helping the person to learn to ask the right questions, consider the reasonableness of responses, recommend resources to read for going deeper on a matter, and regularly encourage users to do so. AI systems should regularly remind the user that they are not talking to a person, that they cannot think and so they can make mistakes, they do not really understand what is being discussed, and cannot at all empathize with the user or intend their good.
In this light, users should be warned regularly within the system’s responses against overreliance or naïve trust in its responses. System design should include limiting the time of the encounter, the number of questions and the types of questions that can be asked. Perhaps even requiring the user to read a resource before continuing a line of discussion with the AI app. The user must be reminded of the need for authentic human interaction and encourage him with specific recommendations for addressing his particular issue through real human encounters.
To avoid fostering a false sense that the use of an AI system is a real human interaction, it should not be developed with personalities or in any way try to mimic or replicate qualities expected in human interactions. The system must try to avoid allowing users to develop a sense of personal attachment. We should develop systems to detect such attachments and to respond by reminding the user that the system is not a person and of his need for authentic human interaction, and to provide specific recommendations for how he might do so.
A more robust system should be designed to look for signs, through the types of questions being asked, that the person may need real spiritual guidance or even mental health intervention. For example, detecting when the user shares his fears, concerns, temptations to self-harm or harming others, etc. If the need for human intervention is suspected, the user should be encouraged to consult with a priest, deacon and/or mental health provider. Some questions should not be entertained, such as asking for personal opinions or guidance about what the user should do in specific circumstances that could have significant impacts on his life. The restraint currently seen in chat systems against giving medical or mental health diagnoses, advice, or prognoses should be extended to vocational discernment decisions, moral choices, relationship issues, or spiritual warfare considerations. The system must avoid answering questions such as “what should I do?,” or “what would you do?”. Again, here the system should recommend the user seek out a priest, deacon, or mental health provider.
Mother of the Americas Institute is currently working with a developer to provide AI assistance for users with our products. We have significantly fewer financial resources than Catholic Answers and so we are even less able to help all of those who come to us. Yet, we are convinced we have uniquely effective formation programs that can help form better evangelists, marriages, and families, and we think we can safely use AI to assist in our mission. One such MAI program with we will employ AI is in an on-line version of our marriage formation program, The Great Mystery (GM). It will assist couples to understand their couples inventory and help them in understanding the actions they might take to address any issues uncovered. We also intend to use the app to improve our GM facilitator formation program and to provide more insights and practical application of MAI’s other work than we otherwise have the resources to provide. If you would like to try it out, you can try it here.
After trying out an AI application based on St. Thomas Aquinas, we were taken by surprise at its accuracy and usefulness. You might also check out the Catholic Tyro website, which is evaluating ways in which AI might aid in Catholic formation. Tyro also has AI apps for St. Augustine, St. John Henry Newman, St. Theresa of Avila and others. Our own system testing, Catholic Answers’ Justin, and Tyro’s effectiveness, have all given us confidence that Mother of the Americas Institute should move forward with our plans to allow AI to assist our apostolate in its effective outreach. We will make mistakes, but we will learn from them and continue to improve how we safely and effectively use AI to assist us in promoting the Gospel.
Endnote:
17 However, I can see as helpful, for example, using an AI Socratic chat bot to augment classical pedagogy by providing the opportunity for students to practice their thinking skills, asking the right questions, avoiding errors in thinking, etc., when the opportunity for incarnational practice with other students is lacking. Yet, the primary pedagogy still must be incarnational and communal to the degree possible.
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And yet: “Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”
With the printing press, and to counter the earliest tides of fake news, fake philosophy, fantasy fiction, the Hobbes Leviathan, and real porn, at Trent the Church instituted the “Index of Forbidden Books,” formerly scrubbed only in 1967. And, about movies, some of us still recall the pledge of the Legion of Decency, taken together when more than 10% of Catholics still attended Mass. Wielding a pitchfork at the incoming tide!
So, with AI, what’s all the news about the new dark side, and how will the Church or society or even isolated parents effectively incarnate the sacramental Mystical Body of Christ, when pew-sitters are already groomed into the fallacy that eyeballing Mass on a TV screen is “real,” rather than only a pattern of virtual and auditory electrons? Anthill electrons hatching an anthill Church and society!
Do we now pretend that it’s only about information dissemination?
So, yes, to your well-presented reservations, for example:
“Moreover, it is only through this incarnational, interpersonal exchange in which Jesus Christ is encountered in His disciples, that faith in Him is shared, the struggling are encouraged, the doubtful find reassurance, the weary receive strength, the lost are guided, the wounded find healing, those seeking are effectively catechized, and the broken experience restoration.”
But, about the referenced aps for St. Augustine and Cardinal Newman. Horrors!
Newman wrote serenely of education at a time before such modernday technological “aps” as Flanders Fields, Hiroshima and Dresden, Auschwitz and Katyn Forest, loss of China, the Twin Towers, resurgent Islam, COVID labs, Ukraine, and so much else not so tranquil. In the long run, the front-end Truce of God (A.D. 975), even with penalties assigned at a Lateran Council (A.D. 1139), didn’t mean much. Not to mention lesser prohibitions against the long bow and the trebuchet!
How, now, to rise above a flood of AI information technology—and random parallel universes created (!) by software wizards? Or, how at least to prevent devastating hacking of anyone (and their most distant and electronically linked relatives) who might click into an evangelization site?
SUMMARY: What to do about a “usury” of sorts on steroids, or electronic COVID also on a pandemic scale? Tent, nose, camel?
“Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside”, a wonderful quote. A Chinese proverb? At any rate an intelligent, limited use of AI can be very helpful when dealing with intricate technical issues. This morning the first barrier in obtaining service was what usually happens, a computerized ‘person’. However, I was surprised this synthetic person actually responded in conversational capacity, perhaps better than Amazon’s Alexis. If AI tech can facilitate what often is a frustration it does have evident value. Whatever our predilection or judgment AI is an inevitability that will impact our lives.
As to the question of a synthetic TV screen or other tech religion in the future, the Catholic Church has insisted that religious transactions be personal, human to human. No confessions of sins over the phone. Attendance at Mass however is in danger since the Covid lockdowns [isolated parents effectively incarnate the sacramental Mystical Body of Christ, when pew-sitters are already groomed into the fallacy that eyeballing Mass on a TV screen is “real,”]. Although the Church is aware and addressing this real heresy.
Much of life is a balance for sake of necessity, as when we’re hospitalized or shut in the availability of the TV screen Mass a benefit. As perceived by this writer all depends on the effectiveness of management. The Body of Christ is real in the flesh as a gathering, a congregation. Otherwise we become fodder for that tiger you speak of.
I feel compunction for thrashing Google’s anticipation word correction and feel the need now to express praise for their AI research. I have posted esoteric questions on various subjects including obscure religious persons and events in the sands of time and the system returned amazing responses in no time. I double researched to verify and so far all are supported.
The problem for users is becoming a synthetic media scholar. Any noteworthy scholarly work must verify primary, secondary sources as much as expected. Insofar as media comments the more effort we put in to verify sources the more we mutually gain in ‘extending our frontiers of knowledge’ [sorry but I had to put that last hackneyed phrase in which I learned during college days].
Family Man is extinct. Virtuous Man has long since left the stage. The end of Thinking Man is on the horizon.
Dr Delaney, there is a more serious downside to the success of the current generation of AI systems than you have mentioned. The downside is the “increasing respect” for technology which at times produces an increased openness to atheism. For 3-4 centuries now, the trend to substitute science for God has been growing. As science becomes more and more impressive, those on the border lines of belief become more open to substituting technology for religion at the core of their belief system. That is a wider and more serious threat than others.
St Paul warn’s that knowledge puffs up while love builds up. The problem of course is ultimately intellectual pride, and so St Paul does not go on to prohibit knowledge but teaches that knowledge must be made fruitful through employing it by means of acts of love. The problem of technology as an instrument of pride and fostering the sense of self-sufficiency, according to some interpreters, actually goes back much further than the advent of empirical science. We perhaps can point to Shinar and the People of Babel who sought to rebel against God. But in order to keep Him from destroying them through flood (see Noah), they used their tower building technology to build the Tower of Babel. Yet, we do not see any Biblical traditions rail against technology itself. Rather, we continually see admonitions against the real problem, which is pride. It is clear that greater capabilities through knowledge, and especially through the form of knowledge Aristotle called techne, can foster the illusion of self-sufficiency and so atheism. Yet, the Christian tradition conforms more to the old adage that abuse does not demand disuse, than it does to the Luddite-like response which wants to destroy the technology itself. The solution is not to rebel and reject the misused instrument of abuse, but to become ourselves more effective instruments of Christ Incarnate. Our lived conversion in the world is the solution to all of the world’s problems in our time, in every time. We can also model restrained, temperate use of these technologies for those of good will to see and emulate. This is what I am trying to propose here.
You say that as though people were really learning science. Trust me, they are not. Do you really think that all those people repeating, “I trust science,” could tell the difference between science and propaganda?
This problem is present on both sides of the cultural spectrum, too. I frequently see Catholics and other Christians assuming that all scientists are atheists. Most scientists are smart enough to realize that science comes no closer to answering the big questions than does a painters skill in mixing paints, and among any large group of scientists you can expect to find practicing Protestants, practicing Catholics, practicing Jews, practicing Hindus, and practicing Muslims, as well as a large group of unbelievers.
What you are describing is more of a superstition of science. It’s different in detail, but maybe not so much in substance, from other kinds of superstition. Too many people have always been more interested in material benefits than in communion with God. This is why you see the “proof” that “prayer does not work” by looking at the lifespans of monarchs for whom prayers are offered up daily; it ignores the implicit “not my will, but Thine, be done” present in every proper Christian prayer.
“My experience of teaching in higher education has been of a widespread and persistent decline in students’ intellectual performance over at least the last 25 years. There are certainly many factors that have contributed to this, but I think a significant negative contribution has been the wide availability of the internet and effective search engines.”
I blame the K-12 system being more interested in indoctrination than education. A half dozen years or so ago, I taught a class in West Virginia for freshman and said something about the lesson of the Holocaust. This wasn’t in Boston or San Francisco, and I expected them to have been taught enough to understand that the real lesson is that each of us must be careful or we too could become monsters. Nope; every one of them thought the real lesson is that you have to be very careful of the political right, or you might become a victim. It had never crossed their minds that they might become the victimizer.
When I see American children being taught dozens of new pronouns to placate every conceivable sexual perversion while children in China are being taught calculus, I see a shift in the balance of power just over the horizon.
Of course, intact families in which the parents are deeply involved with their children’s upbringing can fix much of this problem.
We’re in trouble.
I think “intact families” are going the way of the Ankylosaurus and other dinosaurs – extinction. We are in deep trouble – maybe more than people realize. At some point, all of these chickens are going to come home to roost, and it’s going to be far uglier and harmful than we can imagine, unfortunately.
Yes and no. Yes, that is the trend now, and it is a trend that might destroy the United States. It will certainly destroy the image we once had of the United States … in fact, I’d say that has already happened.
On the other hand …. “And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For, as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark: And they knew not till the flood came and took them all away: so also shall the coming of the Son of man be.”
Ankylosaurus, the moral learned is keep your child as far away from State corruption as you can.
It’s wider (or maybe I should say deeper?) than the State. It’s television, movies, and the Internet. It’s even Oreos and what used to be called the Boy Scouts.
There is a very dark idea going with AI, that there is an obligation that everyone must in some way be attached to it; and when possible also be subject to it. Giving notice of its progress is meant to be avoided.
Replace the word “obligation” with “evolution” and you have a further morbidity. There is a conscious purpose to impose it more and more justified on account of how far it got. Elective use is meant to be channeled only for this or that.
There is a telling defect in AI, which is that it is not possible to know or control with absolute certainty or with certainty mutually shared, when something is purely artificial and when it is mixed intelligence or the timing.
There are major practical shortcomings with AI, starting with its inherent non-permanence/instability going to its arbitrary changeability/non-secure going all the way to its dependence on raw energy.
There are legal-practical problems woven into AI in favour of operators that defy the principles of commutative and legal justice -not resolvable because of the drive to achieve a result on grounds of a distributive justice.
Also it was not up for discussion, they went ahead and did it anyway putting the burden on non-operators. Its legal and moral foundations are presented not only as unassailable but as equal or more important as if it has inherent rights.
They deliberately are stamping out foundational electivity and related terms of use, not just avoiding them. But note it carefully, attitudes producing these things are not new to mankind nor new in the fields of evil.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2012/02/17/under-the-control-of-the-state/
AI is fine as long as you use it like the warning in Microsoft Word that you have misspelled a word. Notice the suggestion and double-check, but don’t take it as gospel, because there are many words Word does not know. The same goes with Wikipedia or CNN — you can get useful information from them, but don’t make life-or-death decisions based only on what they provide.
Yes, agreed. And thank you. I looked up ankylosaurus and upon seeing its profiling, found it looks like a turtle. My dinosaur skepticisms wold throw that whole world into investigation.
Appreciate your comments in general. Not like a dinosaur. Haha.
And there is a work to be done bringing this tech to heel. The tech guys who will do it will be the heroes and God will bless them. Amen! Let it be!
Most spiritual writers such as Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux or Louis de Monfort did not take positions against science. They wrote about God. But it has been interesting to me that the strongest criticism of reliance on “rationalism” and ignoring spirituality came from Maria Valtorta. She attributed the following statement to Jesus to rationalists: “Rationalism, humanism… Darwinism, you have schools and doctrines of all kinds… But poor fools! What will you do with your kittle schools and your little words when you have to take My examination?” Notebooks, Aug 22, 1943, before she started writing the Poem. I think we must put Christianity before all science.
Anybody who needs answers St. Teresa of Avila can just read her books. If you’re not capable of doing that then you’re not capable of using AI “safely”.
Talk of “safe” AI use is usually predicated on the assumption that because it exists, it must “have a place” – whether or not there was any pressing need for it up to the point that we started itching to implement a new technology because it’s there
AI is likely to become integrated into the very fabric of technology and, as a result, permeate all aspects of modern life. As we become more comfortable using AI, its benefits and shortcomings will become clearer. This thoughtful consideration of using AI prudently is an important topic to consider and discuss in order to ensure that technology serves the greater good and supports authentic human interaction.
As Pope Francis wisely reminds us in his encyclical Laudato Si’: “We need to develop a sound ethics, politics, and jurisprudence to ensure that technology serves humankind and does not rule over us.” Deacon Delaney presents a balanced approach that is essential as we navigate the age of Artificial Intelligence, recognizing AI’s utility while maintaining the irreplaceable value of personal, “incarnational” encounters.
While major tech players are rushing to commercialize the technology, programs such as the Mother of the Americas Institute and Tyro.ai are showcasing how this technology can assist in evangelization to reach more people effectively. As Catholics, we should ensure AI serves to augment rather than replace genuine human engagement and search for its ethical uses in our daily lives as well as in ministry.
AI now placed as an effective answer to counter balance the decline in faith and it’s practice. Like COVID many said when it ended people would be back, they didn’t! Likewise we embrace all the government told us and it effectively ended active participation when we retreated to attending Mass in pyjamas and could eat breakfast with the added bonus of no fasting! Let’s also remember that a good act of contrition finally nailed shut the confessional door and the need for the intermediary priest! 1517 came full circle! But let’s not forget the recent AI priest with silver fox appearance and became an unmitigated disaster!
Man seeks God in himself is found in all heresies, with AI we see a promised Eden propagated by the good deacon and his firm, it undoubtedly forgetting the smell of sulphate and the lie of Eden that we will become divine! The film Terminator gives us a reason to doubt this golden egg and see it as nothing more than whispers of our spiritual ruination!
About AI ever becoming “conscious” or self-aware…
Some scholars suggest an Islamic belief that the Qur’an is also self-aware and in this way explains the “abrogation” (!) of past revelations by contradictory future revelations. That the self-aware Qur’an retains all in an ongoing process of divine revelation (Daniel Madigan, “The Qur’an’ Self-Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture,” Princeton University Press,2001).
Do we begin to notice here, too, a convergence of three such cults:
First, a 7th-century and post-Meccan prophet with a cross-tribal, inscrutably fideistic and “self-aware” Qur’an; plus second, 21st-century/post-modern “selfies” of Western hyper-rationalism gone septic, but all such data points included (inclusivity!) within self-aware AI; plus third, post-Christian and ongoing “process theology” with possibly polyhedral/contradictory continental synods, each laboring under the historicist principle (?) that “time is greater than space”?
Post-Trinitarian Babel converging globally under a Triad of pre-intelligent turbans, anti-intelligent computer chips, and only possibly-intelligent synodal roundtables?
“About AI ever becoming “conscious” or self-aware…”
It has the same chance as a “Magic 8-Ball”. The Turing Test has always struck me as little more than a measure of human gullibility.
Of course, as with Tarot cards or Ouija boards, AI will mostly operate outside the control of any intelligence. Except sometimes it is otherwise. AI will at least be biased, intentionally or not, by human choices. Search engines have been manipulated for years by corporations, by pranksters, and by consumer choices, and AI will continue these influences — and add glitch tokens.
I think it is also important, when trying to “use AI safely” to remember that while you are using AI, it/somebody is also watching and using you.