Essay

AI - Artificial Intelligence

Culture

19 March 2024

9 min read

Here’s why AI needs a theology of tech

As AI takes on tasks once exclusively human, we start to doubt ourselves. We need to set the balance right.

Oliver Dürr

Oliver Dürr is a theologian who explores the impact of technology on humanity and the contours of a hopeful vision for the future. He is an author, speaker, podcaster and features in several documentary films.

In the style of an icon of the Council of Nicea, theologians look on as a cyborg and humanoid AI shake hands

The Council of Nicaeai, reimagined.

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai

AI is all the rage these days. Researchers branching into natural and engineering sciences are thriving, and novel applications enter the market every week. Pop culture explores various utopian and dystopian future visions. A flood of academic papers, journalistic commentary and essays, fills out the picture.

Algorithms are at the basis of most activities in the digital world. AI-based systems work at the interface with the analogue world, controlling self-driving cars and robots. They are transforming medical practices - predicting, preventing, diagnosing and supporting therapy. They even support decision-making in social welfare and jurisprudence. In the business sector, they are used to recruit, sell, produce and ship. Much of our infrastructure today crucially depends on algorithms. But while they foster science, research, and innovation, they also enable abuse, targeted surveillance, regulation of access to information, and even active forms of behavioural manipulation.

The remarkable and seemingly intellectual achievements of AI applications uniquely confront us with our self-understanding as humans: What is there still categorically that distinguishes us from the machines we build?

In all these areas, AI takes on tasks and functions that were once exclusive to humans. For many, the comparison and competition between humans and (algorithmically driven) machines are obvious. As these lines are written, various applications are flooding the market, characterized by their ‘generative' nature (generative AI). These algorithms, such OpenAI’s the GPT series, go further than anyone expected. Just a few years ago, it was hard to foresee that mindless computational programs could autonomously generate texts that appear meaningful, helpful, and in many ways even ‘human’ to a human conversation partner. Whether those innovations will have positive or negative consequences is still difficult to assess at this point.

For decades, research has aimed to digitally model human capabilities - our perception, thinking, judging and action - and allow these models to operate autonomously, independent of us. The most successful applications are based on so-called deep learning, a variant of AI that works with neural networks loosely inspired by the functioning of the brain. Technically, these are multilayered networks of simple computational units that collectively encode a potentially highly complex mathematical function.

You don’t need to understand the details to realize that, fundamentally, these are simple calculations but cleverly interconnected. Thus, deep learning algorithms can identify complex patterns in massive datasets and make predictions. Despite the apparent complexity, no magic is involved here; it is simply applied mathematics.

Moreover, this architecture requires no ‘mental' qualities except on the part of those who design these programs and those who interpret their outputs. Nevertheless, the achievements of generative AI are astonishing. What makes them intriguing is the fact that their outputs can appear clever and creative – at least if you buy into the rhetoric. Through statistical exploration, processing, and recombination of vast amounts of training data, these systems generate entirely new texts, images and film that humans can interpret meaningfully.

The remarkable and seemingly intellectual achievements of AI applications uniquely confront us with our self-understanding as humans: Is there still something categorically that distinguishes us from the machines we build? This question arises in the moral vacuum of current anthropology.

Strictly speaking, only embodied, living and vulnerable humans really have problems that they solve or goals they want to achieve... Computers do not have problems, only unproblematic states they are in.

The rise of AI comes at a time when we are doubting ourselves. We question our place in the universe, our evolutionary genesis, our psychological depths, and the concrete harm we cause to other humans, animals, and nature as a whole. At the same time, the boundaries between humans and animals and those between humans and machines appear increasingly fuzzy.

Is the human mind nothing more than the sum of information processing patterns comparable to similar processes in other living beings and in machine algorithms? Enthusiastic contemporaries believe our current AI systems are already worthy of being called ‘conscious’ or even ‘personal beings.’ Traditionally, these would have been attributed to humans exclusively (and in some cases also to higher animals). Our social, political, and legal order, as well as our ethics, are fundamentally based on such distinctions.

Nevertheless, companies such as OpenAI see in their product GPT-4 the spark of ‘artificial general intelligence,’ a form of intelligence comparable to or even surpassing humans. Of course, such statements are part of an elaborate marketing strategy. This tradition dates to John McCarthy, who coined the term “AI” and deliberately chose this over other, more appropriate, descriptions like “complex information processing” primarily because it sounded more fundable.

Such pragmatic reasons ultimately lead to an imprecise use of ambiguous terms, such as ‘intelligence.’ If both humans and machines are indiscriminately called ‘intelligent,’ this generates confusion. Whether algorithms can sensibly be called ‘intelligent’ depends on whether this term refers to the ability to perform simple calculations, process data, the more abstract ability to solve problems, or even the insightful understanding (in the sense of Latin intellectus) that we typically attribute only to the embodied reason of humans.

However, this nuanced view of ‘intelligence’ was given up under the auspices of the quest for an objectively scientific understanding of the subject. New approaches deliberately exclude the question of what intelligence is and limit themselves to precisely describing how these processes operate and function.

Current deep learning algorithms have become so intricate and complex that we can’t always understand how they arrive at their results. These algorithms are transparent but not in how they reach a specific conclusion; hence, they are also referred to as black-box algorithms. Some strands in the cognitive sciences understand the human mind as a kind of software running on the hardware of the body. If that were the case, the mind could be explained through the description of brain states, just like the software on our computers.

However, these paradigms are questionable. They cannot explain what it feels like to be a conscious person, to desire things, be abhorred by other things and to understand when something is meaningful and significant. They have no grasp on human freedom and the weight of responsibility that comes with leading a life. All of these human capacities require, among other things, an understanding of the world, that cannot be fully captured in words and that cannot be framed as a mathematical function.

There are academic studies exploring the conception of embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended cognition, which offer a more promising direction. Such approaches explore the role of the body and the environment for intelligence and cognitive performance, incorporating insights from philosophy, psychology, biology, and robotics. These approaches think about the role our body as a living organism plays in our capacity to experience, think and live with others. AI has no need for such a living body. This is a categorical difference between human cognition and AI applications – and it is currently not foreseeable that those could be levelled (at least not with current AI architectures). Therefore, in the strictest sense, we cannot really call our algorithms ‘intelligent' unless we explicitly think of this as a metaphor. AI can only be called 'intelligent' metaphorically because these applications do not 'understand' the texts they generate, and those results do not mean anything to them. Their results are not based on genuine insight or purposes for the world in which you and I live. Rather they are generated purely based on statistical probabilities and data-based predictions. At most, they operate with the human intelligence that is buried in the underlying training data (which human beings have generated).

However, all of this generated material has meaning and validity only for embodied humans. Strictly speaking, only embodied, living and vulnerable humans really have problems that they solve or goals they want to achieve (with, for example, the help of data-based algorithms). Computers do not have problems, only unproblematic states they are in. Therefore, algorithms appear 'intelligent' only in contexts where we solve problems through them.

When we do something with technology, technology always also does something to us.

AI does not possess intrinsic intelligence and simulates it only due to human causation. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to speak of ‘extended intelligence': algorithms are not intelligent in themselves, but within the framework of human-machine systems, they represent an extension of human intelligence. Or even better would be to go back behind McCarthy and talk about 'complex information processing.’

Certainly, such a view is still controversial today. There are many philosophical, economic, and socio-political incentives to attribute human qualities to algorithms and, at the same time, to view humans as nothing more than biological computers. Such a view already shapes the design of our digital future in many places. Putting it bluntly, calling technology ‘intelligent’ makes money.

What would an alternative, more holistic view of the future look like that took the makeup of humanity seriously?

A theology of technology (Techniktheologie) tackles this question, ultimately placing it in the horizon of belief in God. However, it begins by asking how technology can be integrated into our lives in such a way that it empowers us to do what we truly want and what makes life better. Such an approach is neither for or against technology but rather sober and critical in the analytical sense. Answering those questions requires a realistic understanding of humans, technology, and their various entanglements, as well as the agreement of plural societies on the goals and values that make a good life.

When we do something with technology, technology always also does something to us. Technology is formative, meaning it changes our experience, perception, imagination, and thus also our self-image and the future we can envision. AI is one of the best examples of this: designing AI is designing how people can interact with a system, and that means designing how they will have to adapt to it. Humans and technology cannot be truly isolated from each other. Technology is simply part of the human way of life.

And yet, we also need to distinguish humans from technology despite all the entanglements: humans are embodied, rational, free, and endowed with incomparable dignity as images of God, capable of sharing values and articulating goals on the basis of a common (human) way of life. Even the most sophisticated deep learning applications are none of these. Only we humans live in a world where responsibility, sin, brokenness, and redemption matter. Therefore it is up to us to agree on how we want to shape the technologized future and what values should guide us on this path.

Here is what theology can offer the development of technology. Theology addresses the question of the possible integration of technology into the horizon of a good life. Any realistic answer to this question must combine an enlightened understanding of technology with a sober view of humanity – seeing both human creative potential and their sinfulness and brokenness. Only through and with humans will our AI innovations genuinely serve the common good and, thus, a better future for all.

Find out more about this topic: Assessing deep learning: a work program for the humanities in the age of artificial intelligence

Explainer

Christmas culture

Culture

Middle East

22 December 2024

7 min read

The mysterious Magi: outsiders, outlandish, Uyghur?

Many claimed the Wise Men, wherever the story was heard.

Benjamin Sharkey

Benjamin is a DPhil student in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. He is researching the experience of Christian communities in medieval Central Asia.

Silhouttes of three wise men approach the Virgin and Child, painted on stone.

The Magi, Catacombs of Priscilla, 250AD.

Public Domain.

Our nativities are full of familiar figures. Mary and the angel Gabriel, Joseph and the landlords of Bethlehem (of varying hospitality), the shepherds above the town and the heavenly host. Finally, there come the three gift-bearers. While familiar, these perhaps remain the most mysterious guests at the manger. Are they three kings? ‘Wise men’? ‘Magi’? What indeed is a ‘magi’?

Most of the features of our nativity come from the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel, but the magi (along with their counterpart, King Herod) are the primary contribution of Matthew’s gospel, appearing in the second chapter. The word used in Matthew is magi (magoi), a term that was often used for the priests of the Persian religion, today known as Zoroastrianism but in Antiquity known to outsiders simply as ‘magianism’. However, in the gospel it is perhaps intended to carry less specific meaning, instead indicating more broadly those learned in esoteric knowledge, hence our common translation of ‘wise men’. We might be reminded of the class of experts who Nebuchadnezzar summoned to help interpret his dreams, over whom he promoted Daniel to be chief. These were people both knowledgeable and practiced in observing the patterns of nature, experts in hidden knowledge and science, propitiating and interpreting the divine, ‘magic’, alchemy, and astrology. Indeed, this is where we get our word magic from. It is someone of this kind who is intended by the other use of ‘magic’ in the New Testament, when in the book of Acts Simon the ‘magi’, having believed and been baptised, asks to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from Peter and John. Whichever definition is intended in Matthew, these are unexpected guests in Bethlehem.

We learn very little further about them besides that they came from ‘the east’, to which they return as mysteriously as they arrived. Might they perhaps have been from one of the neighbouring eastern states that lay just outside the borders of the Roman Empire, such as Osroene, Adiabene, or Armenia, or even from the great Persian Parthian Empire? Parthia and its provinces were named specifically in the Book of Acts, but Matthew’s is a far more ambiguous reference. Indeed, many scholars would question the historicity of the episode of the magi’s visit, seemingly unrooted in time and place in contrast to the historical and geographical grounding of the rest of the gospels, and so clearly serving as a fulfilment of prophecy about the messiah. The old song of Psalm 72 says: “May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts. May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.” Elswhere the book of Isaiah records: “The nations will come to your light, Kings to the brightness of your dawn… young camels will come bearing gold and incense, proclaiming the praise of the Lord.” When you see the gift-bearing magi represented as camel-riding kings on your Christmas cards, they are being shown as the fulfilment of these prophecies.

Christians in medieval Europe were dimly aware of just how widespread Christianity was, and they represented this in their stories about the magi.

What is crucially important in their role as prophecy-fulfillers is that they are gentiles. Indeed, they are the first of those outside of God’s chosen people to recognise the Messiah. While Luke shows Jesus announced to the poor and humble among the Jews, rather than the priestly or royal, Matthew shows him recognised by the gentiles, the first trickle of a mighty torrent prophesied throughout the Old Testament: “All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord,” sings the Psalmist. “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established… and all nations will stream to it,” records Isaiah once more. This is echoed also in Micah, the book quoted in Matthew by the chief priests to the magi: “The mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established, and many nations will come and say – let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.” These were outlandish claims and the magi represented the outlandish start of their fulfilment.

Nevertheless, the magi in Matthew don’t float entirely untethered from historical reality, as they act out a story within the solidly historical setting of Herod’s final paranoia. His anxiety about the title ‘king of the Jews’, and his desperate massacre of the innocents both fit with what we know of his last days. For Herod, an Idumean (or Edomite), his questionable Jewishness had been a source of anxiety throughout his life, and he had become deeply unpopular by the end of his life, perceived as far too close to the Romans. Some scholars have suggested that Herod would have found fewer than a dozen infant boys around Bethlehem, as such it is unsurprising that his order is otherwise absent from the historical record. One of the few authors to cover this place and time was Josephus but writing almost a century later, he is much hazier on this period. He does, however, note that at this time Herod’s paranoia had driven him to kill three of his own sons, including his heir, historically much more significant and shocking. Josephus also claims, that on his deathbed Herod gave orders to have all the principal men of the entire Jewish nation killed when he died, to increase the mourning of the people, orders which were not carried out.

That one day people of all nations and tongues would come to worship the God of Israel is one of the more outlandish claims recorded in the Old Testament. Even for early Christians, who were more actively seeking its fulfilment, it must have remained somewhat unimaginable, given they were still a minority in a corner of the Roman and Persian Empires who knew very well that human societies stretched on beyond their known horizons. By the Middle Ages, it was appearing a lot less outlandish. There were now Christians as far flung as Iceland, China, and Ethiopia. Christians in medieval Europe were dimly aware of just how widespread Christianity was, and they represented this in their stories about the magi. They imagined them as three kings (echoing prophecy and expounding scripture) from the three ‘petals’ of the world which connected at Jerusalem, representatives of the many gentile nations who would embrace the gospel. One for Europe, one for Asia, one for Africa; even in medieval Europe the church was understood as encompassing all three, and the magi were the first indication that it would.

In Asia, ‘east’ of Jerusalem, the magi assumed different significance. Whether in Persia or China, claims were frequently made that the magi had come from their own place or people. Among the Christians of Mesopotamia (covering present-day Iraq and parts of Syria and Turkey), where Christianity had first arrived under the Parthian Empire, various legends were written about them in Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic). Here they often numbered twelve and were claimed as the founders of various churches and villages. Further east, and later, in the thirteenth century, an Armenian Christian lord, Smbat Sparapet, recorded in a letter that, while travelling across the Mongol Empire and visiting Christians in Central Asia and China, he had noticed they all decorated their churches with images of the magi. He recorded that the magi were believed to have originally come from China, from the region corresponding to present-day Gansu province. His brother, the Armenian king of Cilicia (south-east Turkey), who later made the same journey alternatively recorded that the magi had rather come from among the Uyghurs.

The Turfan Oasis, lying to the north of the great Taklamakan desert in today’s Xinjiang province in China, also known as the Uyghur Autonomous Region, was home to a community of Uyghur Christians between at least the eighth to fourteenth centuries. One of the few surviving indications of their presence is a large collection of fragmentary manuscripts, preserved by the dry desert conditions. Among these is a unique legend concerning the magi, originally written in Syriac, but here translated into Uyghur. It preserves the account from Matthew but with some additions. For instance, the identification of the magi with the Zoroastrian priesthood is made explicit, probably owing to the original Syriac authors’ own familiarity living among the ‘magians’ of Mesopotamia. Most striking of all though is the word choice of the Uyghur translator. Approaching the infant Jesus, the magi hail him as ‘Khan Messiah, the son of Tengri.’ The magi’s royal gift of gold recognises Jesus as ‘khan’, a straightforward translation of ‘lord’ but one which carries local cultural resonance. Tengri, however, was the high God of the Uyghurs and Mongols. He was the creator, present everywhere, but associated particularly with the heavens. To see Tengri in Jesus was to see the mighty God who forged their own sky and steppe come to earth as infant and man.

The popular legend that the magi had come from among the Uyghurs, which perhaps motivated this translation, connected their immediate reality to the distant settings of the gospel stories. Like the legends of the medieval west, this too served to communicate the truth that in the recognition of Jesus by the first gentiles, the magi, could be seen the start of the gospel’s journey to all gentiles, all nations, tongues, and petals.

This Christmas, when you see the magi on your cards and in your nativity scenes, or you sing carols about three kings, think about the deep traditions that have formed these images, representations of prophecies fulfilled in Jesus, of the inclusion in the kingdom of all nations and of you too.

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