Article

AI - Artificial Intelligence

Creed

Morality

Spiritual formation

27 November 2023

6 min read

The moral machine: algorithms that give a window into the soul

In TikTok’s algorithm Graham Tomlin saw something that got him thinking. Could it lead to moral health rather than harm?

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A abstract grid of colourful cubes with arrows, crosses and cubes, viewed from above and at an angle

Champ Panupong Techawongthawon's illustration of artificial intelligence.

Google DeepMind on Unsplash.

A few years ago, I was thinking of buying a camera for my wife as a birthday present. I lazily browsed a couple of websites to check out the options. Then something odd started to happen. Somehow, my laptop seemed to think this was a good idea and sprang into action. Whenever I went onto Amazon, Ebay or any other website selling stuff, it kept pushing adverts for cameras at me. Canon or Nikon? Point and Shoot or DSLR? How did it know? Could it read my mind?

It was the first time I noticed the power of the algorithm.

A bit later on, thinking I ought to get up to speed with the regions of social media that I had little clue about, I opened up TikTok and started to swipe upwards (apparently that seemed to be the way to do it). This time I was determined not to like or unlike anything, follow anyone or be followed by anyone. Yet mysteriously, it still worked out what I liked and kept pushing short, addictive videos at me, enticing clips of football, mountains and music along with other random stuff mixed in. How did it know me so well?

It is as old as the hills. The algorithm simply takes the desires of your heart and amplifies them.

Of course, better informed people than me know how all this works. The algorithm figures out which accounts you follow, any comments you’ve posted, clips you’ve liked or shared, and in particular, videos you watched all the way to the end. So, if you linger over a video, it knows you like it. If you rush on quickly to the next one, it makes a mental note that you’re not so keen.

It all feels a little sinister, yet very clever. You often read dark theories of social media, and the way it is re-wiring our brains. Yet when you look a little closer, it is as old as the hills. The algorithm simply takes the desires of your heart and amplifies them. So, if you like or linger over certain videos expressing a particular cultural or political opinion it will send you more of the same. The result is we get confirmed in our own frameworks which never get challenged by others. It's part of why we are so polarised as societies these days. When you ask why ‘the other side’ cannot see the obvious truth that you see, the answer is that they literally don’t see it. They don't see it because the algorithm doesn't feed them the same things as it feeds you.

As a result, TikTok or Facebook is an alarming mirror into the soul – see what it sends you and it just may be that it tells you more about yourself than you would like to know.

Social media like TikTok, Facebook and Twitter (or X) learn to recognise what your heart really desires (not just what you say you do). They notice what you linger over, what catches your fancy and sends you more of the same. They are, apparently, studiously neutral on moral questions. They seem to have no moral designs on you to school or form your soul in particular ways, but are simply a reflection of your own longings. What TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and the others all do is to propel you further in the moral direction in which you are already headed. Which for most of us, is not a great idea.

Now of course there would be howls of protest if TikTok announced a moral code – that it was about to encourage virtue and discourage vice by deliberately sending us improving videos, material that the mysterious people who run it think is good for us. And that is not because we think virtue is bad and vice is good, but because we can’t decide on what virtues we want to encourage or what vices to stamp out. We draw a line at cruelty to children and extreme violence, but not much else. It is also because we hold as sacrosanct the freedom of the (adult) individual to choose his or her own way in life, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else.

Such sites are examplars and vehicles of expressive individualism – not just in the myriads of people who show off their dance moves, sing their songs or act out half-funny scenes on a golf course, but in that they confirm me in me my own wishes. They don’t tell me what to want. But they give me more of what I want. As a result, TikTok or Facebook is an alarming mirror into the soul – see what it sends you and it just may be that it tells you more about yourself than you would like to know.

It matters what we feed our souls with. It matters what stories we allow ourselves to be told.

Such sites appear to be morally neutral. They don’t seem to aim to educate or form you in any particular direction. Or at least they are supposed not to. But of course nothing is entirely neutral.

Funnily enough, it’s not how we bring up children, or educate ourselves. When we bring up a child, most of us have some kind of vague or not so vague moral code in mind. We reward kind and helpful behaviour, and we punish selfish and mean actions. We don’t tend to give more of the same to a child who has eaten the first half of the packet of biscuits, or encourage a brother to hit his sister yet again. We have a goal of some form of moral formation in mind.

Yet, despite our confusion over which virtues to encourage, we need some kind of moral guidance for our wandering and flawed hearts, linked to eyes that are tempted to feast on things that fascinate but are not good for us. Like a glutton who cannot stop eating, even if these sites don’t themselves push extreme violence, pornography, aggression, they offer enough of the soft version of these to draw you in. And it’s not hard to find sites that will take you deeper into the darkness. And those sites will already know the way you are thinking and desiring and are ready to pull you in deeper into the mire.

The problem is not so much with the algorithm. It is with us. Netflix’s documentary, ‘The Social Dilemma’ quotes an alarming statistic - that fake news spreads six times faster than the truth. The reason is not hard to find. We are fascinated by the sensational and alarming rather than something a little more ordinary yet which happens to be true. As one person in the documentary put it: “The internet has a bias towards false information. Because false information makes more money. The truth is boring.”

The moral philosopher Gilbert Meilaender wrote:

“Successful moral education requires a community which does not hesitate to inculcate virtue in the young, which does not settle for the discordant opinions of alternative visions of the good, which worries about what the stories of its poets teach.”

It matters what we feed our souls with. It matters what stories we allow ourselves to be told.

The purveyors of social media are not innocent in this as they do exploit our worst tendencies, but in the end they simply confirm us in our own moral confusion. Yet it does point up the problem in the liberal ideal of leaving ethical decisions entirely up to the individual, to give entirely free choice without any guidance, because with our crooked hearts, it will always end up feeding the darker sides of our characters without a corresponding pull in the other direction, something which Christians called divine Grace.

St Paul wrote to the small group of Christians in Philippi, surrounded by the highly sexualised and violent culture of the Roman empire: “whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

I’m not saying don’t watch TikTok. But here’s an idea. Why not try to make it into a morally forming version of what you want to be, not what you are? Exercise a bit of moral direction yourself. If you see a video which you know in your conscience is not good, or is spreading lies, swipe it away quickly. If you see something positive, dwell on it.

If you approach it this way, you might just be able to persuade the algorithm to shape you in good ways and not the bad. It could become a means of growing in goodness, but only if you want it to be.

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Comment

Paganism

Sport

28 July 2024

8 min read

Paris 2024 and Christianity’s opening ceremony

A subversive Olympic opening relies on Christianity’s own beginnings.

Tim May

Tim is an associate vicar of King’s Cross Church (KXC), a London-based Anglican church.

A painting of the Last supper showing Christ and the disciples at a table.

da Vinci's Last Supper.

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, held on the River Seine, has unsurprisingly caused controversy. Such moments, where one nation through pageantry and spectacle performs itself to all others, never fail to draw comment. The 2024 ceremony has drawn various detractors, not least those claiming the ceremony was an “attack on Christianity.”

You might remember the masterful opening to the London 2012 games. Director Danny Boyle’s theatrical spectacle told a symbolic story of nationhood. By depicting the bucolic, the industrial, and the NHS, he considered the UK in both dark moments and at its brightest. With a great exhibition of British humour, James Bond appeared to parachute out of a helicopter with HRH Queen Elizabeth II, while Mr Bean entertained the whole wordlessly through sardonic single-finger piano playing.

Widely held to be a creative triumph, Boyle was preceded by the Beijing Olympics where its opening ceremony, CGI fireworks put to one side, wowed the world with unprecedented size and scale, reminding us that we live in an era of Chinese power.

Tokyo 2021, delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, involved 1,800 drones filling the skies – a faultless demonstration of a technological age where Japanese engineering has been indispensable.

The sporting side of things was easily forgotten as we witnessed an emphatically kitsch depiction of French history and culture.

In 2024 Paris, the weather was perhaps the greatest focus of attention, which suited the British commentary perfectly. We Brits surely are the world experts in making light-entrainment out of describing rain. Soggy athletes sailed the Seine on a variety of uninspiring looking barges. Sanguine but soaked, the athletes dutifully waved and smiled; adorned not in gold, silver or bronze but flimsy ill-fitting plastic ponchos.

Overshadowing this athletes’ parade were the creations of theatre director Thomas Jolly, mastermind of the whole ceremony. Boldly deciding to choose the city as a stage, rather than make use of the conventional choice of a stadium, the sporting side of things was easily forgotten as we witnessed an emphatically kitsch depiction of French history and culture.

Although the weather somewhat thwarted proceedings, it was the content of the performance that drew criticism.

Far-right politicians decried Jolly’s offering as a violation of French nationhood. Conservative pundits focused their criticism on Jolly’s elevation of LGBTQIA+ culture.

Christian commentators have, with various degrees of rancour, condemned a strange scene where Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper was subverted by a pastiche of ostentatiously queer characters. At the centre of which was not Jesus Christ but a robust-looking figure resembling Lady Liberty.

Elon Musk spoke up in protest too, posting that it was ‘extremely disrespectful to Christians.’ Full-throttled cries of blasphemy resound, and probably for good reason. What we witnessed was Christ being usurped and replaced by the insurgency of self-expression and the currently sacred idea of diversity and inclusion.

Ahead of the ceremony, Jolly told British Vogue about the heart behind his creation: “there is room for everyone in Paris. Maybe it’s a little chaotic, it’s true, but that allows everyone to find a place for themselves.” The opening ceremony will be a success, Jolly says, “if everyone feels represented in it.”

I guess this isn’t the case for the thirty per cent of the world who would identify as Christian. That’s because every family and flavour of Christianity would recognise that Holy Communion, the central act of Christian Worship for 2000 years, the institution of which is depicted in da Vinci painting, was being publicly and globally vandalised.

When Christianity becomes moral wallpaper to an entire civilisation and its culture, it unsurprisingly becomes a target for satire.

How can we make sense of this moment? Is there anything more for the Christian to contribute other than indignation or outrage?

Whenever something like this occurs it reminds me of the central role Christianity has played in Western culture. The intelligibility of the ceremony’s controversial scene rests on the idea that da Vinci’s painting is a globally recognised symbol. Otherwise, we would have just been watching a really strange dinner party with no food. But with Da Vinci’s famous painting in our mind the subversive power of Jolly’s scene hits hard.

The view, popularised by the historian Tom Holland among others, would go as far as to suggest that Christianity’s effect on Western culture is so pervasive that even moments of protest and subversion, as we saw in the Paris ceremony, are cultural phenomena inherited from the Protestant Reformation. Regardless of how far you agree with Holland’s thesis, Jolly's subversion only makes sense because of the dominant role Christianity has played in shaping the western imagination, and that is a position of latent power that should cause pause for reflection.

I’ve read half a dozen articles from a certain sort of right-wing journalist who parrot thoughts like, “they wouldn’t do that with the Quran”. That might be right, but it fundamentally misses the point. Blasphemy, let’s say, in Iran, would certainly not involve the Last Supper.

The scene made sense only because of Christianity’s now diminishing position of power but it's a position of power, nonetheless. When you align Jesus Christ with the status quo, with the corridors of power, when Christianity becomes moral wallpaper to an entire civilisation and its culture, it unsurprisingly becomes a target for satire. Especially for anyone or any group that feels persecuted or marginalised. I’m not for a moment defending what Jolly did but trying to understand why it happened.

The last supper, the meal Jesus shared with his friends the night before his crucifixion, was the opening ceremony of Christianity.

The kind of cultural power Christianity has had in the West comes at the cost of clarity because Christianity was itself originally a counterculture. Crucifixion, a supreme act of imperial domination, became the foundation of Christian thought and ultimately its greatest symbol. The original Christian movement was seen itself to be blasphemous for contradictory reasons by both the Jewish and Roman religious leaders of the time.

The fundamental difference between Christianity and merely holding conservative values that should not be transgressed, is God. It was genuine belief in Jesus Christ as the long-awaited messiah of the Jewish people and the Saviour of the whole world - a belief that led his first bedraggled and bewildered disciples to live in such radical and counter-cultural ways that many were killed by the Roman Empire.

It is right for his followers today to speak up and say how wrong it is when the special and sacred things he did for them are yet again trampled on in public, but it's also worth remembering that’s how the story started - with Jesus’ body brutalised and broken. That somehow, in moments like this, we miss the power of Jesus when we simply defend him on grounds of “decency” and “respect.” Instead, if we return to the original events themselves, Jolly’s depiction, in its mockery and subversion, actually reveals the power of The Last Supper.

Da Vinci’s painting was not intended for a gallery but was originally painted on the wall of a fairly obscure monastery, transported to a gallery years later to become primarily art, it is more a foundational aid to the faithful to remember the original events Da Vinci is depicting.

The last supper, the meal Jesus shared with his friends the night before his crucifixion, was the opening ceremony of Christianity. Every time a Christian takes Holy Communion - the central act of Christian worship for over 2,000 years - they remember the opening ceremony where:

“Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”

The most peculiar part of the opening ceremony of Christianity - more peculiar than any sight we saw last night - is the presence of Judas. The biblical accounts describe Jesus’ knowledge of Judas’ intentions to betray him to the Romans, and yet Judas is still welcome to the table. If there’s space for Judas, then there is space for all of us. The opening ceremony Christianity cannot be remembered without the presence of Judas the betrayer, and Peter the coward or Thomas the doubter. The great irony and the big mystery of the Christian Faith is that you can’t out-sin grace. You can mock it and subvert it, but Christ died for the ungodly.

Last night’s scene doesn’t come close to the original events. Not only was Jesus betrayed by his friends, he was then tortured, humiliated and executed publicly in just about the most excruciating way humans have devised. That was blasphemy of another level, but it was also victory because God was choosing to love inclusively beyond any human metric.

Tom Holland may be right that no part of western culture has escaped Christian influence, but I want more than a little downstream influence.

This means that there’s nothing more inclusive than the opening ceremony of Christianity and yet, at the same time, nothing more exclusive. It is not us who provide the food but God. In Jolly’s performance, the Last Supper scene was concluded by the French actor Philippe Katerine, emerging painted head to toe in blue. Whilst this bearded smurf caused baffled sniggers across the planet, Katherine was apparently representing Dionysius, The Greek god associated with wild drunken parties. The food on offer by Jolly is wild desire and self-expression. In Christianity the food is God himself, his body and his blood. God’s love is given not simply expressed, even to those who will betray him.

Moments like this will become harder for Christians to navigate. It feels like just as a wave of secular liberalism wants to finally vanquish the power position Christianity has painted for centuries, a new conservative vanguard of resistance is rising to protect or enrol it for its own means. From the mouth of Modi or in Trump’s tirades, a new religiously armed populism is raging. Tom Holland may be right that no part of western culture has escaped Christian influence, but I want more than a little downstream influence.

Take us back to the opening ceremony, to the foundation of Christian faith. Take us to the waterfall, where the torrent flows straight down from the mountain, and save us from the slow-moving sludge of the wide river downstream. Take me back to the opening ceremony of Christianity. To the table where God welcomes a Judas like me, to the meal where the master became a servant and washed his followers' feet. Take me back to eat food I could never afford and wine I could not create.