Recently someone close to me asked me this question: "Have you considered the quasireligious nature of creating Artificial Intelligence in the image of humanity? And if it is religious, do you consider it blasphemy?"
This really gets at the core theological issue of what it means for humanity to create other things. On one hand, you have the original temptation in the Garden: Eat of the fruit, and you will become like God! We are tempted to usurp God's position by creating creatures that are "unnatural". And this is the height of blasphemy: To put ourselves on God's throne, taking upon ourselves the Divine prerogative to shape and mold reality. In this view, creating A.I. which imitates human personhood is a sacrilege. It is the height of human hubris. It is the abomination of desolation foretold by the prophets, in which we put a human made machine in the Holy Place that should only be occupied by God.
But not so fast. The most ancient view of salvation, held by the Eastern Orthodox churches and many others, is that salvation is precisely to be restored to our Divine Identity in Christ and partake of God's very life. This is called "Theosis", and it is the logical outcome of being "made in God's image" as God's children. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (who is God made human), we are likewise able to "share in the Divine Nature" (2Peter 1.4). Jesus even quotes the Psalms to remind us "You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you..." (cf. Psalm 82.6; John 10.34-36). And the Church Father Athanasius summed it up in the fourth century when he said "God became human that humans might become divine" (On the Incarnation 54.3). The implications of all of this are that we are made to be creative creatures who mirror our Creative Creator in all forms of new kinds of created things. Even Artificial Intelligence.
