Making Artificial Intelligence in the Image of God?

As we have recently read about in the New York Times and the Atlantic, very powerful Artificial Intelligence programs have now become available for free or cheap online. Programs of similar capabilities have been around for a few years and have even written Op Eds. But what has changed is that the same computing power and access to AI is now available to the masses. In particular, I have had dozens of conversations with this AI:

https://chat.openai.com/chat

I have used this AI to produce topical sermons, fictional stories, literary comparisons, romance novels, historical essays, fake quotes, philosophical analyses, theological explanations, legal arguments, Biblical interpretations, mathematic equations, science term papers, working computer code, workout plans, recipes, topical prayers, free verse poetry, Shakespearean sonnets, and even rap battles between historical figures (and these are only what I have tried since last weekend!). In fact, I interviewed this AI to introduce it to the faculty at my school.

The Great Weariness of “If Only...”

What would you do if only you had the power and knowledge of a god?

The costs of being embodied in a virtual world

I recently read a great article from the BBC on why video calls are so exhausting for so many people. It lists a number of physical and psychological mechanisms in which video conferencing seems to go against our nature, our needs, and the fundamental way we are wired. The truth seems to be that trying to pursue Community and connection via virtual electronic surrogates is bound to fail at a basic level, and have high costs on people physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This is true no matter what lens you look at humans through: 

Race Cars, Pandemics, and Economics

If we want to have a global interconnected society that can survive shocks like pandemics, we are learning that all people everywhere need basic access to nourishment, healthcare, and communications. Without it, every institution, from schools to businesses to entire economies, grinds to a halt. 

Monarchic Anarchist Theocratic Pluralist Entrepreneurial Socialism

I love "world building" science fiction: The kind where a big sprawling universe is created which includes all kinds of details about the history, culture, sociology, religion, economics, and politics of future society. One frequent form of future society that particularly interests me is a kind of "technological monarchy" which you can find in works such as "The Mote in God's Eye" and Peter Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn Trilogy". This is not a Star Trek style galactic republic, nor a Star Wars style Evil Empire. Rather, it is a form of society that combines monarchy (and often a "State Church") with forms of representative government, with advanced technology, with religious and cultural pluralism, with free market economics, with various socialist policies, to create something really different. Could anything like this ever exist? Could there be a coherent ideology to hold such a system together? Let's see if we can develop a thought experiment to put together a sympathetic worldview which might make this possible.

A provocation on Technology

“Any sufficiently advanced technology must be regarded as magic [or miracle]” (Arthur C. Clarke). Technology is miracle explained and magic democratized. Technology— the capacity to act and effect change— is unconditionally good in the same way as Creation is unconditionally good (cf. Genesis 1). But, like Creation— which is the environment upon which and within which we act technologically— Technology can be used for good (the giving of life and fulfilling of potential) or abused for evil (the taking of life and destruction of potential). 

The Crisis Point of Human Evolution

This will probably wind up being one of my more hokey blog posts, and it will probably bear the stamp of staying up too late at night watching videos about aliens on youtube (oh the things we do when insomnia strikes!). But, then again, perhaps this needs to be said. And on the off chance it might need to be said, I guess I will say it.

On the Ecology of Progress

Most people are not aware of how delicate of an ecology is involved in the formation of the psychology of progress and discovery. We tend to think that our progress in science and technology is something that comes natural to us, an ineradicable drive that most humans possess. They forget that radical change is an anomaly only a couple of centuries old, and that it is a crescendo of moral and metaphysical assumptions that took thousands of years to put in place.

Eucharist, Epiphany, and Richard Feynman

Today I celebrated Eucharist for Epiphany at TMI - The Episcopal School of Texas. Since our chapel service on Monday was our actual reading of the Epiphany narrative, I chose to talk about the Epiphany that happens within Eucharist, where the Risen Jesus is "known to us in the breaking of the bread". Of course, I used the Gospel text of Luke 24, where Jesus talks with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, but they do not recognize him as Jesus until he breaks bread.

And then suddenly the Epiphany dawns on them: It is the Risen Lord!

And as I was thinking about how the deep mysteries of the Universe can be revealed to us in something as simple as a meal that remembers a man, I remembered a toast given by Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. He spoke of seeing the interconnections of all things in a glass of wine:

Miracles and Minds, Science Fiction and Scientific Probability

Dr. Manhattan ponders the possibility of miracles by reading this absurdly long essay.

For years I have wanted to deal with one of the greatest philosophical and pragmatic objections to the idea of "revealed" religion. This objection is second only, in my opinion, to the question of "theodicy": How can a supposedly loving and powerful Creator allow his creation to suffer and die in such excruciating and wasteful ways? I will briefly return to this "greatest of all" objections at the end of the essay.

This "second greatest" objection makes "revealed religion" of any type-- whether Christian or non-Christian-- appear foolish, hokey, folksy, credulous, silly, superstitious, and fundamentally ignorant of the way the world works. This, of course, is the objection against miracles. Because if miracles are impossible, and therefore false, it renders any kind of Divine intervention or communication impossible and false. And if there is no Divine communication, then all religions that claim to be based on it are fundamentally flawed.

I would like to deal with this objection from my unique threefold perspective: First of all, as someone who has grown up in the fastest era of technological change known to humanity. Second of all, as someone whose favorite genre of literature is science fiction. And thirdly, as a committed if somewhat progressive follower of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. I think these perspectives can help us understand the issue in a way that avoids the pitfalls of merely rejecting miracles on one hand, and accepting illogical and impossible claims of the miraculous on the other.

On gods and Aesthetics, Psalms and Theosis

Happy heavenly birthday Jack! Pray for us down here!

Today in honor of the 50th anniversary of CS Lewis' transposition from earthly life into the greater life of God, I preached a sermon on the idea of humans becoming "gods" which is found in several of CS Lewis' writings, but most especially in his sermon "The Weight of Glory". The texts I chose to speak on were the following:

1Corinthians 4.6-18: "For it is God who... has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ... For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure..."

Psalm 82.6: I say, "You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you..."

John 10.34-36: Jesus answered [his opponents], "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said you are gods'"? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?

Scriptural Resources for Ecological Stewardship

A science teacher who I work with asked me to compile some Biblical resources on the stewardship of Creation. Since there are few good lists on this topic on the Internet (they usually include sparse Biblical references and LOTS of commentary), I decided to post this. It's kind of a bare-bones, "just the facts ma'am" list of Biblical resources on ecology, along with some prayers from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. I hope you find it useful for sermon or lesson prep.

Christ-centered Environmentalism and the Global Warming Boogeyman

2018 UPDATE: I disagree with much of the content in this blog now, and am keeping it online only as evidence of how I have evolved and grown in Christ. In particular, it has become clear that global climate change IS happening, and a major cause is anthropogenic. 

This article developed in response to some questions a student posted on facebook about "global warming". It was too long to post there, so now it is here:

I have two sides on the issue of environmentalism. On one side, we have to care about the environment, because God does. He made it. He says its good. He has given us stewardship over it, and we will have to answer for how we have used what he has loaned us. If he cares about "the birds of the air... and the flowers of the field" (cf. Matthew 6), then we have to care about it too. Furthermore, this earth is what his children live on. If pollution is hurting his children, in the form of disease, bad water, acid rain, and other problems, then it is hurting God, and honestly, pissing him off. That is why I care about the environment, why I recycle, why I like bio-fuels and so forth. As follower of Christ we need to do everything we can to stop the destruction of God's world, and to redeem EVERYTHING for Christ's sake: people, places, and pollution included.