Jesus Taught Me Artificial Intelligence

Today we are talking to Dr. Joshua Smith, who is a pastor, holds a PhD in theology and is very passionate about helping the Christian community navigate tough questions related to robotics and AI. Dr. Smith. It is good to have you back on. We've spent time in a previous episode, talking about robotics and talking about the book that you have written specifically about robotics, but you also dive a lot into AI, which is what we're going to be focusing on here, and the name of your book is Robotic Persons. It is definitely a deep dive specifically from a Christian perspective of how we should be approaching these topics. I want to start off talking about how we look at AI. What is your perspective of really how we should start thinking about what we are and who we are as humanity as it relates to this conversation of artificial intelligence.

It's a hard question to answer but when you really get into it it comes down to belief, I think, and more and more, we're seeing this almost religious, like faith that certain scientists have about what makes us unlike a machine, what makes us, or some people believe that we are essentially machines. And so you think about the metaphors that we use, the eyes, the camera the brain is a computer, all terrible analogies. But those are very popular patterns of thought. And how we think about the body. And my little boy is very curious about anatomy. So every night we read this, we read the same book about the body. And I, I see this worldview implanted in there as well. The body, the human body is basically a machine. Now I disagree with that. I disagree because one there's a lot of humility you have to have. But to, there's something that we just have to at the end of the day, submit to, I think, as Christians, that we're not going to know all the answers. So if you think of. Mental states. And there's different perspectives about this. If you really want to go deep to what consciousness is. But there's one particular view in a lot of different scientific theory that only thing that matters in this world is physical, matters, physical, all that stuff. And I disagree with that. So there's no room for the supernatural in that worldview. And there's even Christians like Nancy Murphy who had argued what's known as physicalism, only things that matter are physical is the best way to go. Now that's a belief, right? That's more informed by your belief then any empirical data and, so I put my cards on the table, so to speak in a lot of different ways in the book and my other writings that I believe that this soul gives form whatever the soul is. And material newness. I don't know how would you describe a mental thought physically? How can you observe it? You can't right. You have to have first person perspective too. Think about a thought I can't know your thoughts. I can hear you tell me though, but that's from a third person party. Okay. And so people that are of physicalsim is they would say, no, I can observe them on a CT scan or whatever, but that's still third party. So I believe that the soul is real. I believe it's important. We don't talk about it anymore. It's dissolved out of scientific thought. It's even dissolved out a lot of Christian thought too. So there, there's gotta be some way for us to be a person beyond our body, right? Because this body is not gonna go to heaven. Your body's not going to go it's the soul. And so we discredit that? So I think it's important. We should talk about it more. And I think a human in the most basic sense that I can say is the combination of. a soul and a body, they're not equal, but there are two parts of the same whole. Okay. And I think that's really important. And that makes me a substance dualist. I think the, there are two different substances there that are in the same shell. Okay. I don't believe that. And that's when you talked about the identity principle I don't think they're equal for that reason. And that makes a lot of sense if you think about just physical science in general. But how we should think about AI. And that's really important as it relates to that question about what it means to be human because in the 1960s, when people started first asking this question at Dartmouth, can we teach a machine to think like a human, you automatically see this worldview being imposed on the. Inception of this technology that is going to think like a human that it, we're trying to get it to a point where it can replicate humans and even in their thought patterns and their hopes, I would say even their theology, they wouldn't call it that, but that's what I would call it is that their hope is placed in extending their life beyond bodily limitations, extending their cognition beyond our mental limitations. And that is in essence what AI is in its inception. Now there's another layer to that. That's really important that we don't hear about that's not popular. But that AI is also from its inception, a militaristic war fighting application. That is why companies are the DOD and DARPA with all their research invested in researchers like Marvin Minsky, Ronnie Brooks and it's the reason why Ronnie Brooks, same guy that makes the Roomba, the I robot company. He also makes the pac bot. Which is a bomb retrieval robot. So that's the same company. So you've got to look behind the veil with this technology. And I think not just with AI, but any technology, there's something behind it. Okay. There's people, there's resources, there's funds there's costs real cost to this technology. And it begins in labs for sure. It begins just as academic exercises, but then it becomes very dangerous if it's not understood and if it's not regulated. So how do we think about it in relation to humans is one it's not like us. It's not like us. It never will be like us, even though we're trying to make it in our image. We have a God complex in a lot of ways. And I was speaking to one researcher in the Netherlands. She asked me she, so many of my students are not believers. They're not Christian. They don't believe in God, but they don't believe that we should play God. She asked, why do you think that is? I was like, I don't know. Other than, I, I think that what Paul says is true is that we even from natural theology and environments, we have a built-in kind of disposition to want to understand a God, maybe. It's not enough to tell us about Yahweh God or about Jesus, but it's enough to push us to say, is there something beyond me? And and that's basically the response I gave her. But for each individual I have no clue, but it's there, and even small children they're not born atheist necessarily, they will develop some idea of transcendence. They will just naturally even if you don't teach them. And you can cultivate that for sure, but you can also harm it. So I don't know if that answer your question.

I think it definitely dives in to what I was trying to hit on. And I actually, I think it leads into a second point that I think is interesting to talk about is the overlap in some of these conversations. Do you see similarities in the conversations and in the topics that are taking place between if someone is of an atheistic mindset and of someone coming to this from a Christian perspective. So you mentioned transcendence that is something from a Christian perspective, that to some level we, we can all get on board with this is maybe the first time that we've seen someone from an atheistic perspective start having those same types of thoughts and those same types of conversations. And that's really intriguing. What is the insight that comes out of someone of both mindsets talking about similar functions and similar concepts?

Yeah, I think it's really interesting to me. Oh, there's a lot of different, fascinating levels that we could talk about in that question. About the interconnectedness of all these conversations with people I never would have ever been privileged to know or talk to about this and and atheist to read my book. One, when I wrote it for Christians, but the community that read it was mostly non-Christian, which is fascinating to me because for them, this is something they've been thinking about for a while. And they have been thinking about it for 10 years. Plus, David Gunckel who's professor up in Chicago he wrote a book called robot rights 10 years ago. And he was talking about this stuff 10 years ago, and it was just like, That I can't even imagine thinking about this 10 years ago and what was going on in my life. I think I was in Iraq or something like that. And it's like totally different area of life, but and we're friends now. And we talk about this often. It's almost like there is a religious. Presupposition in a lot of people's belief about technology in that AI and robots, just, it just brings it out to the forefront. It, it to me, I just see, so clearly now that it is an amazing medium to have not just conversations, but actually spiritually our spiritual and theological conversations that we would never be. Engaged in otherwise, and people asking my opinion about ethics who do not share mine at all.. And having open conversations about it and like healthy conversations, I would even say that I can't even have with certain Christian colleagues, like it, it causes me to pause for, and ponder that for them. Time to time, like why can't we have a conversation like that in the local church? Or, how come I got to go speak to, an atheist professor or whatever. And we have more civil conversations about more controversial things. Then I could go have a conversation with about something with my Christian brother, so I think it's a wonderful area to do theology in. To bridge a lot of these spaces that we've been kicked out of. So to speak for a long time, because we lost our credibility in the academic world, and it used to not be that way in the middle ages, science theology, they were, together. And I think that. That can be a good thing. It could also go very poorly. If you get certain theologies wrong, it can go bad. But anyway, so I think that encourages me a lot. That's a very positive thing that I've seen. But yeah I don't know, on a more negative level sometimes when it when it draws out someone's theology is I call it, I just call it what it is. It's that's a theology that you have. It's about God, it's about transcendence, all those things. And a lot to do with what's known as metaphysics about being, so that's what we've been talking about. What makes something a human or machine man, when you get into that conversation you see the religious belief just explode about it's like you, there's nothing that you could prove. There's nothing. You show me to prove that's what you believe. So why do you believe that? And for me, theists get picked on sometimes for saying God of the gaps and, God did it. And I'm like, you're saying the same thing. It's the same argument. And why is that one any better than the one I'm making? This is what all my philosophy and theology is based on these understandings of who God is. And I don't make the rules up. I don't get to change certain doctrines because I don't like them. That doesn't give me a license to be ugly or to be rude to anybody. And I still treat people with dignity and respect, even if we disagree. And I think it goes back to our public witness and, we might be missing out on a huge opportunity and not to prostitize or anything like that. But to actually be a positive witness for the local church in so many different communities that may have had a horrible experience with a pastor or church community, and they've never seen. An academic pastor theologian, they'd never seen that. They'd never seen a civil engagement between and for many people they're like, you're the first pastor that I've spoken to. And it's okay what if I was really rude and really judgemental and all those things, that. Yeah, for better, for worse, and that's on their example in some ways. And so I try to be a good one. I hope I am anyway. And and the question I ask a lot, in the book and in my research is not what a certain theologian would say or not what a certain Church historical figure would say about this issue. And you look through that lens, how would Jesus really approach this issue of AI and robotics? How would he approach certain related issues and account, there's not robots and AI in the Bible, so to speak. But that idea of longing for power for transcendence, for security. All those things. They're in Jesus deals with him. He deals with desire, all those things that wrapped up in this conversation of hope and fear and courage and all these things. He deals with all of that. And it's very implicit in his anthropology about how we are to treat people who are not like us.

Yeah, absolutely. Those are all really powerful points. And I think the example that you gave of this being a connecting point between the Christian community and people that we have never really been able to talk before, and I've actually experienced something very similar to this as well, people are uniquely interested in understanding how someone from a Christian perspective might think about this. For one, with something like AI, the principle of ethics is an extremely important part when we start talking about AI. And when we come together with someone on this conversation that maybe has a different perspective, They probably realize how powerful getting the aspect of ethics down around where we are taking AI five years, 10 years. 50 years down the road. And I think 50 years from now, the way technology progresses, I think a lot of things can take place in that time span. And when we look at ethics, when we look at mortality, of course, from my point of view, I don't know a better example to look at than Jesus and how he approached this. And so I think number one, what you just said is really important that this is an amazing connecting point with people outside of our community. Something else that I think is really interesting for us, just to talk about and understand about AI moving forward is that we have never before had to understand a tool that could outsource intelligence for us. So if you look at human development before this period, the things that we have developed have handled a very specific physical task. So it's moving a rock or it's creating clothes is creating a car for example. And so we're very happy to outsource that because it allows us to fill our time with something else. But we have never from a mental and ethics and societal standpoint thought through what would it actually be like to outsource thinking, to outsource knowledge, and to not need to do that anymore. And this is a conversation and this is an understanding and a concept that we are approaching with AI. And that really starts to redefine what is value for us? What do we do? If we don't have to go to college to learn knowledge, what do we do with our value systems? How do we interact with them society? What is our purpose in society? So I think all of those make the conversation. Really important for Christians to have. And so what are your thoughts on those principles?

Yeah, I see it in college students. I see it. Yeah. Senior adults. When you have a major transition that, some, so much of our society is built around. We value work, we value, we've we find our identity in work. Sometimes I don't fully agree with that. I don't think that's the best place to ground your identity, but we do. And and I like work. I like what I do. I like working. And so you think about the, just on a psychological level, like you said, the impact of not having a purpose of not having a reason to get up and. Automation and AI, it's projected to outsource a lot of jobs. And if people say people have been saying that for 200 years, what's a little bit different than what happened in the industrial revolution. And it may not replace every job for sure, but there's a lot of work that will. Automated as soon as it's financially feasible and the incentives are there, which kind of goes back to the discussion about legal reform. But anyway, it's going to be, I think, a very detrimental impact on society. I think what will happen is not the utopia that we're promised and that some scholars think that automation of AI will lead to us having more leisure time. And there will be a transitioning period where we get over these value judgements about work and stuff like that. I don't know. I don't know about that. I. But I think that it will, we'll go the opposite way. And maybe I'm a little bit of a pessimist in my anthropology, but pastorally, it's hard. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around people having excessive free time, no reason to go to work. And that equals human flourishing. That's hard for me to grasp. I'm not the smartest person in the world to understand that, but it's hard for me to understand that when I see in conversation with, for different people who They want so desperately to be able to do the things they used to do to be a part of the relationships they used to be part of. And I think the disruption of this technology will be much farther than we. Are willing to go. It's going to take us farther than we really want to go. And because we're not thinking about it, the decisions are being made for us. And if we don't participate in the discussion that we have to take responsibility and say we didn't listen, we didn't join the conversation. And I think that's also going to be a hard pill to swallow, but I would hope that, we have a deep enough original theology of who God is and his sovereignty to, to understand that even if automation does replace my job, it's it is not who I am in totality. If I'm crippled, tomorrow, and I can't do this or whatever I can't write anymore or I can't teach anymore or whatever it is. I'm like physically handycap all the way down. And would it be a struggle? Yeah, it would be a struggle, but hopefully my theology is deep enough to carry me through that. And that's an individual value. That you have to work through as a human understanding finiteness, as I like to talk about with our people and embracing the reality as Paul says of the eternal in that balance that Paul says, and the body is like an old tint it's gonna wear out, and you're going to die. I say that a lot to my church members, you're going to die one day. So think about your life. Think about things that you want to leave behind in legacy and all those things. So I think work relates to that in a lot of important ways and in work. A curse too. So going back to Genesis narrative with the cultivation and dominion and all those things, it's not something to be subverted. And I think in a lot of ways, that's tied up in this conversation as well is, don't think it would be helpful psychologically. And unless you're willing to say that the pandemic. Has been a positive experience for a lot of people who've been put out of work. They've had more leisure time, they've had an unemployment, so we wish we should see more flourishing in the psychological state or more people. But I don't think that's the case. You have people going to replica, you have people going to all these different places because they are lonely because they are. Bored. All of these different, like splinters that have resulted from just this one disruption of work over the 18 months, it's hard for me to believe that if you extend that. And we have infinite resources. It's going to cause flourishing that's hard for me to reconcile with.

Yeah, absolutely. The way I think about it, which may be slightly different than what you just described. I think it might take us a second to get to this point, but I believe at some point there will always be value for us to commit to. In being around other humans and serving other humans and valuing a human experience. So let's think about the normal work, it's doing a physical task, maybe on a computer or maybe architecture or something like that. Those might be able to be outside sourced as we get more and more advanced in this technology of AI. But the things that really cannot be outsourced is something that I would really specifically place a premium in having with another human. You think back and say, I would have paid extra to have that conversation with that person. I've had that experience before. And I don't know. I guess that's one way, I think about a way that we can add value from a human perspective when we're not having to do necessarily physical things. Now, to your point, I believe that it may take a second. Maybe even a long time for us to get there because everyone is number one, not necessarily great at doing service related jobs. So there would be development in that area. I think there's a lot of parallels in what you just said and what I just said. I think maybe the difference is the time span of which that takes place.

Yeah. And like I said, John Danaher is the scholar I was referring to and he's written on automation and work and stuff like that. And he basically said that there would be a time span. It'll be really tough, but then society will adjust and we'll enjoy more leisure and all those things. And so I think my critique of that, or at least my concern is that, what happens and maybe it does open up the door for a lot of positive things. But yeah. Like I said, pastorally, I tend to be more negative towards anthropology but it's just really hard for us to say that if you just put the right pieces in place, everything's going to go well, when so many times every piece is right. And things happen that just don't make sense. You see all kinds of crazy stuff. So maybe I hope I'm wrong. I really do, but I'm a little skeptical.

Sure. We are all figuring this out and learning this together because this is a new point for us to go down. As technology continues to advance. I want to jump back for a second on what we're talking about before to how someone outside of the Christian community would think about God. And I think there's just a lot of interesting conversations in that. And I know you've talked to a lot of people. So what are your thoughts on that?

It makes more sense to me, like you said to see that we have minds pattern after a divine mind that there if there is some something known as consciousness and intelligence, that it must be based on something and whether or not you believe that is God or some other being, I still think that makes more sense than just saying. We're going to create a machine and then eventually it's going to evolve. Once we make a certain number of processors, small enough or complex enough, and I try to help people see it this way. It's really complex to make a simple robot operate simply and see even more complex to make something autonomous that can handle multiple tiers of operations outside of one particular vein. But humans, we do complex things and we're very simple organisms. If you really think about what we are. And we can't replicate that to the best of my knowledge. And even in like brain mapping of rats and stuff like that. You think about how small a rat's brain is and how long it takes to map that there'll be projects that have been going on for years, and so either one of two things, either we're on a trajectory to where it will happen and robots will be smarter than us. As you're saying it will go from being a smart, as a human, to be as smart as 10 humans to a hundred to a thousand, to all, that type of progression, which I don't believe. I don't think that's how it will work. Because how do you measure intelligence? It's not something you can measure empirically. So it, it makes no sense to say, what does 10 minds look like? What does one mine look like? We can map the brain for sure. Through different scans and stuff like that, but it doesn't give us a what it's like to be in that brain so to speak. And so I just try to help people see, don't believe some of the hype about what is actually capable and there's some really smart people in these community. But they have a lot of religious beliefs too, about what the mind is and what the possibilities of it are. That's why I think, we can make that correlation in that conversation. If I was talking to somebody about superintelligence stuff like that is. No, I think it makes sense to me that there's a divine mind. That's patterned that we're patterned after. And I'll never be, a one-to-one correlation of Jesus, I'm supposed to be in his likeness, but I don't become a God. When I die and go to heaven, at least in my understanding and theology, I don't become him. He's still the object of my worship. He's still what gives me value in salvation. I don't want ever embody that. And so if that's the pattern of my reality, as I understand it in, There are things that are true outside of human existence. Two-plus too, if you put two rocks on Mars, whether or not we exist, it's still two rocks. Math still exists without us. So there must be some being out there that defines logic space matter, all these things that, that holds us together that we base intelligence off of. So I just approached it that way. We can compensate about intelligence and have humble discourses about the limitations of this technology. And you can theorize about anything. That's fine. There are people who believe that we live in a simulation, can't prove that wrong. That's an old debate, are we in the matrix? Like, how would you prove that the matrix doesn't exist? You can't because you don't have access to other minds. And and that's the problem is you can't prove or disprove it either way. You just have to say, okay but even if a machine does have that capability instilled doesn't ever surpass the, unmoved mover. Who's God, it doesn't ever surpass that. And you can bring in topics about sovereignty and determinism and free will. There's so many great kind of lead ways into just that one discussion about will there ever be. Artificial general intelligence, but I would say even narrow AI is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous because the stupid, it's just, it's very dangerous if it's not, putting the proper place.

I think you did. The main point that I wanted to pull out of that was just how you personally go about talking to people outside of the Christian community and how you can connect with them and how you can connect your theology and your mindset from a Christian perspective to how they would think about it. Because I think that is where some really cool conversations start happening when you just talk to people outside of what you believe and you're able to impact them and, I mean, we impact each other by communicating our thoughts and having conversations. Dr. Smith. I believe we could continue to have this conversation for quite some time. This is a really intriguing conversation. Something that I find a lot of interest in and I appreciate that there is someone like you that has done a lot of specific research in this, as it relates to the Christian community and really exposing how we can talk about this and. And how we can communicate about it to each other. And again, to people outside of our worldview. I am just curious how does your local church how do they react to some of these topics and how do they perceive a lot of your work?

Yeah it's not like we talk about it much in my preaching or anything like that, but actually I have, I've done it. I've been doing a series on Wednesday nights about technologies. So it has come up more recently and yeah, I'm typically not shy about it, but I don't try to push it and they get upset because they want to read my book and I won't sell it at church. I'm like, I'll sell it to you, but I'm not going to bring like a stack of books on here and sell them. I'm just not there yet, but no there's interest in it. And I think the more people that kind of talk about and read it, like you said they see, oh, okay. You're not crazy. You're trying to address this issue. And so I think more people appreciate it once they peek into the work a little bit. And and they certainly do and are supportive.

Yeah, absolutely. We all need support in our life. Dr. Smith again, thank you so much for coming on. This has just really been a neat conversation for me. I feel like this will also be a neat conversation for our audience and really just again for the Christian community to understand and learn more about. So thank you for your work. Thank you for coming on and look forward to keeping in touch with some more of your work.