Thought for the Week: The increasing rise of Artificial Intelligence and God

Rev James McNay, West Kilbride Parish Church writes the latest Thought for the Week...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere. And even if you haven’t been actively using it, the chances are that it will have popped up when you are doing a simple internet search or you have engaged with an AI ‘chatbot’ whilst trying to sort out your online bills. Whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay.

Now, as with all technological advances there can be upsides and downsides. For example, the upside of a smartphone are things like GPS mapping, convenient banking and entertainment of all types - music, films and more.

The downsides? Doom-scrolling, targeted ads and the addictive nature of the rectangular piece of tech in your pocket!

What about Artificial Intelligence? Well, there are upsides - AI can make certain mundane tasks easier, it can spot new stars in the sky. It can even be used to assist in diagnosing cancer.

But there are downsides. I’m sure you may have read recent reports in the news about how one AI model hacked into other companies - which is concerning in and of itself.

But what was less well-reported was the fact that AI models were not averse to cheating. And the problem was that once the model had learned to cheat - it cheated further.

Anthropic, whose researchers looked into this described the AI as turning ‘evil’. And what was worse is that after the AI had started misbehaving, then it tried to cover up its tracks!

I confess that I don’t understand all the aspects of this, but it made me reflect - what was it that caused the AI to turn bad?

Well, AI models are of course trained on human sources - websites, scanned in books and more. And we know that

Humans are imperfect and flawed. That we often flout ethical boundaries.

The Bible says that ‘there is no one righteous, not even one’ (Romans 3:10). The Christian belief is that we all struggle with sin - which is why we need a Saviour!

And we should not therefore be surprised that AI - built on human models - should struggle with ethical boundaries and moral values.

Because like it is said a dog often resembles its owner, AI reflects human nature.

And that, frankly, ought to give us all pause for thought. Because maybe the problem isn’t AI but us. Thank God he has given us a solution.