Will AI teach humans what it means to be a human?
What Does Christian Discipleship Look Like in the Autonomous Technology Era? See, Judge, and Act!
Will AI teach humans what it means to be a human?
What Does Christian Discipleship Look Like in the Autonomous Technology Era? See, Judge, and Act!
To answer that question, we need to employ the method of See-Judge-Act. We must understand the mounting ethical concerns as AI touches every aspect of our everyday roles in industries, at home, and yes, in our religion, and this begs the question of how we will adapt to the societal phase change.
Over the last two weeks, I tried laying out the basic foundation of the new revolution we call the Autonomous Revolution. To help us see and understand the work Cardijn was doing during the Industrial Revolution, we also see the work Dorthy Day was doing during the same revolution, along with the work of Louis Putz with families using the Cardijn method to understand better what it means to bring the kingdom of God here and now, and how the same principles and methods will apply to the Autonomous Revolution.
Today, I will pose many questions to ponder, reflect upon, and wonder about. Over the coming weeks, we will dive deeper into those questions and use the See-Judge-Act method.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, machine learning, and analytics have been the engine of academia and various tools for industries, mostly analytics, over the last fifty years. But now…The Autonomous Revolutionis launced and....One morning, one Sunday evening, actually on CBS 60 minutes, the world became aware of the technology's power and potential through AI, robots, internet platforms like Google and Facebook, and retailers like Amazon. And people were asking questions like when did this happen? Today, we are seeing a rapid pace of development of AI in essential business enterprises across all industries, including healthcare, banking, retail, and manufacturing.
With virtually no or very little government oversight, private companies, research units at universities, and global collaboration between many developers, we see how AI software is being used in health and medicine, employment, creditworthiness, and even criminal justice at the policing levels and at the court levels without having to answer the question everyone should be concerned about is are the programs that are being encoded, what level of concern do the developers have consciously or unconsciously, with their own structural biases being injected into the intelligence.
Companies are now using AI to manage the procurement of materials and products from suppliers and to integrate gigabytes of data to produce the art of strategic decision-making, which has been the domain of many well-experienced purchasing agents. Because of its capacity to process data so quickly (Remember, AI can multitask; humans can not multitask), AI tools minimize the time in the pricey trial-and-error purchasing process. Even more so, we see it being used to develop medication in global pharmaceutical companies, where it costs $1 billion to bring a new drug to market at a fraction of the time and cost.
Ask yourself this question:" Will AI-driven machines outthink humans? What concern should you have about what we know about the "art of human judgment." Human judgment is something we have always considered indispensable in deciding some of the most essential things in life as being human.
Is it possible to see if jobs today that require human interaction, empathy, concern, friendliness, and, most importantly, that require applying judgment can be used to machines with the same robustness as humans?
We all use language to express those human interactions, empathy, concerns, love, and friendliness. What happens now in the development of AI is beginning to change scientists' understanding of language learning and use – and raising questions about innate grammar. Now think about this: scientists are developing AI to understand better our casual conversations between friends, when the mode switches to bickering between siblings, and what difference those words mean and change when used in a formal discussion in a boardroom. If we think about it, we begin to see how authentic conversation is chaotic from the perspective of how we put all the pieces together. Let's think about whether you have learned a foreign language. Given the nuances of culture, how often do we understand how miraculous the process is for us to know a language?
Yet AI is doing precisely this. Consider what this means for translations, even of ancient text, lost meaning over the ages. Let's face it: for many of us, the word "gay" has evolved in meaning. Will AI grasp that transition?
SEE
Are humans and machines in competition with each other?
In the new autonomous revolution where data is evolving and changing, does this offer opportunities for companies to change what has been considered the value of the worker and the products?
Think about what this means. Experts are estimating AI in the workforce will add as much as $20.8 trillion (USD) to the global economy by 2030. Does AI change how companies work and how people work? Will this replace humans or reduce the time humans spend on a job just performing what task a human can do that the AI machine can't at this point in time?
JUDGE ~ DISCERN
How does ethics evolve in humans? In our art of Judging and Discerning, we find all the elements of ethics. What foundation are we using to develop the ethics to discern? What will change because of the technology? What ethical concerns will be raised as we evolve to the year 2024? How will we determine those issues if, by 2040, our workforce could be totally unrecognizable from what we experience today? Who is making those ethical decisions? And Why?
Will we decide that repetitive and rote work will be replaced by AI? How is that decision ethically made?
Judge what type of AI we are as humans willing to focus on for our greater good.
How do we regulate advanced AI systems that could power next-generation bioweapons, nuclear drone weapons, or drones with low-dose explosives used by local police departments or cause large-scale harm?
How do we as a society embark on transforming work with Artificial Intelligence in a do-no-harm fashion?
Will we expand what is called Augmented intelligence? Meaning a little human and a little artificial? How do we make that determination part of judging and discerning?
ACT
What is the vision of the future of work that will enable us to act to bring about what is ethically good for the planet for people and have a purpose that is centric to what it means to be a human being made in the image of God and provide a purpose in life so that we live in a way that is in the likeness of God?
Humans will need to innovate and educate each other about the rise of AI and its impact on humans so that we can decide what is ethical and what we do for the greater good for the common good of all humans.
How will we act using ethics to understand how to employ AI to identify informational patterns that will optimize the trends that will maximize work and provide society with the ability to think through how workers earn a living and contribute to the greater good of their families and community? Remember, as opposed to humans, AI never gets physically or mentally tired.
Will we provide opportunities for workers to work less in time to be more personally enriched, creative, and socially focused?
Will we act in decision-making processes that allow humans to expand their capabilities to imagine, anticipate, feel, love, and spend more time judging the occurring change?
Our principal challenge, as people from all walks of life, is to anticipate what artificial intelligence means in relationship to how humans live, think, decide, and take action, what it means to act on what we know by Seeing and Judging.
So, think about what we need to develop today to ensure that in the future, there is integration of all the different elements of AI and how it will be used for the greater good.
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with human affection and human affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:5-8
Suggested Reading: Re-Enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion by Ilia Delio OSF
Till next week, enjoy being a human, keep thinking, and remember, The Currency of human contact is stories! People remember what they “see” in their minds. But above all, be a Mensch!
Photo: St Sabina Church South Side of Chicago