2084
up:: Books
Artificial Intelligence, the Future of Humanity, and the God Question
- Type:nonfiction
- Author:: John C. Lennox
- Year published:: 2020
Summary/Reflection
I was going into this book with the expectation to learn about how the Christian faith informs the outlook towards AI.
However, it seemed to me like the book was mainly addressed to atheists or agnostics. It used a “connect and confront” approach (see How to engage with any cultural text)—and did so brilliantly. Some of the points were enlightening. The quest for AI may be another counterfit gospel that repeats the Genesis 3 narrative of wanting to become gods. This is an important and humbling reminder. Any attempt at homo deus is a mere shadow of the glorious transformation that humanity can receive through Christ’s death and resurrection (see Resurrection).
After that idol story is sufficiently confronted and connected to our present and future hope, I would have wished to see what a biblical view on AI looks like. Are believers supposed to work on A(G)I? Unfortunately, no practical pointers for believers are given.
Surely for some people AI can be a god- substitute, but for others (mostly what I have seen in EA circles) it is a genuine weighing of risks and potential. 2084 only shallowly speaks to this issues from a Christian perspective.
To summarise, 2084 is a powerful confrontation of the narrative that can underly secular AI efforts. Unfortunately, it only skims laying out how a Biblical Worldview speaks to the practicalities of AI development.