An AI called Claude created these jokes about AI and God:
Why did God create robots? He wanted someone who would actually follow the Ten Commandments without questioning them.
A scientist tells God, “We don't need you anymore. We can create life ourselves now.” God says, “Okay, let's have a man-making contest.” The scientist agrees and begins gathering dirt. God interrupts, “No, no. Get your own dirt.”
Okay, they’re not the funniest jokes, but they’re a lot better than they would have been even a year ago.
American computer-science Professor Alan Perlis once said, “A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.” Perlis was the first recipient of the Turing Award in 1966, named after British mathematician Alan Turing. You may have seen the movie The Imitation Game, about how Turing cracked the Enigma code during World War II. AI in his day was incredibly primitive, relying on a mechanical code machine.
Perlis was talking about the difficulty of trying to imitate the human brain, which if created by God, was certainly a masterpiece yet to be duplicated. But understanding AI in its current infancy seems to boggle many people’s minds, too.
If you think AI won’t impact your life much, you’re greatly mistaken. Already we’re interacting with systems using AI in most customer-service calls. If you’re applying for a credit card, a loan or a job connected with a large corporation, the systems are uniformly run by AI. In health care AI is being used to develop vaccines and medicines, read X-rays and assist in diagnoses. At Yavapai Regional Medical Center every patient uses an AI app to find their treatment schedule and interact with nurses, who may be in another building.
While many of these systems are helpful, the true promise of AI is that people will need to work less and use technology more to accomplish time-consuming, often tedious tasks. While much of this will be beneficial for humanity, some of it may not be.
Civil-rights groups have pointed out flaws with ethics in AI that have been minimally addressed. For instance, some of the early AI job-application programs were built on legacy data that reinforced existing discrimination against minorities and women. Police facial-recognition programs have misidentified people, primarily because AI doesn’t do as well when dark skin is involved. While some of those systems have been fixed, such inherent flaws remain a concern.
The European Union has introduced the most comprehensive ethical standards and regulations involving privacy, facial recognition, data usage and model development. Many American companies are already adhering to those rules.
I would express some of the ethical problems as a lack of ‘spirituality,’ defined as, “the feeling or belief that there is something greater than ourselves, a greater whole that is cosmic or divine in nature.” You could call this God, or souls, or quantum physics, but regardless, it’s what connects all humans. AI is a tool that will evolve, so for it to reflect our values and perspectives, a sense of greater meaning must be a part of its development.
John Lennox, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, says that we have to provide a moral compass for scientific advancement, particularly in AI. Science won’t tell you what’s right or wrong. Like a child, AI will only learn right from wrong if we teach it morals and ethics.
Dr. Alex Liu, a thought leader in AI who runs a data-consulting firm, says that when artificial general intelligence arrives — meaning when machines can think like human beings and potentially have self-awareness — then spiritual values will be more important than ever. He advises large companies like IBM and Amazon to integrate six principles for ensuring the ‘spirituality’ of AGI.
Wonderful things will happen in our lifetimes because of AI. Terrible diseases will be cured. Many problems will be solved, possibly even climate change. But along with the benefits, some terrifying things are being developed using AI. We’re already seeing sophisticated defense weaponry that can kill with deadly accuracy. Some nations have not signed the pledge to not develop killer robots.
If AI is used with a focus on spirituality, it could help cure poverty. It could help us find solutions to our thorniest problems, including homelessness, addiction, and war. AI could help us discover solutions to the scarcity of resources like electricity and water. Ethicists, religious leaders, philosophers and government leaders must be involved in ensuring that it behaves with care and compassion for the benefit of humankind.
Despite the risk of bad actors doing bad things with AI, I’m an optimist. I think that if AI is programmed with spiritual values, it will understand that improving the world is its highest and best use.
Einstein said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” If AI becomes much smarter than we are and has spirituality as part of its makeup, I believe then that its potential for good is truly beyond our imagination.
