Did you know that a computer can only do two things? A computer can::
1) add two numbers together
2) move the result from one memory location to another memory location.
That's it. A computer cannot do anything else.
Addition itself is built on the simplest of operations. All digital systems can be constructed using only three basic logic gates: the AND gate, the OR gate, and the NOT gate, but even these three gates can be reduced to either the NOT-OR (NOR) gate or the NOT-AND (NAND) gate. The addition operation requires only one of those two gates. One gate, and one operation, taken together, are enough.
But, wait... if a computer can only add, where do the other mathematical operations come from? Easy. Subtraction is just two's-complement addition. Multiplication is just a lot of adds done really fast, while division is just a bunch of subtracts (which are actually just additions), also done really fast. Every other operation is built on the addition operation.
When you play a realistic video game, or watch an AI-generated movie, or interact with a chatbot that responds very much like a human, each of those virtual realities are ultimately the result of adding two numbers together really, really fast. Computers simulate huge complex physical realities, the whole universe, and even human intelligence simply by adding two numbers together over and over, really, really fast.
If human beings are merely physical, if everything that makes us human is simply a result of physical laws, then it is possible to create a computer that is completely human in every sense of the word. After all, a computer is completely described by physics. If we are also completely described by physics, then creating a mechanical object that is fully human is within our power.
If, on the other hand, the Jews or the Hindus or the Christians are correct, if there is some "divine spark" in some men (only in Jews, according to the Jews) or in all men (as the Hindus assert), or if we are all "made in the image and likeness of God" (as the Christians aver), then we can never build an object that can leap that infinite chasm between the world and the persons in it. We can never build an object that is fully Jewish (according to Jews) or fully human (according to Hindus and Christians). Only God can endow a physical thing with the necessary divinity.
The pursuit of AI is ultimately an inquiry into the existence of God.
Are we Him?
Or is someone else Him?
The pursuit of AI is the ultimate religious pursuit. We have been in the process of trying to build this mechanical intelligence since at least Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. This is the greatest religious endeavor in the last two millennia. It has been dreamed since the Greek Pygmalion and the Jewish golem. It is more important than Luther's 1517 or Mohammed's 610 AD. It is more important than the building of the Second Temple in 516 BC or its destruction in 70 AD. The attempt to build AI involves everyone, whether we want to be involved or not. AI is even now permeating everyone's life, whether you accept the possibility of the effort's success or not. It's effects are already in the world.
If this effort is blasphemy, then everyone who uses a computer or benefits from the use of a computer is a heretic. If this is a legitimate pursuit, then every religious believer should be involved in the process, for it impacts everyone, believer or atheist or agnostic. Just as Luke interrogated all the witnesses, so we must interrogate and closely study all the aspects of this effort.
Unfortunately, the AI effort involves no prominent theologians whatsoever. Believers seem to forget, when you approach truth, it doesn't matter if you approach it from an initial position of falsehood or not. Either way, if you are rigorous, you end up at the same destination. This effort in pursuit of AI is serious. It should be the subject of sermons and meditations, prayers and supplications. The silence on the part of the religious is like the silence of those with ears, who cannot hear. It is the silence of those with mouths, who cannot speak. It is the blindness of those with eyes, who cannot see.
Perhaps these machines are idols, but if they are why do you use them? Every tool is a crutch, every piece of clothing covers nakedness, every set of brick walls and roof is the beginning of a tower towards the heavens. The common language both before and since Babel's Tower is not Hebrew or Aramaic, but math. At Babel, God failed. Alone of all languages, that language was not cast into confusion, rather it has grown and still grows in reach and power, unifying everything before it.
The math we use requires but one operation (addition), smaller than a mustard seed, yet through the work of our hands mathematics has grown into the largest of trees and all the sure knowledge we hold nests in its branches. Via computers, all the world's people are one people, speaking the same binary language. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." Perhaps, on this point, we will see if Scripture is true.
