discuss: christianity and artificial intelligence
This topic was catalyzed by an interesting article at the New York Times regarding IBM’s attempt to make a computer that can play Jeopardy!. Having created a competitive supercomputer that can play chess, they’ve set their sights higher: A computer that can pull out facts and other subtleties from an answer given on Jeopardy!, and then meaningfully answer the question.
If IBM pulls it off, this wouldn’t make the machine sentient or self-aware, but it does give it significant abilities when it comes to responding to humans. It would also mean that a computer would have an incredibly capable way of storing data and retrieving it. I bet that they could use a machine like this as an intuitive search engine, where you could ask any fact and it would instantly give you an awesome answer.
However, this sort of talk always makes me think of things like the Terminator movies or The Matrix movies - where machines rise up and take over humanity.
But, as Christians, what should we make of artificial intelligence? Would a self-aware being be capable of receiving salvation? Will God not ever let us get to the point where we make a machine self-aware?
This question isn’t as deep or theological as some of the other ones, but it is interesting. What do you make of artificial intelligence? Do you think it is possible for a machine to be as human as a human, and if so, what are the implications?
