Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the moment when A.I. becomes as smart as a human in multiple domains. This has sometimes been referred to as humanity's "Last Invention" as afterward, the AGI will create everything we need. Others have predicted an existential risk to our species with the advent of AGI. We have not reached that level yet, but it suddenly seems not as distant or impossible as was once thought. The papers in this session seek to understand the role of religion as we consider the advent of AGI. How do we make sense of it and what sort of implications might it have?
As the current limits of artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) technology yield to the emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and its possibility of sentience, how will humans and machines respond to one another? History and anthropology reveal patterns of marginalization and social injustice when people fear the unknown or feel threatened by others who are different from themselves. Artificial intelligence technologies rely on human-coded algorithms and machine-learning that utilize information from multiple knowledge domains, including positive and negative examples of human behavior as well as theological and ethical resources. Using this data, AGI systems purportedly will reason, solve problems, demonstrate common sense, plan for the future, and adapt to change. Presently, artificial general intelligence is theoretical; however, as AGI evolves, will it become a victim or source of unjust human marginalization or will it become the great social justice equalizer?
This paper is concerned primarily with artificial general intelligence and thinking about its possibilities through philosophical and theological examination. Specifically, the work of Stanley Cavell is taken up to help us better understand what we have in mind when we talk about AI and what our necessary response is to such technology. Cavell points us toward the efficiency of criteria as well as their limitations through his parable of the automaton. Supplementing this with his discussion of slavery and embryos, his work is developed by and warrants reflection on our social responses to minority communities and the disenfranchised. Cavell thus provides both epistemological and ethical guidance as he is applied theologically to artificial intelligence.
In our 21st century, computers are revolutionizing the way we think, learn, live, and relate to humans, nature, machines, and the divine. The new hero -or antihero- is Strong A.I. The new utopia -or dystopia- is the Technological Singularity, the historical moment when technology will manage to irreversibly transform biology. This hyper-technological world has been produced -and reproduced- by the Transhumanist movement. In this paper I will address the following questions: what is Transhumanism? What is the transhumanist paradox of its Singularitarian version? Can theology help solve some of the problems that this group is facing whilst programming A.I.? To solve these issues, I will demonstrate why these are not only a matter of the positive sciences and secular philosophy – as Singulitarianism considers them to be –, but any proper solution must include theology. Hence, I will introduce Catherine Pickstock’s theological work “Eros and Emergence” into the A.I. discussion.