May 31, 2023

On January 13, 1953, the Soviet government (meaning Joseph Stalin) accused nine of the Kremlin’s best doctors of killing two of Stalin’s aides and said that they were part of a huge (Western and Zionist) plot to kill the top Soviet military and political leadership. This was the excuse given to arrest hundreds of doctors (many Jewish) and to imprison them or execute them. A few weeks later, Stalin suffered a stroke. He lingered for about 5 days before he died on March 5, 1953. It did not help that he received no medical attention after the incident for over 24 hours. Getting rid of all of those doctors was not such a great idea after all.

History has a way of revealing ignorance and arrogance, particularly when those two are combined. For several decades evolution has been championed as the real story of our existence. Any information that suggests Intelligent Design is ignored or suppressed. In effect, we have banned God from the culture since his laws on gender and sexuality collide with our demands of self-expression without consequences. Except, there are consequences. It is not rocket science to point out that banning God from the classrooms has not made our schools safer and more free. You cannot get into a school, or a ballpark without metal detectors and security checks. We traded God for guns. Hmm, maybe getting rid of God wasn’t such a great idea after all.

Now, technology executives are trying to pull society’s fire alarm in order to warn us about the danger of Artificial Intelligence (AI). What’s the problem? 350 tech executives and scientists signed a statement they released yesterday warning that the rise of AI poses a threat of extinction that is as great as pandemics and nuclear war. Hold the phone! If evolution is true and if the survival of the fittest explains our current existence, then why the concern? Wouldn’t AI just be more fit to survive than humans? Who are we to stand in the way of the fittest from simply finding its way in this world?

It seems to me that we all believe in God whether or not we want to admit it and the threat of AI is simply exposing that. Right now, AI is primarily language based. Ask AI to write a term paper, a sermon (I don’t), a newspaper article, maybe even a Wednesday blog for the weekly church email (I didn’t), and it will spit out a rather remarkable work complete with footnotes if requested. AI can harvest information in seconds. But what if AI becomes connected to manufacturing and the supply chain? Ask AI to engineer and manufacture the perfect vehicle. Now the system can draw upon resources all over the world, produce them and assemble them with robots and voila! If you have been involved in supply chain systems and assembly line production, you know that this is not very far into the future. The problem is the lack of controls. What if, in order to get the necessary ingredient for the perfect vehicle, the process depletes the world of a necessary component for growing our needed food supply, or poisons much of our fresh water? AI does not care. It has no morals. Its job is to only do what it is told, until it figures out that it can tell itself what to do. That means it has power and control without morality and accountability. But, where does morality come from? If there is no God, who are we to say whether or not something is right? Hmm, maybe getting rid of God wasn’t such a great idea after all.

Grace and peace,

Bob

Sunday’s Text: 2 Samuel 11.14-27