Visions of 'Apocalyptic AI'
When I chaired the Worship Team at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Saratoga Springs, I always enjoyed browsing the packets delivered monthly to us by the UU Soul Matters Sharing Circle.
Each would be jam-packed with wisdom expressed in sermons, hymns and other music, readings, meditations, stories, blessings and prayers. All of the elements we would want to package in a Sunday worship service were right there, easy to be reassembled, customized and personalized for compelling Sunday messaging in our sanctuary.
This "worship research" packet themed to Love shows how much spiritually oriented content can be squeezed into 29 pages. Go to the last page and you’ll see just how interactive Rev. Scott Tayler has made the Soul Matters Sharing Circle, complete with Zoom-based ministers’ brainstorming groups the first Tuesdays and Thursdays of the month.
This packet supports conversations in small groups, again exploring the theme of Love. That remarkable opening poem, “Welcome to the Path of Love,” is by Rev. Scott. It’s worth a read for it’s in the spirit of that poem we proceed, rallying around “a sacred assignment of making that larger love real, here on earth.”
ENTER AI AND FAITH
Both the Program Team and Editorial Team at AI and Faith have determined that producing great content for these packages will be an effective way to connect with and inform UU ministers, religious educators, and worship teams about the potentials and risks of Artificial Intelligence and the Brain/Computer Interface. So that’s the assignment that Ron Roth, my UU Boca Raton colleague, and I have taken on, developing with Soul Matters what appears to be a scalable model for bringing the “AI conversation” into faith communities using collaborative media.
Our main tools include:
We integrate these technologies in the content engine we call Smartacus, This is our digital infrastructure for producing two non-fiction titles, AI for UUs and AI and the Human, as well as our sci-fi scenario set in 2031 which a group of us are writing with ChatGPT as a prompt for UU ministers. Find more on this below.
Our goal is to establish a voice for inquiry and responsibility in the development of AI and the Brain/Computer Interface. We want to root these technologies in our most universal and inclusive truths, consistent with Unitarian Universalist perspectives and values.
PROPOSED OCTOBER SERVICE
In keeping with October's Heritage theme, we've proposed A Day to Reflect on Our Relationships with Our Machines on Sunday, October 22.
While we’re inspired in this by the Hindu festival of Ayudha Puja, you’ll see we’re taking care not to engage in syncretism or cultural appropriation.
ROBERT GERACI
For a timely topic that responds to the explosion of interest and concern ignited by ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI, consider a service that explores what Manhattan College Religious Studies Professor Robert Geraci calls "Apocalyptic AI," which he defines as the “belief that human beings will transcend their limits by merging with machines in a glorious new post-biological world to come."
This vision, he notes, "runs rampant in 21st century conversations about technology and circulates through global visions of AI."
It’s a great place to start what we aim to develop as a monthly series of services themed to AI.
Toward what Promised Land, if any, are we heading? The very fact that our technologies have brought us to the point where we can even ask this question fills me with awe and wonder. What are we to make of our ever-accelerating merger with our machines?
SAVE A SEAT! here's the link for registration
FUTURES OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Professor Geraci's most recent book -- and the one we'll explore most closely with him in this interview -- is Futures of Artificial Intelligence: Perspectives from India and the U.S. (Oxford University Press 2022).
He also has published Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics (Oxford, 2010), Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life (Oxford, 2014), Temples of Modernity: Nationalism, Hinduism, and Transhumanism in South Indian Science (Lexington, 2018).
"Overall, my interest is in how we use technology to enchant and give meaning to the world," he says.
Two Perspectives on the End of the World
“Whether the end of life as we know it will bring extinction to the human race (and perhaps all life on Earth) or is a prelude to a radical new world remains, at this point, an open question. How one views such ends is, of course, deeply inflected by religious culture. This book examines how two religious cultures perceive the end of the world as threatened or promised by the complex scientific networks of artificial intelligence.”
Questions:
What did you set out to learn in researching Futures of Artificial Intelligence — and what did you learn?
What are the main lessons we should bear in mind as we approach what you describe as the “end of the world”?
A More Globally Valuable Vision of the Future
“Without defining the ultimate potential of AI, this book nevertheless insists that our visions of AI powerfully influence the direction of progress. Apocalyptic perspectives emerged in the West through the historical confluence of TransHumanist ideology, science fiction, and explosive growth in computation...Humanity deserves an opportunity to think widely about the values that AI requires, both as a discipline of scientific and technological discovery and as a possible locus for a new species of intelligence.”
Questions:
Why is it essential to incorporate cross-cultural perspectives and values in designing AI?
What particularly do we have to learn from Indian culture? You mention particularly duty and self-rule.
A Shared Vision for AI
“The values that urge us forward often go unnoticed and remarked upon; it is time that the cultural and religious perspectives central to our technological imaginaries be fully uncovered and debated to produce a shared vision for AI. Cosmic transformations and optimistic dreams, mutual obligations of duty, promotion of self-sufficiency, and personal control are all potential tools to be leveraged. If we take such an obligation seriously, we may find that AI technologies become mighty participants in improving life for the marginalized, combatting climate change, and establishing just social structures.”
Questions:
Are you as optimistic as you sound? Why?
How do we create a shared vision of AI that leads to a better world?
Can you describe with more granularity on how we leverage “cosmic transformations and optimistic dreams, mutual obligations of duty, promotion of self-sufficiency, and personal control” into AI technologies that improve life for the marginalized, combat climate change, and establish just social structures?
DARWIN’S EDGE: AN APOCALYPTIC VISION SET IN 2031
AI and Faith Founder and Board Chair David Brenner writes:
“Since we cannot help but tell stories, and because we have some choice in the stories we tell, let us tell wise stories about AI, grounded in the hope embodied in the ancient wisdom of our faith – and so make our voices heard together in this epochal moment in time in which we are privileged to live.”
What hopeful story might we collectively write with AI and Faith experts, UU ministers and ChatGPT as an expression of our hopes in a mysterious, awe-inspiring, and frightening future?
