‘As AI Merges with Our Lives’: A Worship Service

The service we hosted yesterday at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Saratoga Springs might provide some ideas to other UU congregations that want to explore the forecasts made by Ray Kurzweil in his just published The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI.

Kurzweil has been generating a lot attention, giving interviews to Bill Maher, Ira Flatow, and Steve Levy, among others.

Before moving into Closing Words, we opened the service to questions and comments from members and had a spirited 15-minute future-focused conversation.

We’re planning our next AI-themed service for Sunday, September 1 in connection with Labor Day, exploring the future of AI and work.

Dan Forbush

QUOTE / Eleanor Roosevelt

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."


CHALICE LIGHTING WORDS / Rev. Scott Tayler

"We kindle this flame as a symbol of our gathered community. May it ignite in us a passion for justice, a spirit of compassion, and a commitment to truth."

READING / Andy Clark, From The Experience Machine

We are what predictive brains build. If predictive processing lives up to its promise as a unifying picture of mind and its place in nature, we will need to think about ourselves, our worlds, and our actions in new ways. 

We will need to appreciate first and foremost that nothing in human experience comes raw or unfiltered. Instead, everything from the most basic sensations of heat and pain to the most exotic experiences of selfhood, ego dissolution and oneness with the universe is a construct arising in the many meeting points of predictions and sensory evidence. 

At those busy meeting points, nothing is passive. Our brains do not simply sit there waiting for sensory stimulations to arrive. Instead, they are buzzing, proactive systems that constantly anticipate signals from the body and from the world. These are the brains of embodied agents, elegantly designed for action in the world. 

By moving our eyes, heads and limbs, we seek out the sensory signals that will both test and usually confirm our prediction. Experience takes shape as predictions of our own sensory inputs are tested, refined, and challenged in these ways… 

To perceive is to find the predictions that best fit the sensory evidence. To act is to alter the world, to bring it into line with some of those predictions. These are complementary means of dealing with prediction error, and they work together, each constantly influencing and being influenced by the other. 

This deep reciprocity between prediction and action positions predictive brains as perfect internal organs for the creation of extended minds, minds enhanced and augmented by the use of tools, technologies, and the complex social world in which we live and work…

Human minds are not elusive, ghostly inner things. They are seething, swirling oceans of prediction continuously orchestrated by brain, body, and world. 

We should be careful what kinds of material, digital and social worlds we build, because in building those worlds we are building our own minds, too. 

SERMON / Dan Forbush

Generated by ChatGPT

I was a serious runner in my teens. To suffer an injury that prevented my daily workout was a grievous matter. Whatever the injury, I usually was still able to ride a bike, so for my daily aerobic challenge I’d climb onto my ten-speed Raleigh and set off on the backroads out of Potsdam to far-flung northern New York places like Parishville, Colton, and Hannawa Falls. The terrain is remarkably flat in the St. Lawrence Valley. Lots of farmland and open fields. 

I liked my 1960s Raleigh, but it was a technological Neanderthal compared to my 21st century electrically powered Trek. I have four choices in the strength with which it augments me. When I approach a steep hill, I slam it from “eco” to “turbo,” and feeling a bit like Superman, soar right up it. 

But that’s not all. My Trek has fancy gadgetry of which I could only have dreamed a half-century ago. I have five readouts from which to choose, telling me speed, maximum speed, calorie burn, power, distance, time-elapsed, and battery power remaining. It even tells me the percentage of battery power that remains on my iPhone, which sits in a sturdy clamp beside it on the handlebars. 

Andy Clark would call it my “extended mind” and he would call me a “natural-born cyborg” in my use of it, a “cognitive hybrid” who repeatedly occupies “regions of design space radically different from those of our biological forebears.” 

Powered by the A11 Bionic chip with a six-core CPU, the mind that sits on my handlebars performs 600 billion operations per second in serving up a range of data feeds, including a GPS-manufactured map, updates from the Weather Channel, news alerts from the New York Times, and an infinitude of songs, podcasts, videos, and audiobooks. 

My 86 billion neurons are capable of ten quadrillion operations per second, so I possess more complex and nuanced cognitive functions as perception, decision-making, and motor control. But my iPhone extends my mental capabilities far beyond their natural limits — as does yours. 

"As our worlds become smarter, and get to know us better and better, it becomes harder and harder to say where the world stops and the person begins,” writes Andy Clark, a prominent cognitive scientist at the University of Sussex.  He calls us "natural-born cyborgs,”" constantly evolving through our interactions with cognitive technologies.

The “extended minds” of our computers rapidly are becoming more human-like. This trend is exponential, says Ray Kurzweil, a Unitarian Universalist recognized today as one of the world’s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists.

By 2045, he says, we’ll have computer chips so small they can be distributed within us via our capillaries, he says. 

When that happens, we’ll enter  what Kurzweil calls the Fifth Epoch in the evolution of intelligence, actually merge with AI and achieving superintelligence. 

Kurzweil envisions a process of co-creation — evolving our minds to unlock deeper insight, and using those powers to produce transcendent new ideas for our future minds to explore. At last we will have access to our own source code, using AI capable of redesigning itself. 

Sounds pretty great, doesn’t it?

Maybe not. 

The integration of AI into our lives and brains poses profound ethical dilemmas and potential dangers. We must ensure that AI does not perpetuate existing inequalities or create new forms of oppression. Transparency, accountability, and inclusivity – even Love – must be at the heart of our approach.

If this is a subject you find interesting and important, I want to invite you to join a new group we’re calling AI for UUs.  A dozen of us who met at General Assembly had our first meeting last week and going forward we plan to continue meeting in Zoom every Tuesday at noon EDT in collaboration with AI and Faith, a non-profit that’s dedicated to bringing our highest values into the development of ethical AI and neurotech. By engaging in thoughtful dialogue and ethical reflection, we can help to shape a future that aligns with our deepest values.

Our UU faith, rooted without dogma in science and reason, calls us to lead this conversation – to transform and grow, embracing change as a fundamental aspect of our heritage. As strange, powerful and even terrifying these emerging technologies appear to be, I suggest we muster all of the courage, wisdom and love that we can and journey well into our simultaneously promising and frightening sci-fi future. 

PRAYER  / ChatGPT-Assisted

May our pursuit of knowledge be guided by a commitment to the common good. Let our work in AI and neurotechnology reflect not only the brilliance of human intellect but also the depth of human compassion.

In navigating the ethical complexities of this journey, let our decisions be rooted in fairness and empathy. May we remain mindful of the impact of our choices, striving always to use our capabilities for the betterment of society.

Let us value diverse voices and perspectives. Together, may we build a future in which technology and humanity harmoniously coexist, each enhancing the other in a dynamic balance of respect and growth.

In this time of transformation, let us hold fast to the values of love, compassion, and wisdom. May our actions today pave the way for a brighter, more equitable tomorrow, as we harness the power of AI and neurotechnology for the greater good of all.

CLOSING WORDS   / ChatGPT-Assisted

Let’s remember that the future is not something that happens to us but something we shape with our actions and intentions. Here on the threshold of the Fifth Epoch, let us commit to guiding this transformation with wisdom, compassion, and a steadfast dedication to our values. Together, we can create a world where AI enhances our humanity, fostering a future of justice, equity, and boundless possibility. May we go forth from this place inspired to embrace the challenges and opportunities ahead, united in our vision of a brighter, more equitable future.

PASSING OF THE PEACE 

Please, turn to your neighbor and wish them a happy and productive integration with AI.