Unless you live under a rock, chances are you’ll have heard the term artificial intelligence (AI) bandied around lately. Amid all the hype, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. Where did this AI thing come from? What actually is it? What should Christians make of it all?
AI history
Fundamentally, AI is nothing new. It is merely the logical next step in the ongoing computer revolution. AI is what we have been aiming at ever since the first modern computers were developed in the 20th century. Conceptually and theoretically, we’ve been bracing for AI to become a reality for the last 80 years.
In 1942, the legendary science fiction writer Isaac Asimov coined his Three Laws of Robotics, preparing for an age in which ‘intelligent’ robots would need to be programmed with a strict code of ethics. In 1950, Alan Turing devised what he called the ‘imitation game’ (or Turing test), to determine a machine’s ability to pass muster as a human. It’s only now that the technology has finally caught up, that we finally have enough computing power to make something like AI happen.
Intelligence
The term artificial intelligence is really a bit of a misnomer – a machine is not capable of intelligence. It cannot think or reason. It may be better at certain tasks than human beings, as a calculator is at maths, but it doesn’t know what it is doing. It is not sentient. It has no mind or will of its own; it is bound to do what it has been programmed to do. At best it can perhaps be said to simulate or give the illusion of intelligence.
