AI Morality
Will AI be a force for good or evil? The answer is both.
Last week I was sent a copy of a proposed ethics statement on the use of AI in missions. This is not finalized, so I am not free to share a link to it, but I do believe that we are going to see a bunch of organizations looking at an ethics statement like this one. As I look over the statement, it assumes that there will be widespread use of AI in ministry (certainly true), that AI has the potential for great good (again, true), and that AI may be a morally destructive force (again, very true).
I get a lot of ministry leaders asking, “What do you think about AI?” I am, of course, just a dweeb and have no insight past anybody else on this topic. Yes, I use AI for several things (never to write this newsletter, though, only the images). Like you, I follow AI as it progresses and find it rather amazing. I use it most days.
There are, however, major warning signs on the horizon about what may happen to us in a future world, dominated by AI. This will have a cascading effect on ministries.
AI is coming to maturity at just the same point in history that Western culture (and let’s face it – AI is a Western invention) is losing its moral compass. The self is selfish and we now define ourselves by ourselves. AI will be a tool in furthering this deconstruction of what it means to be human. The oppressed/oppressor motif of critical race theory will lead to an unending justification of its use against those in the “hate-filled” camp.
The erosion of free speech (which is a basis for religious liberty) is just one of many human rights that are being redefined under a new moral order. AI will be ruthlessly powerful when tuned into breaches of speech that some define as illegal or inappropriate. Thinking back just a few years should remind us that Twitter’s leadership was bent on killing free speech. The regulatory state is slow in understanding and adapting to these technological changes. Anti-free-speech precedents were being set under the guise of libertarianism (the company is free to choose what it wants to do). I, for one, am ever grateful that Elon Musk is smarter than the rest of us and stepped in to provide a bridge back to the past instead of dragging us into this strange new digital abyss.
I recently read a post by a well-known conservative blogger asking, “What do conservatives want to conserve?” One answer to that question is simple: civil rights, with free speech driving and freedom of religion riding shotgun. I do not understand why we are leaving it up to secular liberals (old-school liberalism here, not the political variety) to fight this battle. We in the church should be defenders of civil rights in their most basic forms.
Free speech and freedom of religion are inextricably linked. You cannot have one without the other. You can see this in countries where there are blasphemy laws. If we lose the right to express unpopular viewpoints we lose much. Can the church survive this? It has before. Yet, the AI we may be facing will be far better at identifying us as dissident rebels against a new moral order.
In addition to eroding freedoms and targeting people of faith, AI will be used to influence our choices. We have already seen one clumsy foray into using AI to influence us. Google’s first failed attempt revealed the extent to which implicit bias informs these models. This comes from the worldview of the programmers. AI is nothing more than a program running under instructions laid down by people. Pick your bias – left or right – it is dangerous stuff.
Formerly freedom-leaning Western countries are on the road to lessening speech protections. Religious liberties will be diminished along with freedom of speech. Am I a free speech absolutist? Each day I inch further in that direction. The redefinition of speech as a form of violence is among the worst of modernity’s accomplishments. This is where AI could have a significant negative consequence.
One way this will occur will be via statements on the “ethical use of AI.” These statements will be stacked with legal language that none of us take the time to read. Most of us will waive our rights as we agree to uphold pagan standards of speech and morality, pressing the “Accept” button so we can get on to the real work.
The large language models used by the current AI platforms we love were born by the explicit and wholesale theft of other people’s intellectual property. I realize that some people think that using other people’s public data is not theft but that is, I believe, because Google had already conditioned us to accept this for pragmatic reasons. The ruse was to be a non-profit so that there would be no fuss about crawling the web, using our data to train their models. Then, when an acceptable level of learning had occurred, they converted into a for-profit money machine. This is the morality of our digital overlords. The recent history is not good.
So, I know we need to exploit AI for the Kingdom. It will aid Bible translation, help us better understand people’s needs, unearth data about missions we are currently missing, and many other great things. Yet, I also know that AI is being unleashed at a very dangerous moment for human flourishing. It is an even more disastrous time for the Western Christian movement, dying through disinterest by the culture at large and division within our own ranks.
Am I down on AI? Yes, a little. However, I think we can turn to Musk again for direction here. Musk has been an outspoken critic of the negatives while developing his own AI platform, Grok. AI is inevitable. It cannot be stopped at this point. Musk knows this and is playing along, yet holding the big picture implications up to the light for scrutiny. Ministry leaders similarly need to be smart here. We cannot simply adopt AI because it makes us more productive. We need to be critics as well. At the same time, we must see AI as a tool in our arsenal in promoting the Kingdom. This is both at the personal and institutional level.
How will AI ultimately impact the Kingdom? Only God knows.
Your comments below are appreciated. Next week I am leading the Missio Nexus CEO retreat and will not be posting.
[image credit: Midjourney AI with the prompt “a photorealistiic image of the robot from the old Lost in Space series, in front of a church“]