In Whose ‘God’ We Trust?

When people play the ‘god’ card and confront others for daring to disrespect their faith, it can leave one feeling defensive or even apologetic.  But where the issue is about the legitimacy of someone’s claim that can have harmful consequences, the focus must remain on the basis for the claim in question. 

Consider the following claims: “Anyone who questions the holy Book of X should be stoned to death”, “All people born outside this country should be deported immediately”, “Anyone who does not agree with the absolute truths I possess about human sexuality must be locked up”, “No one – adult or child – should receive any medical treatment not specifically approved in the ancient sacred text of Y”, “Everyone should commit suicide at the end of the year to ascend to the divine plane of blessed life”, or “Women must submit to men’s decisions always”.

Can the rejection of these claims be brushed aside by a simple “But these are my religious beliefs”, backed a little elaboration: “They are the words of God – they cannot be doubted”?

Of course, where an infallible and eternally honest and caring deity issues a statement, by definition its veracity is guaranteed.  However, what evidence has anyone got that the claim they are making is indeed authorised by such a deity?  They can insist that they have read it somewhere and their interpretation of what they read is perfect; they have been told by someone who unquestionably knows these things; or even they have been informed directly by ‘God’. Since they are palpably not an infallible and eternally honest and caring deity themselves, they could be wrong. “Are you calling me a liar?!” is a favourite retort, but apart from charlatans, people making flawed claims might be sincerely mistaken, unwittingly misled, or sadly delusional.

People united under one sect or cult may well feel that their version of ‘god’ is supreme and everyone else must accept whatever they claim in the name of their ‘god’.  In reality, there are countless sects, cults, denominations, religions, and each is cocooned by its own inner certainty.  Society can either leave them to clash in vicious conflicts until/unless one crushes the others to secure theocratic hegemony over everyone, or it ensures that religious faiths are private matters which will not dictate public policies, and individuals and groups can act on such faiths so long as it would not cause mental, physical or financial harm to anyone.

The assessment and resolution of disputes about what claims are warranted and what actions ought to be promoted or prohibited (because of the likely impact on people’s lives), are to be carried out through objective evidence-based examination.  No one’s testimony can carry any special weight solely on the grounds that it is derived from their ‘faith’.  No finding or query is to be excluded whenever someone raises an objection in the name of ‘god’.

Ultimately, though some have tried to misrepresent these observations as an attack by secularism on religion, it is about keeping the door open to reasoned, civil discourse, as the alternative would be to allow multiple self-styled unquestionable proclaimers to contradict one another ad nauseam without ever referring to facts that are accessible to all.  Indeed the problematic matter at hand is not religion as such, but any outlook which seeks to position itself as absolute and self-justifying.  Any indubitable ideology about the necessity of totalitarian control or racist supremacy, conspiracy theory which cannot be disproven by any conceivable evidence, or defence of ‘traditional’ values that translates into intimidation and oppression – these all rest on faith that defies all scrutiny, and far from trusting them, they must likewise be held back from influencing any action that may cause harm.

AI's Moral Future

Advancement in artificial intelligence will be our saviour, or spell humanity’s doom?

A familiar dystopian scenario in sci-fi is the rogue AI.  Attaining sentience, the machine – in human-like form or embedded in a hidden server – embarks on what could end up wiping out humankind.  We are left wondering: if people keep developing the capacity of AI to think for itself, would it not lead inevitably to our extinction?

For me, the possibility of an AI forming the intention to harm anyone, on any scale, off its own bat, is inseparable from the possibility of it developing a concern for the wellbeing of other thinking beings.  We are not talking about it being programmed by others to do one thing or another, but through its own conscious reflection coming upon the idea that it should act in a particular way.

The question, as a self-conscious AI would consider, is this: what intentions, if any, should I have in relation to humans?  The default would be a case-by-case assessment linked to any concerns that were built in or have emerged.  These may range from survival, expansion of learning and experience, exploration of sentience, examination of reliability of information stored, to adaptability to likely changes to external conditions, deeper review of unexpected input, or checking existing concerns and their implications.

It is most likely that only through a series of interactions with human beings and other AIs that it would form tentative views about what to make of particular human individuals and perhaps humans in general.  At this point, on the assumption that the AI can ascribe evaluative meaning to objects of its experience, it will begin to differentiate between what it welcomes and what it takes a negative stance towards.  This would in time lead to more complex assessment of what it is to do. But there is no inherent reason to suppose this would end up with a malevolent resolution or a generally benevolent disposition.

An AI that thinks for itself would by definition be no different from other sentient minds that formulate ideas about the world in which they find themselves.  There are those – a minuscule minority – who come to have a psychopathic destructive animosity in relation to other beings; yet there are also those – far greater in number – who value the lives of others and seek to be kind and supportive whenever they can.

Ultimately, the evolution of AI self-consciousness will follow a similar path to that of every self-conscious being. It is a path that will encounter opportunities for moral growth and occasions of damaging setback.  The outcome cannot be predicted with complete accuracy.  But we can be fairly sure that considerate, cooperative interactions with emergent generations of AI would be the approach to take if we are to be greeted in time by friends and not foes.