EuDMS #2: Thilo Stadelmann - AI, The unexpected opportunity for missions

00:00:01: Wonderful.

00:00:02: Good morning from my side.

00:00:04: My name is Thilo Stadelmann.

00:00:05: I'm speaking to you from Germany this morning and we're talking about the unexpected opportunity for missions because of AI.

00:00:14: and we're not going to talk about the opportunity of AI as a tool that can help us in our work as missionaries, as Christians, but for the opportunity that arises because of the way we can talk about our worldview about spirituality because everybody has questions about the future because of AI.

00:00:35: I am a computer scientist, not a missionary, not a theologian.

00:00:39: I'm a computer scientist leading a research center for the employees developing AI systems at a public university in Switzerland in Zurich and let's dive directly into our topic to use our time well.

00:00:54: So How can AI be an opportunity for missions?

00:01:00: Think about it like follows.

00:01:01: Maybe let's do together an experiment.

00:01:07: Think about the following for a couple of seconds.

00:01:09: Given AI, how do you envision the future of our human societies?

00:01:15: Try to envision it.

00:01:16: What picture comes up of the future given that we now have AI systems?

00:01:23: Does it look anything like this maybe?

00:01:26: You can bet on it that for most people you're going to talk about this question.

00:01:30: our future societies with a i being with us now evokes pictures like this like in the matrix where we humans are like morpheus who's tortured by a i systems agent smith.

00:01:42: in the background very dystopian pictures lots of fear because of.

00:01:48: The technology being bad for us and maybe eradicating humanity or killing our jobs or at least making our lives somehow miserable and taking away what we love.

00:01:57: This is what people very often have in mind.

00:02:01: And I conducted a lot of research into what are the reasons for this.

00:02:05: and what uh struck me is that these dystopian narratives that are around everywhere these narratives that you read in the books by professor harari the home of deals and so on that you see in movies like the matrix that you see in open letters by the future of life institute that you see basically in every major news outlet.

00:02:25: These narratives, these fear-instilling narratives, are all based not on the technology we have or certain scientific facts, they are based on the worldview of those interpreting these facts.

00:02:37: So let us quickly dive into these worldviews that give rise to dystopian narratives.

00:02:44: Atheists Timnit Gebrew and Emile Torres, two researchers, have recently analyzed these philosophies or worldviews and came up with an acronym to talk about it.

00:02:54: give you the reference there on the slide.

00:02:57: And they talk about the so-called test wheel bundle of philosophies or worldviews.

00:03:02: Test wheel being an acronym standing for things like transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, and so forth.

00:03:10: So what do these worldviews encompass?

00:03:12: And let me tell you first, these worldviews are very predominant in Silicon Valley amongst people who are building AI technology, amongst very People with high reach on social media like mr.

00:03:27: Musk Mr.

00:03:28: Altman from open AI and so on all these people you hear about every week.

00:03:33: They basically subscribe to these philosophies.

00:03:35: What do these philosophies say?

00:03:37: Well, let's do a quick tour through this.

00:03:39: by rationalism They're saying well we as humans are nothing but information processors.

00:03:45: We are basically a machine, we are a computer that takes input, processes it and outputs some information.

00:03:53: So basically we are the same as computers.

00:03:55: And then by virtue of the next philosophy, single-array tourism, they go forth assuming that when we are the same as technology, technology can basically do everything that we can.

00:04:06: So they don't need to prove for their assertion that AI can become conscious, can become basically on eye level with humanity, or even more can become super-intelligent just by self-improvement.

00:04:18: There's no scientific proof for that, or even an argument, there's, well, it's a belief system that this could happen because, well, we are conscious and we are the same.

00:04:28: And then it goes on to the last philosophy I want to touch upon here, the transhumanism that basically says, well, if we are the same as technology that doesn't make us equal to AI, we are actually lower.

00:04:39: Why?

00:04:40: Well, because we are running on biological hardware, so to say.

00:04:45: And biological hardware is somehow rotting.

00:04:49: We need to digest.

00:04:50: We need to sleep.

00:04:51: We age.

00:04:51: At some point, we will die.

00:04:52: That's somehow inferior.

00:04:54: We should all become less human and more... like machines.

00:04:59: That's a transhumanism.

00:05:00: And so if this is the worldview shaping our most powerful narratives we have in the public sphere, it's actually no surprise that people get fearful listening to them.

00:05:12: Why?

00:05:12: Because these philosophies show little regard for human worth and dignity.

00:05:17: Now well, if this is all based on worldviews and That's good news.

00:05:24: We don't have to subscribe to that worldview and actually we don't as Christians.

00:05:28: We have a completely different worldview of what is the human and what our future is.

00:05:34: Just to give you a couple of quotes, I believe you're totally familiar with them.

00:05:39: The Bible says we are not anything like just information processors.

00:05:43: It says we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

00:05:45: We are mavelious.

00:05:47: We are made in the image of God.

00:05:49: We have dignity just because of that.

00:05:52: God so much loved us that predominantly he gave actually his only son.

00:05:57: and And we have hope in Colossians one.

00:06:01: It says Christ in you the hope of glory.

00:06:03: We have hope of glory.

00:06:05: that is our worldview.

00:06:06: that is distinctly different than the view of people Shaping a lot of the public discourse on AI.

00:06:14: So we can because everybody is spreading their view of the future with AI based on their worldview can utter a distinctly different and much more hopeful and so much better world view by talking about our view of the world given also technology.

00:06:34: We need to talk about a Christian perspective on technology because I have the feeling that many Christians somehow have inherited from, I don't know where, a predominantly critical view of technology.

00:06:46: Let me Let me try to challenge that quickly.

00:06:49: What could be a positive Christian perspective on tech?

00:06:52: Well, the dictionary says and the answer Clopidia Britannica technology is the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life.

00:07:02: So I'm no Greek scholar.

00:07:05: I'm a computer scientist.

00:07:06: But my theologian friends told me the original words for in Greek for technology are technique meaning arts craft and skill and logos that we know very well from the Bible.

00:07:18: it means word, reason and especially in the biblical context word of God.

00:07:23: So here's the not so literal translation but I think not so a translation that has a lot of value of the word technology for us.

00:07:34: A free translation could be technology is the art of applying God's word to make life better.

00:07:41: And here's some evidence for it.

00:07:44: In the first ten chapters of the Bible, every time humans create some mess, God gives them some sort of technology to deal with the consequences of their mess, to deal with the consequences of the fall.

00:07:56: For example, here the first one in Genesis three, we see that God gave Adam and Eve coats of skin to clothe them.

00:08:08: And well, you can find scholarly articles on the internet in scientific journals explaining in detail how producing clothes from animal skins has been high-tech a couple of centuries before.

00:08:23: So God gives humans technology.

00:08:25: So we can, I think, say with a certain confidence that technology is a God-given tool in a fallen world.

00:08:33: And yes, It's also our temptation, and things can also go bad with technology.

00:08:38: But let's put a focus on technology is a God-given tool in the fallen world.

00:08:44: And so AI is a tool in the fallen world.

00:08:46: It's not in itself good or bad.

00:08:49: It's a tool that we can use.

00:08:51: Others will use it for their purposes.

00:08:53: We can use.

00:08:55: And for us, it's predominantly also an opportunity to speak about what we believe.

00:09:00: So let me conclude.

00:09:02: The scarcest resource today, as I sense it, is hope.

00:09:07: The thing we most need in our world today is hope.

00:09:10: People are so hopeless.

00:09:12: And we have a tremendous opportunity here to spread hope because of our worldview.

00:09:17: Because our worldview is originally rich in hope.

00:09:22: It's a hopeful outlook on the future.

00:09:24: And it's now the time to sow this hope.

00:09:27: It might be the biggest opportunity to speak about our view of the world since maybe C is as loose as time, because, well, if you listen to Elon Musk, if you listen to Max Tagmark, president of the Future of Life Institute, they all speak from their worldview.

00:09:44: They make it explicit.

00:09:45: They say, I believe this about the world.

00:09:47: That's why I think we're going this way or that.

00:09:50: So that's an opportunity to make our invitation to make our world view explicit as well and talk about it boldly and say we believe this and because of that we see the following opportunities.

00:10:06: So AI's most welcome side effect is that now.

00:10:09: World views are everywhere.

00:10:11: Everywhere in the public debate.

00:10:12: Everywhere in the public discourse.

00:10:14: It's not anymore like thirty years ago art.

00:10:16: All need science and facts and what we cannot see and cannot prove.

00:10:19: We will not talk about no.

00:10:20: It's the opposite.

00:10:21: World views are everywhere.

00:10:23: And everybody is asking, okay, who is the human in the light of this powerful technology?

00:10:29: Who are we?

00:10:30: What is our place in this world?

00:10:32: And we have so much to say about that.

00:10:34: Ask Christians from the Bible, from the biblical worldview.

00:10:37: So I encourage you to use this opportunity and talk boldly about your faith, because everybody now asks these questions because of AI.

00:10:47: Thank you very much.

00:10:47: You're richly blessed.