Are We All Cyborgs Now? A.I. and Human Nature (conversation with Josh Pauling)

About this sermon

From Josh: As to how AI is going to impact us, I think one of the most important and least-discussed issues, is how AI is forming and shaping us to be certain types of people. While AI is certainly impacting education, economics, and many professions, it also is sneaking up on us in how it trains us to take shortcuts. What is the type of person formed by AI like? When we can simply ask any question or get anything translated, or have it summarize a long book for us? I think the risk is that we as humans atrophy in our actual character, virtues, and abilities. We begin to think that anything mundane, tedious, or hard should be outsourced to AI rather than struggled through, which actually is what develops virtue and character and makes us better people. I talked with Dr. Nordling from CTSFW about this over the summer at the CCLE Conference. He is so distraught over AI and what it might do to Greek instruction and learning for seminarians and pastors. I think what he is feeling is how mastering Greek in the good old-fashioned way has formed and shaped him as a person, and he is concerned that this might be lost in the AI age. Another way to put it is that, we don't want to form people who can push a button to play Bach, we want to form people who can play Bach on the piano, or be the next Bach. Many of these topics I explore further in a book project that I just finished up with Robin Phillips. It's entitled Are We All Cyborgs Now? Reclaiming Our Humanity from the Machine. https://www.amazon.com/Are-All-Cyborgs-Now-Reclaiming/dp/B0DDKYLNP4/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1 The book is a wide-ranging treatment of life in the digital age, and has sections on technology and education, religion, politics, family life, and more. The main goal is to provide a philosophy of technology rooted in Christian metaphysics that can help give folks a framework for thinking about these issues. And we point toward a robust anthropology, the sacramental life of the church, and the rich tradition of liberal learning as a way forward. We pray it's a blessing to readers. There are so many questions folks have around these topics and there is growing momentum and interest with books like Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation. We go further than Haidt in addressing things beyond childhood, phones, and schools, and we also connect the dots to religious questions as well. We're hoping that the book can be a good resource for families, churches, teachers, parents, maybe even college or seminary students in an ethics or philosophy course that deals with technological questions. For more theology: http:www.wolfmueller.co