A.I.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free                             John 8:32

A.I. Artificial Intelligence. How do you like it? It is here to stay you know- for better or worse. You have encountered A.I. many times by the time you have read this blog today. It tries to correct your spelling (no thanks), it is in the reels you watch on Facebook; it is in the obituary you read about a friend’s passing. It is everywhere.

It saves time to be sure. It is convenient. It likely even can help solve serious health and technical problems among many other marvelous feats. Yet, please do not count on it for truth, because it is only a collector of information. Truth may or may not be involved in the A.I. equation.

Artificial Intelligence is built by gathering all known information from a myriad of sources. It does not, and cannot, discern truth. A.I. scrapes the internet for information from all the inputs it can find, and it can do that very quickly and thoroughly. But please do not expect that the information will necessarily be true.

The internet is full of many disproven and discredited theories and “facts”. The internet may, for example, contain many stories about the Jewish Holocaust being a hoax. There are sites where conspiracy theorists and crackpots have spread stories of a “Holocaust hoax” for many years. A.I. may well incorporate some of this information into a query about the Holocaust. Readers in the future may not be able to determine how “true” this information is and therefore may incorporate it into some “historical” account of World War II.

Social scientists tell us that after three generations, history can get distorted, as those passing on the information they had lived, pass into eternity. Future generations may rely upon other accounts which deviate a bit from lived history. Unless we are very careful, history itself can be distorted to the ends of a political or social power.

So, I am wary of A.I. It can be a very helpful, even essential tool for the future of mankind. But just like fire, the very discovery that made life on earth sustainable, it can be used for good or it can be a tool of manipulation and convenience. We must be cautious of the uses of this genie now out of the bottle.

Prayer: Lord, give us wisdom as we seek ways to live in a changing world, Amen