The Ethics of Superintelligent Design

A Christian View of the Theological and Moral Implications of Artificial Superintelligence

Golata

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781532632242
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Ethik & Religion

Artificial intelligence (AI) permeates Google searches, the personal assistants in our smartphones, and is all over our newsfeeds. Watson's machine learning has already started to revolutionize many important industries including oncology, law, finance, and entertainment. The idea that man is about to increase his immediate surroundings with exponential gains in the level of intelligence over the coming generations is based upon a technological revolution and the potential for artificial superintelligence (ASI). It is within this context that there is a prevailing need for a discussion of its ethical implications. As a Christian ethicist, Paul Golata believes that the need for this conversation to be informed by Christian principles is imperative. ASI is a move toward the proper handling of information. However, how a society interprets and applies this information is actually more pertinent than the raw amount of information it possesses. This important ethical conversation is being led by humanistic thinkers who assume that all of reality is just matter in motion and that mind is nothing more than electrochemical activity in the "wetware" of human brains. The Ethics of Superintelligent Design critically examines and challenges some of the most important trajectories of ASI while upholding the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, the supernatural creation account, a realistic view of the state of humanity, and biblical ethics.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Man is a rational animal and he is also a creator. He creates, fabricates, and utilizes tools to help increase his efficiency and effectiveness. The applications and uses of these tools, many of them just coming into being, constitute technology, which continues to advance as mankind is discovering new ways to collect and disseminate information. Mankind advances in technology because he is able to use his rational faculties by application of his native intelligence to create possibilities that enable him to help meet his needs and desires. Technology is one component of culture and assists in the development of our conceptual framework from which we define meaning in life.

Man is also a finite creature. Man’s capacity to create is neither infinite nor unbounded. Christianity, like science, affirms that the world had a beginning in time (Gen 1:1; Heb 11:3). Christianity maintains that no finite creatures could (a) conceivably make themselves, nor (b) could they create the world or other creatures. Christianity claims that creation comes from an infinite, eternal, independent being who is the first cause of everything and is known as God (Exod 3:13–15; Ps 41:13; 90:2; 100:3; 102:27; Rom 11:33). If, as Christianity claims, creation is the result of God, then mankind is morally bound to obey the will of the sovereign God as it has been revealed in nature, history, the Scriptures, and Jesus Christ (Gen 1–3). If God is not the creator of both the universe and mankind, then mankind is not under any ethical obligation to God; hence, man himself becomes the measure of all things, including morality.1

After World War II, advances in technology have led to what is now known as artificial intelligence (AI), which involves the processing performance and capabilities of computers, robots, machines, and software. According to technologists and futurists, the advent of artificial superintelligence (ASI) is on the horizon. ASI is defined as an artificial “intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills.”2 Mankind would be wise to understand the theological and ethical implications prior to its arrival. This work will undertake an examination and evaluation of ASI and its implications as it relates to orthodox historical Christianity as revealed in the sixty-six canonical books of the Old and New Testament, which are under the authority of sola scriptura.3

Man lives and understands himself in the context of his surroundings and all other forms of animal life, which, on a first order, encompasses his natural surroundings available to his immediate senses on the Earth and, by extension, to nature that is assessable for investigation beyond his immediate senses through the aids of technology, reason, and deduction. Man utilizes his mind through the employment of his intellectual capacities to understand the cosmos that surrounds him. Man’s high level of intelligence, relative to his natural surroundings, makes intelligence one of the distinguishing characteristics of mankind. Mankind is able to supplement his intelligence by creating tools that help him increase his knowledge. ASI is a tool that mankind is presently working towards in order to provide him with greater knowledge of his surroundings. Mankind has not yet taken proper pause to reflect on the theological and ethical implications ASI presents upon its arrival.

What ethical perspective will ASI assume? The present trajectory is that its ethics will largely be reflective of the ethical characteristics of mankind. If, as the Christian claims, mankind apart from a relationship with God is depraved, then what are the theological implications in bringing ASI to reality? The thesis of this work is that ASI falls under the lordship and authority of Jesus Christ and, as such, the creation, fall, and redemption aspects of the gospel metanarrative should be considered in order to formulate and address appropriate and proper ethical understandings of how to deal with the existence of ASI.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a derived intelligence that comes from man’s development and employment of technology.4 AI can be classified into three macro-categories based upon their relationship to mankind’s general innate intelligence level. Advances in technology have, to date, led to the first level, what is now known as artificial narrow intelligence (ANI). ANI is machine intelligence that equals or exceeds human intelligence or efficiency at a specific function. The next category level is artificial general intelligence (AGI). This level of intelligence is where the machine intelligence is equal to or exceeds average human intelligence in all aspects. The final frontier is called artificial superintelligence (ASI). ASI is characterized as being anywhere from one (1) to one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) times higher in intelligence than average human intelligence in every aspect.5

AI has come into its own since the end of World War II and is thus of relatively recent origin. It has matured in a philosophical and theological context that has been shaped by evolutionary naturalism, which believes that physical determinism allows for biological properties such as intelligence to develop emergently. Evolutionary naturalism’s counterpart, philosophical naturalism, posits that no supernatural or transcendent beings or processes operate inside the cosmos.6 They see the cosmic system as closed. This understanding of a closed cosmic system is based upon empirical inductive study of the cosmos in various domains of investigation that operates under the classification of science.

In contrast to a closed cosmos, Christians understand that God exists outside of and prior to the cosmos. The Christian understands God as an eternally existing, transcendent personal being with perfect attributes. This understanding is not informed solely by empirical inductive studies but comes uniquely through special divine revelation, whereby God has chosen both to speak through divine communication to man through thoughts and words given through divine inspiration to prophets to record as Scripture and to reveal himself by becoming incarnated, living as a human, and dying as a sacrificial atonement to reconcile creation to himself (Phil 2:5–11; Col 1:15–20).

Relationships give rise to the discussion of morality. Atheist social critic, philosopher, and public intellectual Paul Goodman (1911–1972) realized that, “Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not science.”7 Ethics (moral philosophy) is the study of what is good and right. Ethics may be defined as the subject matter of the proper ordering of an agent’s external deontological actions and behaviors practiced through social conduct in combination with its internal ontological motivations and volitional character coupled with its teleological purposes.8

As a creature capable of building systems incorporating AI, any discussion related to its associated ethical standards requires a discussion of metaethics. Metaethics is the study of the foundational concepts regarding the nature of morality (metaphysics of morals), how one knows what is good, true, and beautiful (moral epistemology), and how one subjectively understands what is good, true, and beautiful (moral psychology). A primary concern of this work is to show that the ethical foundations and concepts of ASI are deficient because, relative to Christian ethics, it (1) possesses an incorrect metaethical foundation, (2) is presently operating under an ungrounded metaethic, and (3) employs an insufficiently robust and comprehensive metaethic. On the positive side, it will be articulated that God’s establishment of a moral law and a natural order provide warrant for consideration of Christian ethics to be utilized within any AI/ASI frameworks.

The question then arises how the ethics of ASI will be implemented. Will it be subject only to the rules found from within science or will it be open to the full study of moral philosophy?9 Will it align with the understanding arising from a philosophical understanding of a closed cosmos that lacks any ethical obligations that derives from an object outside of mankind—a man-centric (anthropocentric) ethic? Conversely, should it consider incorporating the possibility, or the reality, of a transcendent ethic such as what Christians lay claim to based upon the authority of the biblical scriptures?

In taking both sides into account it will be proper to consider their respective views pertaining to creation, explaining how things came into being. Significant differences are to be observed at the outset. Christians account for rationality and intelligence as part of being made in the image of God (imago Dei). In contrast, thinkers associated with ASI reject this as a myth and hold to evolutionary naturalism. Evolutionary naturalists maintain that intelligence emerged over time through determined and random processes until such time as mankind was thought to be the most intelligent animal on the planet. Evolutionary naturalists believe that it is through man’s intelligence that he has been successful in obtaining dominion over much of the planet. In fact, many proponents of ASI strongly oppose anthropocentric claims of dominion over creation. They argue rather that mankind’s intelligence is responsible for “anthropogenic climate and environmental changes” that are harmful.10

Similarly, both sides have different understandings of man and his anthropolog...