Artificial Intelligence, algorithms, autocorrect, the church, and spirituality

Once while typing “The United States of America” I found autocorrect completed my words.  Autocorrect is an algorithm driven by artificial intelligence, The passage read, “The Ignited States of America.” Given the situation where rewritten history says American slaves were lucky to learn useful skills, and where many recent gains in gay and women’s rights are being reversed, I thought that “the Ignited States of America” was perhaps not a bad autocorrect.

However, we rely on autocorrect, artificial intelligence, and algorithms (the 3As) more than we realize. We see and accept their many benefits but are perhaps blind to the social issues they cause. They affect our society, religion, and our spiritual selves.

For example, a few decades ago when preparing sermons preachers took time, effort, and discernment diving into resources. Today, the new God – “Google,” on the Internet does those tasks. In nanoseconds, more information and data than can be ever used is before us. Human involvement in time, effort, and discernment is diminished.

Many try to convert massive Google resources into knowledge from data and information. Others simply use the “supplied” resources as definitive conclusive answers with little discernment, effort, or reflection. Many use the offered resources to “cut and paste.” Some may revert to plagiarism. A few years ago, an American cleric was fired when it was discovered that the weekly sermon was simply a download from another cleric’s weekly posted sermon. For shame! We cut and paste because of haste. We are conditioned to believe we are always needed elsewhere so we deal with matters quickly.

Nowadays the “infallible” Internet supplies millions of pieces of information – all of which is theologically correct (sarcasm) and freeing us from deep discernment and thinking. Ponder this.

Artificial intelligence and algorithms are so incredible that even after “listening” a bishop, speak just a few words, the bishop’s voice can be very accurately duplicated. So, if a bishop personally phones and asks you to donate funds, be dubious! It may be “Big Brother,” not one calling on behalf of the Son of God.

The 3As do much of the thinking for us. But where are prayer, silence, meditation, and essential human face-to-face interactions? In the 1950s, German philosopher Martin Heidegger foresaw this new reality and noted that the looming “tide of technological revolution” could “so captivate, bewitch, dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking may someday come to be accepted and practiced as the only way of thinking. This “frenziedness of technology,” he said will “entrench itself everywhere.” He was right. Read this paragraph again.

Are we unwittingly entrenched by the 3As? Where is the solitude, silence, and prayer that was essential for Jesus today? Is it valued? Our phones are the new Bible. They give us ALL the answers. Through much of Christian history and perhaps to some degree today, people believed God lived in the clouds. That must be right because we now store data, information, and knowledge, (can we add wisdom?) “In the cloud.”

It is essential to look at how artificial intelligence and algorithms are embedded in all aspects of life. But we sorely need to autocorrect ourselves and be guided by the Holy Spirit. 3A’s do much for us. But we should step back from the fixed historical models of thinking, acting, and ministry practices they now influence. They direct us to where they want to be! We need to re-consider the risky practices of Jesus by asking many questions and how he described life. The 3A’s offer people 3A prescriptions. Ponder these things.