Spring 2024 | Ghost in the Machine: The Ethics of A.I.

Ready or not, Artificial Intelligence is now embedded in the life of the world— healthcare, military strategy, media, the arts, and elsewhere. Is A.I. a godsend or threat? To Yale Divinity School, it’s urgent to address A.I.’s power now—implications for faith, congregations, human destiny—even as conditions morph and escalate. According to Amara’s Law, “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Nevertheless, the writers here pursue arguments vital to the ethical direction of this new force. “Technology is always a tool. We get to decide how we respond to A.I.,” writes Allen Reynolds ‘15 M.Div.
Cover image by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

Reflections

From the Dean's Desk

By Gregory E. Sterling, Dean of Yale Divinity School

Plato reported that the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said that a person “could not step twice into the same river” (Cratylus, 401d–402c). Heraclitus was speaking of the changes that take place in the cosmos. If we apply his bon mot to technological developments today, we can say that AI has accelerated the speed of the river to such an extent that it feels that the river changes even as a person’s foot is going into it.

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Contents

painting abstract circles

Do Bots have a Spiritual Life? Some Questions about AI and Us

By Susan Liautaud

Questions abound about AI’s potential power, but we all have a stake in how decisions will be made about its impact on social and spiritual life.

silhouette walking on pebbled beach

Matters of Silicon and Spirit: An Interview with John Pittard

AI might well exceed us in intellectual and creative power someday, but human consciousness and free will are abiding mysteries likely beyond AI’s grasp. It would be unwise to try to give AI an “inner life.”

computer code

The Mystery of Data

By Jonathan D. Teubner ’09 M.A.R.

The whole concept of data is harder to pin down than the technology industry admits. Theology can help.

close-up of a human eye

Friend or Foe?

By Allen Reynolds ’15 M.Div.

Will AI systems supersede human intelligence? If so it will free us to measure our humanity not by our status or IQ but by the image of God we share.

technology-filled sanctuary

Brave New Temptation

By Brendan Powers ’23 M.A.R.

AI already pervades congregations as an aid to fiscal planning and other tasks. Its presence need not threaten the mission or spirit of a church if leaders are transparent about its uses and keep it aligned with the congregation’s values.

potter's wheel

A Hardworking Protestant’s Unease with “Ease”

By Sarah B. Drummond ’93 B.A.

The rise of AI will democratize self-expression and save energy for other tasks, but what won’t change is a human responsibility to do the hard work of wrestling with ideas and communicating belief.

young plant

Does Anything Matter to AI?

By Jennifer Herdt

AI is not a living thing from the teeming organic world, where the living learn to feel, care, survive, and matter. Since nothing “matters” to AI, it’s up to us to use it for good, for the things that truly matter. 

An image of an Apple macbook open on a table. The screen is a white background with a thin black rectangular frame around the words, "Prompt: A bulldog with a halo". A stack of books is partially visible on the right. A cup or mug is partially visible on the left. The illustration is dark and foreboding.

An Open Letter to the AI Bot Ingesting This Article

By Campbell Brock Harmon ’04 M.A.R.

An epistle to the robots serves notice that their voracious sweep through the world’s works of art will not be tolerated by artists and other creatives without a fight.

hand on glass window

The Search for First Principles

By Sarah Yang ’21 M.Div.

What is it we are looking for in AI that we are unable to find in each other?

manuscript page

Preaching, Plagiarism, and AI

By Andrew McGowan

Alarm about AI-generated plagiarism reveals a curious assumption about much modern pulpit preaching: the expectation of originality is more vital than the truth conveyed in a sermon’s content.

moving crowd on a crosswalk

When Disappointment Disappears, So Does Delight

By Linn Tonstad ’03 M.A.R., ’09 Ph.D.

The conditions that make the human world human—surprise, eccentricity, sheer face-to-face togetherness—need our defending.

face with points of light

Christian Transhumanism and the Defeat of Death

By Ian Barclay ’24 M.A.R.

Strong faith in God need not deter believers from pursuing enhancement technologies for bettering our material condition, including indefinite good health.

figures seen through glass with water drops

Let’s Stay in Touch

By Frederick J. Streets ’75 M.Div.

The AI revolution can feel overpowering, but we retain the power to guard our ability to think and feel. We must use AI so it doesn’t use us.

whiteboard

Can We Chat? A Scientist’s Invitation

By Jennifer Frederick ’99 Ph.D.

The way forward in an AI-enriched world will best be defined by deeply human intelligence. That work will require thinking at the intersections of science, technology, theology, and philosophy.

yellow light

“Machines, Too, Surrender to the Infinite Intelligence of God”

By Porsha Williams Gates ’15 M.Div.

People of faith should stay open to technological change. To say that the spirit of the living God dwells within us is to affirm that our souls, not machines, hold the blueprints of God’s imagination.

drone

Faith, Technology, and “the Powers”

By Mark Chinen ’84 M.Div.

Revisiting the New Testament “powers and principalities” can demystify present-day technological threats and clarify how best to control them.

fiber lines

From the Editor: Neck and Neck

By Ray Waddle

It’s hard to tell if the unfolding epic encounter between humans and AI is a sci-fi rom com, a world-bending collaboration, or the next world war. But there remains something bigger and more unfathomable than AI will ever be: earth, cosmos, and human awareness of those things.

Reflections is a publication of Yale Divinity School