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Malcolm Hanson asks how to respond to world-changing AI

Imagine a massive undersea I earthquake, producing an overwhelming tsunami which spreads globally to inundate every island and continent in the world, changing the whole landscape Such is the impact of artificial intelligence. Al is an earth-shaking reality, on a par with the upheavals from global warming. Like a giant tsunami, it is changing the shape of the world, threatening human existence even, but also promising to revolutionise science, technology, medicine and much else.

It is already in our homes, in research, at work and in leisure. More threateningly, it is changing warfare, changing jobs, and making truth more elusive. How, then in such a fast-changing world, where computers, supercomputers and quantum computers are developing at a breathtaking pace in ways beyond our grasp how shall we cope? To begin with, some aspects are not entirely new. Centuries before Christ, the book of Job painted a vivid picture of miners tunnelling into the earth in search of precious metals. Such efforts for rare-earth elements in the cause of trade and prosperity! ‘But,’ cries Job, ‘where is wisdom to be found?’ The answer: ‘God alone knows the way, knows the place.’

Paul wrote similarly about ‘human wisdom’ in 1 Corinthians, which we might translate for today as ‘human-based technology’. There is a vast contrast, he suggests, between the products of human minds and hands, and the ways of God.

Is Paul being negative about human achievement, disparaging about the advance of reason and knowledge? Hardly. Having trained in the philosophy of his day he surely valued his education. But he had also come to see that all the wisdom of the world is nothing compared with the wisdom, and indeed the ‘foolishness’, of God, and he had himself had to make a choice between two fundamental codes one with a human base, the other with a divine base.

That is not to reject human progress. We can readily rejoice in the great achievements which have led to the development of Al and the possibilities of unimaginable progress still to come. At the same time we should exercise great caution and concern about the untold harm it could also open up.

Everyday, so it seems, there is news of…