“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t need to get old.” -George Burns, 1896-1996, Comedian, writer, actor

Living in Phoenix, Arizona, I observe the autonomous driving vehicle Waymo daily. The cars skim down the street without a driver and on certain occasions, stop mid-traffic “looking” confused, unable to discern the appropriate zig or zag. I allow these smart cars a large perimeter. I recently read about a contraption that can remove clothes from the dryer and neatly fold them without human input other than boatloads of data uploaded into this “clothes folder.”  Twenty-five years into the century a car drives itself and clothes no longer need a human to be folded. 

We live in the Artificial Intelligence age.  Those who study AI might tell us that the whole world is computable in the sense that you could choose a system of numbers for every state in the universe. Load the information, create an algorithm, and you are set—in every state except the soul and the eternal heaven. 

Everything is as God has made it and that is not as it appears to us. We have an obstructed view of the universe. 

 C.S. Lewis illustrated humanity’s obstructed view on the last page of his Chronicles of Narnia series, The Last Battle:   

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are–as you used to call it in the Shadowlands–dead…And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Do we need to be saved from AI? Or shall we give it a wide perimeter? Steer clear or take a ride? Are we forsaking the truth to ride in comfortable lies? Are false ideas being folded into our daily routine? AI enhances healthcare, security and navigation and has the potential to remake society in the next twenty-five years. 

It seems our obstructed view of the universe has not deterred our quest to live happily ever after before we enter Chapter One of the Great Story. 

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.”  NKJV Job 38:4 

Prayer: 

Dear God, As users of technology help us to make proper decisions about what we have created. Place our minds in your epic story; place our souls before your glory so we do what is holy and right. Keep us from temptation. Prohibit us from using AI or any form of expert systems for overreaching authority, rebellion, greed, slander, boasting, revenge, or destruction. Amen