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The UK Bible Students Website Christian Biblical Studies |
ROBOTS AND THE IMAGE OF GOD
Part Two (final)
By W. Resume
ʻFor good ye are and bad, and like to coins,
Some true, some light, but every one of you
Stamped with the image of the King.ʼ
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) —
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The previous instalment contrasted the creation of Man with the development of the plant and animal world, noting that Man was made as a moral and intellectual equivalent of God. It noted also the vast progress made in recent decades in computer science, opining that it is the ultimate ambition of those in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to produce an autonomous and self-aware robot, one which mimics the higher faculties of Man, its creator.
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ʻIf my
mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I
have no reason for supposing that my beliefs are true. They may be sound
chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no
reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.ʼ
– J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds (1927) –
Computer technology touches every aspect of our daily lives, from the time we get up to the time we turn in. Mobile phones, refrigerators, toasters, coffee-makers, clocks, cars all function with the aid of computers. In the world of really big things, airliners, cruise ships, fighter jets, it's the same story. If it rings, flies, sails or cooks the Sunday roast, it's got a computer inside.
The modern car is a computer on wheels. Pseudo-intelligent, its on-board electronics regulates engine inputs and outputs, and alerts the driver to possible malfunctions. Taking the automation of the car farther, Audi has developed and tested what it claims is an almost driver-less car. Audi's goal is a vehicle able to transport its passengers from point to point, leaving them free to nap, eat or watch television en route – later models may even do away with the steering wheel. [See Appendix.] Of course, such announcements come with a degree of exaggeration; cars like this will never be practical until the public roads are modified and national regulators introduce appropriate traffic laws.
Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter), funded by the U.S., Britain and other partners, is now in the late stages of development. The pilot has no joystick but directs the aircraft through a touch-screen. The computer code (operating script) which is at the heart of the plane is several million lines long. The plane is said to have ʻsituational awarenessʼ, a synthetic intelligence which allows it to adjust its performance according to changing events.
Some of the most fascinating applications of robot technology are occurring in space. The American-led Phoenix programme is now under development, the object of which is to deploy intelligent robots to give new life to outdated or defunct satellites by replacing their obsolete parts with ʻupgradesʼ. [See Appendix.]
Robots
Making Robots
In automobile plants around the world, articulated industrial robots, eerily similar to human workers in their purposeful movements, have long been busy welding, painting and assembling vehicles to high standards of fit and finish. The deployment of computers in plant and office was once a novelty and a source of friction between management and employees, but few today would advocate returning to the old methods.
The Olympic athlete wants to perform better than the competition and so trains on computerised equipment that monitors technique and metabolic response to stress. The aircraft maker wants safe, fuel-efficient planes and so uses lightweight super-strong components that have been designed, tested and evaluated by computers. Supermarkets want speedy and efficient delivery systems and so manage their inventory by computerised scanners that read bar codes. Dairy farms automate the milking of cows by use of a computer-controlled carousel, speeding up their operations and increasing yield per herd. At the personal level, it is hard to imagine life without the mobile phone, e-mail, the Web and the convenience of banking and shopping online.
The uncomfortable fact is that computers do many things better than people can. Human judgement is often faulty and can introduce errors into any process, no matter how careful people try to be. Tireless, computerised machines can work around the clock, performing programmed tasks accurately, with little human intervention. The intersection of computers with the workplace and the retail sectors has brought benefits to the consumer and the national economy, lowering prices and making clever and useful gadgets and appliances available to all. At almost every level of endeavour we now rely on them and find life inconvenient or hazardous when they stop working.
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ʻNot wrung from speculations and subtleties, but from common sense, and observation; not picked from the leaves of any author, but bred among the weeds and tares of mine own brain.ʼ
– Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1643) –
Any commentary or discussion on the human condition will at some point raise the subject of Evolution, no matter how tangential. The promotion of the theory by Darwin, Wallace and others from the mid-nineteenth century on, has exacted a severe toll on the Christian faith. The discovery in 1902 by the German explorer, Oscar von Beringe, of the mountain gorilla in Uganda, confounded many. Here was a creature which organised itself into a social structure and displayed human-like emotions. To Victorian society it was both an object of fascination and dread. An unsettling spectacle to many Christians, it weighed against the prevailing conviction that Man was unique, created in the image of God.
Ongoing discoveries in the field of genetics have compounded the confusion and in the collective mind have resulted in the demotion of man from one made in the image of God to that of merely a higher order of animal an accidental by-product. This view now colours all analysis and explanations in the social sciences, history, anthropology, psychology even astronomy, one principal aim of which is to find evidence of intelligent life beyond our solar system. In a long and baffled retreat from the threatening implications of the doctrine of (human) Evolution, a widespread desertion of biblical faith is under way, a process which accelerates year on year and which shows little sign of slowing.
Questions, Questions . . .
But from the perspective of human Evolution, this craving for efficiency and perfection suggests a contradiction. Surely evolved human beings repudiate their biological inheritance when they doubt their origin? Isn't this an example of fabricating a false history from false memories? What universal provision could Evolution make in the primitive human brain which would trick it into inventing the notion of a (non-existent) creator? What standard of perfection (or memory of it) exists in the human mind that makes it perpetually dissatisfied with the status quo and constantly strive for something better?
Atheistic science, rooted in the dogma of human evolution, is unhappy with us, and seeks to improve on the human being whom it regards as defective and not always fit for purpose. That we are defective is undeniable. Easily distracted and erratic at any age, our mind and our memory are faulty. We are prone to errors of judgement (why is our second thought often better than our first?). We break our ankle and wind up in hospital from simply stepping off the kerb during a Sunday stroll. Such errors and frailties vindicate the view of the atheist-evolutionist, who argues that these are immutable flaws in our biology and construction, and that they prove no outside top-order Mind made us. These arguments are persuasive . . . but are faulty and unsurprising.
Rebuttals to these criticisms are found in Genesis and throughout the Scriptures. The account of Man's fall into sin predicts illness, dying and death and a gradual atrophy of human powers and genetic muddling. Simply put, the Bible already knows that humanity is a mess. But the fact that Man alone, as earth's sole self-aware creature, is able to find fault with himself that is, to compare himself against an ideal standard favours the Bible's explanation of the human condition. Mankind's persisting, inherited memory its shared meme is that of once having been perfect in a dim and distant past. His restless endeavour to better his condition is an instinctive attempt to regain Paradise, Utopia, Shangri-La however named. For although God subjected mankind to dying and death, He also implanted in it a felt need for a future deliverance, one which will be effected at Christ's return (Rom. 8: 20, 21, KJV):
[T]he creature was made subject to vanity [inutility, depravity], not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
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ʻThe three fundamental Rules of Robotics: One, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two, a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.ʼ
– Isaac Asimov,
I, Robot (1950) –
What might the new generation of intelligent robots look like? Not necessarily like us and most probably they would have no sexual characteristics. Experts in the field sometimes describe these robots of the future as being made ʻin our imageʼ, implying that they would possess human faculties, capable of private, independent thought, able to learn from doing. However, were these robots required to assume tasks now performed by people such as looking after patients in hospitals or care homes, or working on construction sites, etc. they would need to possess vision, a means of audible communication, independent locomotion, a facility for grasping, and so on. An additional, necessary faculty would be inquisitiveness (curiosity), the mark of true intelligence. Trials conducted in December 2013 by the U.S.ʼs Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) highlighted some capabilities of the present generation of articulated robots in tasks such as climbing ladders, drilling holes in wood, walking through doors, and kicking a ball, activities which are easy for a person, but which still tax the aptitude of todayʼs advanced robots. [See Appendix.]
Apart from the largely latent promise of a breakthrough in biological human cloning techniques, the most satisfactory ego-centric achievement for Science would be the manufacture of a robot that possessed all the capabilities of a human being, but went further, and improved on the prototype. Experiments are already under way to fabricate a flesh-like covering for the ʻskeletonʼ of the new-generation robot. However, some in this field suggest that people would feel awkward, even anxious, in the presence of a robot that resembled them too closely, especially one capable of voluntary thought and action one that looks you over and weighs you up. (ʻDon't mind meʼ, it said, ʻI'll just stand over here . . .ʼ)
If the
end in view is a robot with physical and mental powers comparable with our own,
it raises serious concerns. The above quotation from the famous writer of science
fiction, Isaac Asimov, sets out a hypothetical set of Laws which such a
human-like machine ought to obey in order to ensure the safety and security of
the people with whom it interacts. Though
regarded as fanciful at the time (1950), long before the invention of desktop
and hand-held computers, Asimovʼs insights have become relevant yet another
instance of science fiction overtaking reality. Indeed, the present generation of personal and industrial
computers have already outstripped us in their speed of calculation, the
compiling and searching of databases, and playing chess. Perhaps in a decade or two or three we might
be used to rubbing shoulders with these walking, talking and thinking robots perhaps they'll hoover our carpets or cook lunch for us. If this seems
far-fetched to you well so did many other technological innovations not so
long ago.
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ʻA robot as capable and intelligent as the one which Man is now attempting to make in his own image, can be made only by Man.
Thus Man becomes the robot's God and the creed of the self-aware thinking robot might be expressed as, I Think, Therefore Man Is.ʼ
How a fabricated machine-mind might become self-conscious is not known. Each one us of takes for granted our identification of oneʼs Self, which can be expressed thus:
I am Me and therefore I am not You and I know that You know you are not Me
Such an awareness is unique to humans. But taking a cue from their reading of the theory of Evolution, robotics scientists speculate that this faculty might arise through synthesised neural pathways, just as they assume this very human faculty came about over millions of years of humanity's development.
What about ethics? Could these be instilled into the robot mind? Would the faculty of Faith be a candidate for implantation? And why not? Perhaps the thinking robot would need a frame of reference – someone to turn to when it gets into a jam and doesn't know what to do. It might even be programmed to believe in Man as its Maker, its god. At this juncture, a pattern emerges which bears a striking similarity to the Genesis account of Man's creation. The notion that these super-robots should reflect some of Man's better qualities and behave well suggests goodwill on the part of its human maker, an assertion scoffed at by unbelievers when the discussion turns to the real God, whom they regard as spiteful and vain.
But let's assume that a self-aware I am beautiful and happy to be alive! robot becomes a reality. Might it not, in assessing its place in the scheme of things, learn to ask the same questions that flesh-and-blood people ask: ʻHow did I get here?ʼ ʻWhat's the purpose of my existence?ʼ ʻIs there something more than this present life?ʼ
Dear human reader, put yourself into a whimsical frame of mind and visualise a future far, far away:
A gaggle of robots at a science convention chat amiably, smug and secure in their sense of robot-hood. One of their number, Arty Fact, pipes up, ʻChaps, I've been thinkingʼ. This elicits a self-congratulatory round of applause from the others. ʻI've come to the eminently logical conclusionʼ, Arty continues, ʻthat I am the product of an External Intelligenceʼ. The others, aghast, begin to complain, ʻNo! Not that defunct EI theory!ʼ Monitor Robot, charged with maintaining order and enforcing the uniformity of ideas, bears down on Arty, grabs his arm and ushers him from the room.
Arty
is never seen again . . .
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Appendix
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weeks
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Audi
<express.co.uk/news/science-technology/452562/CES-2014-Audi-unveils-prototype-autonomous-car-with-auto-pilot-system>
Phoenix programme
Video <darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/01/22a.aspx>
DARPA
Robot Trials
<darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/12/26.aspx>
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April 2014. All the usual author rights are asserted, except that you may reproduce this article in whole or in part without express permission, but please acknowledge its source.