Why the Future Might Actually Need Us: A Theological Critique of the ‘Humanity-As-Midwife-For-Artificial-Superintelligence’ Proposal: A theological critique of the ‘humanity-as-midwife-for-artificial-superintelligence’ proposal
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| Název: | Why the Future Might Actually Need Us: A Theological Critique of the ‘Humanity-As-Midwife-For-Artificial-Superintelligence’ Proposal: A theological critique of the ‘humanity-as-midwife-for-artificial-superintelligence’ proposal |
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| Autoři: | Dorobantu, Marius |
| Zdroj: | Re-Unir. Archivo Institucional de la Universidad Internacional de La Rioja instname Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR) International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 44-51 (2021) |
| Informace o vydavateli: | Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, 2021. |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Témata: | Technology, Singularity, james lovelock, IJIMAI, novacene, ray kurzweil, James Lovelock, Ray Kurzweil, singularity, Novacene, Theological Anthropology, SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being, theological anthropology, Artificial Superintelligence, artificial superintelligence |
| Popis: | If machines could one day acquire superhuman intelligence, what role would still be left for humans to play in the world? The ‘midwife proposal,’ coming from futurists like Ray Kurzweil or James Lovelock, sees the invention of AI as a fulfillment of humanity’s cosmic destiny. The universe ‘strives’ to be saturated with intelligence, and our cyborg descendants are much better equipped to advance this goal. By creating AI, humans play their humble, but instrumental, part in the grand scheme. The midwife proposal looks remarkably similar to modern Christian anthropology and cosmology, which regard humankind as “evolution becoming conscious of itself” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), and matter as having a predisposition to evolve toward spirit (Karl Rahner, Dumitru Stăniloae). This paper demonstrates that the similarity is only superficial. Compared to the midwife hypothesis, Christian theological accounts define the cosmic role of humanity quite differently, and they provide a more satisfactory teleology. In addition, the scientific and philosophical assumptions behind the midwife hypothesis – that the cosmos is fundamentally informational, that it intrinsically promotes higher intelligence, or that we are heading toward a technological singularity - are rather questionable, with potentially significant theological and ethical consequences. |
| Druh dokumentu: | Article |
| ISSN: | 1989-1660 |
| DOI: | 10.9781/ijimai.2021.07.005 |
| Přístupová URL adresa: | https://doaj.org/article/7371082f0c774ae4bff3b6fa783b7d16 https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/fc68586b-b307-4fbd-b558-93595ac027e0 https://hdl.handle.net/1871.1/fc68586b-b307-4fbd-b558-93595ac027e0 https://doi.org/10.9781/ijimai.2021.07.005 https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/why-the-future-might-actually-need-us-a-theological-critique-of-t https://doi.org/10.9781/ijimai.2021.07.005 https://www.ijimai.org/journal/bibcite/reference/2977 https://reunir.unir.net/handle/123456789/13026 |
| Rights: | CC BY |
| Přístupové číslo: | edsair.doi.dedup.....a279034ca9edd0c13a1f831e2c23c01d |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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Nájsť tento článok vo Web of Science | Abstrakt: | If machines could one day acquire superhuman intelligence, what role would still be left for humans to play in the world? The ‘midwife proposal,’ coming from futurists like Ray Kurzweil or James Lovelock, sees the invention of AI as a fulfillment of humanity’s cosmic destiny. The universe ‘strives’ to be saturated with intelligence, and our cyborg descendants are much better equipped to advance this goal. By creating AI, humans play their humble, but instrumental, part in the grand scheme. The midwife proposal looks remarkably similar to modern Christian anthropology and cosmology, which regard humankind as “evolution becoming conscious of itself” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), and matter as having a predisposition to evolve toward spirit (Karl Rahner, Dumitru Stăniloae). This paper demonstrates that the similarity is only superficial. Compared to the midwife hypothesis, Christian theological accounts define the cosmic role of humanity quite differently, and they provide a more satisfactory teleology. In addition, the scientific and philosophical assumptions behind the midwife hypothesis – that the cosmos is fundamentally informational, that it intrinsically promotes higher intelligence, or that we are heading toward a technological singularity - are rather questionable, with potentially significant theological and ethical consequences. |
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| ISSN: | 19891660 |
| DOI: | 10.9781/ijimai.2021.07.005 |