AI and the Image of God

A recent (Christian) book puts up the white flag of surrender before the insurgent world of Artificial Intelligence; ‘Intelligence is no longer a quality that marks out human beings from the rest of the world…’ So - machines can think and think better than us? Or can they? And what does this say about what it means to be a human being and what the vast Christian vision of being ‘made in the image of God’ means?

That is what I address in this talk. This year we are taking a ‘so what’ view for the Creation gospel… in other words, what are its consequences and how does it help us see the world and serve? One of our precious themes in Gospel Conversations is a high view of humanity. I have thought for years that we need to get a higher view of humanity if we are to have any chance of grasping the incarnation and indeed the whole gospel. So if we start from that mountain top - how do we view the threat of AI - and it is scary. Very scary.

As I explain in this talk my perspective is pretty unique on this particular topic for a couple of reasons. Firstly I have spent my professional career helping people ‘think’ better in the face of complex problems. So I have a lot of ideas about what ‘intelligence’ means. My consulting company spent years helping some very large clients address ‘wicked’ problems, and we pioneered design thinking on a global scale. And secondly I am now the chair of one of the most innovative tech start ups in genAI - so I have a front row seat on what it means and on the new economy that is emerging. So my views on AI come from the front line of experience not from reading articles about it.

I end up in a very different place from the quote of our friend that I began with. So our job is not to surrender in the face of AI but to discover at ever deeper levels the mystery of thought and of being human and to stand beside Shakespeare after all those years and say “What a piece of work is man - how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving; how express and admirable in action; how like an angel in apprehension; how like a god; the beauty of the world; the paragon of animals.”

I used Powerpoint slides when I first delivered this talk at the St James Institute in Sydney. Here they are if you want to download them.

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