AI is not God, and God is not AI
—Comparing AI with God
Some people think that there is no God at present, but that Artificial Intelligence will one day take on the role of God. This god will, they think, be a god that people can believe in and so do away with atheism.
In this lesson we will look to the Bible’s view of God and compare it to Artificial Intelligence. It's a big subject, so we will confine ourselves to three points...
AI AND GOD
- Mistakes
—AI makes mistakes;
God doesn't. - Materials
—AI needs materials;
God doesn't. - Mankind
—AI comes from man;
God doesn't.
1 God Does Not Make Mistakes
Deuteronomy 32:4
"He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He" (Deuteronomy 32:4, NKJV )
God is our foundation, the rock of our lives, but God’s foundation is himself. His work and his righteousness are perfect. Everything he does is good and right. In other words, God makes no mistakes. It would be near blasphemy to say that he does.
God made no Mistake
However, someone will say, "God made humans; they have faults and make mistakes —so doesn't that mean that God made a mistake in creating them? After all, it says in the Bible that God was sorry he had made humans."
"And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart" (Genesis 6:6 NKJV)
It was not God’s fault that man sinned. God made man but it was man, not God, who brought sin into the world (Romans 5:12).
God gave man the ability to tell the serpent, "Get thee behind me Satan!" (Luke 4:8). Was God wrong to give man the power to be righteous? Was God making a mistake by giving man commandments that man might choose to disobey?
For whatever reason, God thought it right to make man on earth. He had this in "his eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephesians 3:11).
It would have been a mistake for God to create man unable to sin, as opposed to able to avoid sin and be righteous. God was sorry when men able to sin made the mistake of doing so when they should have chosen to be righteous like Enoch (Genesis 5:24).
Although God was sorry that he had created man on earth, he could not have done differently because he never changes. His purpose is an eternal and perfect purpose, in which God offers salvation to sinners by the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ, who was "foreknown before the foundation of the world" (1Peter 1:20).
AI Makes Mistakes
Since God doesn't make mistakes, artificial intelligence cannot be God —because it does make mistakes.
I asked Bing Pilot whether an AI can make mistakes? It replied, "Certainly artificial intelligence (AI) systems, including the one you're interacting with right now, can indeed make mistakes".
So if Bing Pilot is right, then AI can certainly make mistakes. But what if Bing Pilot is wrong? Well, wouldn't that be an example of AI making mistakes?
It's worth noting that the creators of AI do not understand all that goes on between giving AI a task and receiving the result. The logic and data used to reach a result are inaccessible, hidden from users and developers. This hardly makes AI trustworthy.
So according to the Bible, God doesn't make mistakes. On the other hand, AI does make mistakes so AI cannot be God. Now to our second point...
2 God Does Not Need Materials
Hebrews 11:3
"By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible" (Hebrews 11:3 NKJV>)
When God created the universe he did so without pre-existing physical material or physical energy. In the beginning God created everything by his own Word. "For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." (Psalm 33:9).
It is self evident that an AI is within the universe and, no matter how sophisticated, it requires energy, raw materials, and a physical world from which to draw them. AI did not bring the cosmos into being, rather AI had its origin in the cosmos and relies on the cosmos for its raw materials.
So according to the Bible, God doesn't need raw materials. In fact he created them; and now AI depends on them for its existence. So AI cannot be God. Now to our third point...
3 God Does Not Come From Man
Psalm 90:2 NKJV
"Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God." (Psalm 90:2 NKJV)
God is eternal, existing without beginning or end. Nobody made God. He has always been. Man certainly cannot make God. Rather, it was God who made man (Genesis 1:26-27).
AI, on the other hand, was made by man. AI began quite recently (in the 20th century) and it will end, if not before, when God destroys the heavens and the earth and the works done in them (2Peter 3:10).
AI is not eternal, therefore it is not God. AI is a work of man. It came from algorithms and training data provided by man. If AI ever does claim to be God, man is forbidden by the true God to serve it. "You shall worship the LORD your God and him only shall you serve" (Matthew 4:10).
Note:— By coincidence, and without reading anything in to it, there is a city mentioned in the Bible called Ai, and in the time of Joshua God destroyed that city among others (Joshua 10:1).