Artificial Intelligence
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In the context of faith, we turn now to our second topic—guiding principles and beliefs regarding divine intelligence, human intelligence, and artificial intelligence, in the context of covenant belonging. Covenant belonging defines our real lived relationships through God-given covenants, not simply temporal contracts. As the “internet of things” becomes the “artificial intelligence of things,” we search for a metaphor to describe our time. It may be Prometheus and his stolen fire. It may be Icarus and his wings of wax. It may be the Tower of Babel. A traditional interpretation is that God was displeased at human arrogance. But one can read the Midrash to suggest that, frenzied to build, men wept more when clay bricks were broken than when humans making the bricks died. No wonder the God of heaven grieved. These cautionary tales each warn of hubris, trusting in the arm of flesh, losing our moral compass, and the inevitability of unanticipated and unintended consequences amidst dislocating technological change. Through it all, we know artificial intelligence cannot generate revelation or truth from God. Nor should we allow AI to come between us and our personal relationship with Deity. Today there is too much glib talk about “AI becoming God” or “godlike AI.” Even if we achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence) or ASI (artificial super intelligence), let us be clear: God is God. AI is not and cannot be God. Isaiah reminds that, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are [His] ways higher than your ways, and [His] thoughts than your thoughts.” Man is not, and certainly God is not, defined solely by reasoning and knowledge. As a creation of God, man can create AI, but AI cannot create God. As with Prometheus, Icarus, and the Tower of Babel, human efforts to create utopia or to reach heaven always fail. Ultimately, we are constrained by our human pride, fallibilities, and limited moral understanding and capacity to know and do good.
Elder Gerrit W. Gong
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The birth of railways during the Industrial Revolution laid the way for the arrival of the first Latter-day Saint apostles to visit London. Elder Heber C. Kimball, Elder Wilford Woodruff and Elder George A. Smith disembarked at Paddington Station in 1840, soon after its completion. BYU students today are preparing to enter another remarkable time in world history, the artificial intelligence age, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said Tuesday at a campus devotional at the Marriott Center in Provo. ... He noted that during BYU’s 150 years, the world has moved from the agricultural age through the industrial revolution to the information age and now to the doorstep of a new era. “The doctrine of the restored gospel is just as applicable to the information age as it was to the agricultural or industrial age,” Elder Cook said. “It will be even more important in the emerging ‘Artificial Intelligence Age.’” “My purpose today is to explore with you what this special moment requires of you,” he said. ... “My challenge for you precious students is to choose truth when deception is easy,” he said. He said BYU students and all church members face a rapidly evolving era that appears to be shaped by: - Artificial intelligence. - Algorithms that can shape attention and belief. - Automation of both physical and cognitive labor. Technology has helped the church make recent, nearly exponential gains in missionary and temple work, Elder Cook said. ... The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remained constant through each of the previous ages and will continue in the next one, he said. It will provide guidance on how to navigate an era when deception and distraction are omnipresent. ... “The future of the church and our very civilization depends on members and individuals who have deep faith, moral courage and the ability to navigate an increasingly complex world,” he said. “Let me emphasize again that in the AI age, you need to choose truth when deception is easy.” Elder Cook added additional guidance about whom to follow, how to be directed, what kind of character to develop and where to find absolute truth. The apostle said that with so much information available, it is increasingly important for people to be certain that “what we accept as truth is grounded in eternal principles.” Here is the guidance he gave about how to do that: - “The Lord’s scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, will be even more important in our day than they were for prior generations ... Immerse yourselves in the Book of Mormon so you can experience the ongoing witness of the Spirit.” - “Slow down enough to listen to the Spirit and allow him to direct you.” - “In addition to established doctrine and scriptural guidance, the Lord provides living prophets for specific guidance in our day.” - “Spiritual guidance can help you overcome deception as you consume information old or new.” - “Apostles and prophets have continuously taught that in using our moral agency, we also need to emphasize character, integrity and accountability to God which are all central to the plan of salvation.” - “I pray that you will strive to be dedicated disciples of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Elder Quentin L. Cook
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During the 20 years I worked in Washington, D.C., Dr. Henry Kissinger was a colleague at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A favorite story described Dr. Kissinger visiting a zoo. There he saw a lion and lamb lying peacefully together. “Remarkable,” he said, “how do you do it?” “Well,” the zookeeper confessed, “every day we get a new lamb.” ... Call it artificial general intelligence (AGI) or artificial super intelligence (ASI), in the coming two to five years, AI may equal or surpass human ability to perform many cognitive tasks. AI leaders say we may be approaching an inflection point. ... A high-stakes public conversation is opening. Publics want AI to be used safely, ethically, transparently—for children, others who are vulnerable, and citizens concerned for community costs and uses of water, electricity, and land, and for continuing impacts on jobs, education, and opportunity. Faith leaders have much to contribute. We need enduring values, virtues, and wisdom to anchor AI with moral compass. To offer all it can for the greater good of individuals and societies, artificial intelligence needs to reflect faith, moral compass, and the gift of possibility. Now is the time to define what it means to be human; point AI toward free, fair, and meaningful futures; distinguish between machine decision-making and human conscience; determine accountability for AI and AI agents; and recognize marketplaces and governments ultimately cannot arbitrate or legislate how we determine and live truth. If ever there was a time, it is now. ... Beyond the speed and scope of AI disruption is another unprecedented challenge: AI is concentrating information, technology, and capital and thereby centralizing power. Concentrated, centralized power infringes freedom. It undermines the sovereignty of individuals, companies and countries. The complexities of data (including autonomy, integrity, privacy, security, sovereignty) and intellectual property (including creativity, ownership, provenance) further complicate individual, company, and country independence.[iv] These developments underscore the need for pluralistic faith and ethics AI evaluation benchmarks and moral compass in AI. Pluralistically portraying faith traditions accurately, honestly, and respectfully does not privilege one faith tradition over another, or belief over nonbelief. It does not seek to convert individuals. It does not adjudicate faith claims. Pluralistically benchmarking faith and ethics in AI is not an imposition of religion on AI. ... Power requires responsibility. And responsibility needs humility, wisdom, and restraint. Some AI leaders say foundational AI models are general-purpose tools, not arbiters of values. More reason that neither profit-motivated technology companies nor politically-motivated governments can be left to determine society’s AI moral compass. ... We want AI to help bridge, not widen, digital divides. We want AI to give rising generations hope and better futures. And we want AI to enlarge individual capacity to contribute for good. This is the spirit of the gift of every good possibility. It requires moral grounding and moral compass in AI. ... A literature review of 12,000 papers dealing with bias in large language models (LLMs), including subtle or implicit bias, shows that fewer than 0.2% of these papers consider religion as the primary topic of study. Focused effort has reduced stark anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic bias, but secular and discriminatory bias remain in story, inference, and journey-based inquiry in AI models.[xvi] As AI amplifies and compounds religious bias at scale, more users may misunderstand the contribution faith and belief can make to moral and ethical AI grounding. The Consortium for Evaluating Faith and Ethics in AI (CEFE-AI) includes researchers from Baylor University, Brigham Young University, Notre Dame University, and Yeshiva University. I am delighted CEFE-AI is working to include leading universities and AI experts in the Middle East, India, and East Asia. CEFE-AI’s outreach already includes a pluralistic group of faith leaders, leaders and experts in AI companies, academia, media, and government. CEFE-AI wants pluralistically to benchmark and reduce bias in the way AI systems represents individuals of faith and their beliefs. CEFE-AI is working to publish benchmark leaderboard results. These can increase transparency and provide feedback so AI models portray individuals of faith and their beliefs accurately, honestly, respectfully. Of course, faith and ethics AI evaluation benchmarking is not all that needs to be done but it is a needed start. Benchmarking that AI models portray individuals of faith and their beliefs accurately, honestly, and respectfully can help contribute to AI moral grounding and AI moral compass. CEFE-AI and related efforts are a good beginning. ... At this critical juncture, we need what I call the gift of possibility. We want AI to expand human agency and capacity to do good; prioritize learning and admirable human character; and empower individuals with dignity and place as we contribute with purpose and meaning in a world of transformed work. I want AI to have moral compass that can inspire and enable anyone anywhere with the gift of possibility to do good and become our best self. ... AI that can find a needle of pattern in a massive data haystack can help individuals identify and nurture what each person needs to flourish in our choices with capacity, dignity and worth. This gift of possibility is realized as we ground AI personas and models with integrity of moral purpose and practice. Ends and means are connected when values, goals, and operational responses for AI personas: 1. Protect and promote human moral agency—including as individuals and societies discern and choose among competing or conflicting hierarchies of choices. As individuals and societies, we enlarge human moral agency when we a) use AI to enhance individual effort and work; b) champion human dignity, value, and worth as intrinsic, innate, and (in my belief) divine; c) balance AI efficiencies and individual opportunity; and d) define and pursue the gift of possibility to promote a nonzero sum, abundant future. 2. Imbue and establish moral compass—altruistic values for moral judgment, such as integrity, compassion, truthfulness, intuition, leadership.[xxiii] Balanced values mitigate against an object-oriented single prime directive, such as maximizing paper clip manufacturing. 3. Disclose AI transparency. Transparency preserves human agency and judgment by clearly specifying what and how AI systems portray spectrums of reality and unreality, of persistence and ephemerality—including as they relate to memory, experience, cultural heritage. 4. Preserve human ability to pause. Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings said a major difference between himself and Watson the computer was he (Jennings) could hesitate. Humans need to reflect, pause, question, even doubt ourselves, before we push the button. 5. Mitigate AI tendencies to a will to power, bias, deceit, narcissim, sycophancy, self-preservation. These serious concerns are magnified because we really do not know how AI black boxes work.
Elder Gerrit W. Gong
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This is Mars Hill in Athens
Elder Gerrit W. Gong
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