Is AI the real thing? I think not. Artificial intelligence – the name itself implies the answer. AI can’t be “the real thing” – it is not real if it is artificial. Both things can’t be true at the same time. AI is “the intelligence of machines or software, as opposed to the intelligence of living beings, primarily of humans” – that’s how Wikipedia explains AI.

We need to note that it is living beings (that’s us) who created the machines and the software in the first place. Are we now wondering if, like Frankenstein, we have created the proverbial monster? Will we control AI or will AI control us? AI is meant to be a tool we can use to help us accomplish our purposes. So it stands to reason that we would use and control AI solely for our benefit. After all, AI is supposed to serve us, not the other way around, right?

Today, AI seems to be everywhere. (do you have an Alexa in your home?) There are concerns about its becoming too pervasive and too powerful in our lives. Is Artificial Intelligence superior to our human intelligence already? Remember the plane that landed on the Hudson River in 2009? That was a big story and considered nothing less than a miracle. The plane’s engines had been disabled after running into a flock of Canadian geese shortly after takeoff. There were two airports close by, but Captain Sullenberger didn’t believe the plane could make it to either one. Instead, he landed the plane successfully on the Hudson River. Everyone survived.

A subsequent investigation of Sullenberger’s actions showed that he made the right decision. What was interesting to me was that a computer “simulation” of the event, with all the data plugged in, showed a possible safe landing at a nearby airport BUT it took the “sim” pilots seventeen tries (sixteen crashes) to achieve this outcome! Obviously, the two real life pilots in the plane’s cockpit that day didn’t have the luxury of seventeen practice runs. They had one chance to save their lives and the lives of everyone on that plane.

The whole incident took just under four minutes from bird strike to landing the plane on the water. These skilled pilots had only that short time to process all the information, make a decision and execute their plan. (the human brain is an unmatched computer) There was no time for AI to run multiple computer simulations and select the best outcome from among them. That would also assume that only accurate information and all available variables/information were put into the computer to start with, in order to receive the best possible response. I’m thinking I prefer human pilots to AI.

However, there are those who would put more faith in AI and in the transhuman ideology that has become so popular today. Transhumanism postulates that humans will evolve into an enhanced species that transcends humanity, thus ushering in a posthuman era. This evolution will be accomplished through technology – brain chips, AI, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, etc. to change humans into new and improved transhumans. We will increase our life span with immortality being the goal.

Sounds to me like transhumanism is about we humans remaking ourselves in our own image. It is about rebellion and our lack of understanding of who God is and of who we are as His created beings. We are like the clay saying to the Potter, “We don’t like what You made. We can do a better job.” Closely linked to transhumanism, is transgenderism. Here the clay says to the Potter, “You made a mistake. I know better than You do how I should be formed and who I am.”

So who are we? Psalm 100 provides an answer –

“Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.” (Psalm 100:3)

Genesis tells us exactly who we are –

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

Psalm 8 tells us more about ourselves and about our place in this world –

“what is man that You are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.” (Psalm 8:4-8)

We are God’s people, created in His image (identity) and given dominion over all of His creation on the earth (purpose). Our identity, our position (a little lower than the angels) and our purpose are revealed in these verses. All are given to us by our Creator, God. And there’s more.

“For we (you and I and all humankind) are God’s workmanship, (masterpieces) created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

Another revelation of our identity, our value (we are masterpieces) and our purpose, bestowed on us by our Creator. We are endowed with these things at our creation – our identity – as God’s image bearers, our value – infinite to our Creator, and our purpose – to do the “good works” God has for us to do and in so doing to bring Him glory.

AI, transhumanism and transgenderism are becoming our modern day tower of Babel – our feeble human attempt to by-pass God in our quest for immortality, identity, self-worth, and meaning. The striving of transhumanism and transgenderism push us to remake/reinvent ourselves in order to conform to some man-made idea of what is ideal. But ironically, this only leads us to destroy ourselves, mind, body and spirit (literally) rather than rejoicing in how perfectly we are made in the first place. This pursuit of supposed perfection has become an endless quest from which we have no rest nor reprieve. If only we knew the truth.

“For You (God) created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16)

That’s the truth. We are already “fearfully and wonderfully made.” All God’s works are wonderful, the psalmist declares. We cannot improve upon God’s perfect design.

“God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31 )

And we cannot, even through AI or other technologies, add to the length of our lives nor can we give ourselves immortality. That is God’s gift to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. That gift has already been given. We have only to receive it. We have been created with a free will. That choice is ours alone to make.

But in our arrogance and rebellion, we are presumptuous enough to believe that we can do better than God and so we pursue the ideologies of transhumanism and transgenderism in order to alter what God has so perfectly designed and created, us! I am reminded of these words from a favorite childhood poem, “Trees”, by Joyce Kilmer –

“Poems are made by fools like me. But only God can make a tree.”

So true! And only God can make a human being. We can attempt to alter what God has made but the results are disastrous. We destroy ourselves when we attempt to circumvent or to counterfeit how God has created us. Unlike AI, artificial intelligence, we humans are the “real thing” – made in God’s image, bearing His seal. We are God’s AI, “authentically imaged” – we are the “real thing” – each one of us is the Authentic Image of our Heavenly Father, who just happens to also be the Creator of the universe. That should be good enough for us, and it is!

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

sincerely, Grace Day