Month: April 2024

I am in a group discussing artificial intelligence (AI) and morality with a special emphasis on the legal system.  The group has not arrived at any kind of consensus yet, but my own thoughts have begun to settle on a few principles.

Trying to put ethical limits on AI seems like a pointless exercise because it’s impossible to define AI.  Current AI versions in the form of large language models and machine learning are equivalent to Model Ts and Wright Brothers’ airplanes.  Governments, universities, and industry are in a race to see who can bring to reality dreams of self aware AI systems able to operate with minimal, if any, human supervision.  Theologians and ethicists are left in the bewildering dust of technical jargon expressed in unknown languages. 

AI is unlike any other technology that has changed the world in dramatic ways.  Consider things like the printing press, gun powder, railroads, commercial electricity, the radio and the hundred other inventions you can think of.  Each of them was a dumb tool, unable to make any decision on its own, and subject entirely to use at the discretion of human beings.  AI, on the other hand, is being developed to ask and answer for itself moral or ethical questions.  They take the form of “should I do this,” and “how should I do that”. Questions that begin with should are considered moral questions implying uncertainty about the right thing to do.

What values can be used to determine good from bad, right from wrong?  When conditions require a choice between competing goods or competing bads it means some goods must be abandoned in favor of one, or some bad must be chosen over another bad. Questions like these drive humans batty and keep philosophers in business, and they are precisely the kinds of questions developers intend to make AI capable of resolving without human direction.   It’s an entirely different kind of technological tool.

Because AI is intended to communicate with humans in a human like way, it means AI systems are likely to answer moral or ethical questions put to it by humans, or even suggest to humans what they should do without having been asked a question.  In other words, humans would become a tool used by AI at its discretion, a complete role reversal from every other technology.  The 1968 movie 2001 A Space Oddity anticipated this very problem when the computer HAL made its own life and death decisions based on its own self awareness.  I doubt that kind of AI system capable of asking and answering their own questions is near at hand, yet I imagine close enough to the HAL model to create serious questions about how to proceed.. 

Rather than focusing on regulating AI, a technology I barely understand, it seems to me we need to focus on human behavior with rules building a fence around the development and use of AI. Moreover, I think the question demands a theological response that begins with recognition that we are in relationship to and with God.  We are not only made in the image of God, we are adopted by grace into the family of God.  The integrity of that reality cannot be surrendered.

Humans have other relationships, many of them very important to the meaning of life, happiness, and success.  As important as they are, they must always be understood in the context of what it means to be who we are as made in God’s image and members of God’s family.  That context is surrendered in whole and part whenever we permit some other thing to take precedent over our relationship with God.  The danger, as I see it, is that some future AI making moral decisions for humans who obey with little reflection will have bemused a god like oracle giving more immediate and understandable answers to life’s questions. If humans think they can create an AI more morally perfect than they are, they are profoundly mistaken.  An AI created in humanity’s own image cannot be other than fundamentally flawed. 

Paul Bloom, writing last November in the New Yorker asked,”How moral Can AI Really Be?”  His answer was not much more than it now is.  He wondered if it would take God ‘himself’ to convince people what the rules should be.  I think God has already done that in ways we can discern through a deep reading of holy scripture. What follows are. My thoughts on what a deeper reading reveals.

First, beware of making AI into an idol.

AI cannot be allowed to undermine what it means to be fully human.

Developers must always prioritize the good of humanity over all other measures of utility.

Probabilities of “unintentional consequences” must be made public.

There must be regular pauses in development to allow society to absorb and assess it.

Wisdom of the ages must serve as guide and guard.

AI cannot be used to make decisions about intentional killing.

AI must not endanger the integrity of human relationships.

AI cannot be used to appropriate resources for those who have no moral right to them.

AI cannot be used to privilege some at the expense of others. 

Finally, we need clarification of what it means to be fully human if AI is to be developed for the benefit of humanity and protect what it means to be fully human.  Of course it means different things to different people depending on one’s religious faith, ethical belief, accepted social norms, social status and cultural heritage. As a Christian theologian I suggest some commonalities. For me to be able to be fully human the other must be able to be fully human. The other may be my most beloved or least liked and trusted.  The other may be a stranger, an alien in my presence. To be fully human also means to think, create, struggle, succeed, fail, laugh, cry, wonder, doubt, etc. In like manner for me to prosper, others must be able to prosper. 

No matter how honorable, all humans are prone to selfishness, greed, desire for power and position, vengefulness and violence. I have no idea what the distribution is between the most honorable and least honorable, but suspect most of us are somewhere in the middle. Finally, we are not always fully rational in our moral decisions.  The effort would be exhausting so we rely on habits of the heart learned from childhood and experience, while blithely ignoring pitfalls and oblivious to consequences we later say were unintended. Godly counsel is often relegated to occasional thoughts or mistaken for customary social norms.   Therefore, AI cannot be expected to be more moral than we are ourselves.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5)

Roughly speaking, righteousness is the character, revealed in Jewish and Christian holy scripture, of being just through moral correctness that meets with God’s approval.  For Christians, its fuller meaning is explored by examining Jesus’ word and deeds and by paying attention to how it was taught in the first decades of Christianity.  But what is righteous or not and how it’s measured has other meanings in other contexts.

Most people and nations claim to be righteous, and liberal democracies strive with more success in pursuit of it, but none are, and all fall short.   Particular failures become righteous causes in the minds of activists intent on correcting them. They often run afoul of accepted social norms and political inertia that have no intention of changing what seems to be working OK.  

Holy scripture and Christian ethics can influence the debate but never direct its outcome.   For one thing, what is righteous and just is more often defined by political ideology, secular philosophies, and emotional reactions. Secular and godly ideas about what is righteous are sometimes the same, sometimes overlap, and sometimes are far removed from one another.  Appeals to religion or God are trotted out as auxiliary tools to gain public approval.  Christians are commanded to follow in the way of Christ, but social norms and political pressures are hard to resist, especially if they are camouflaged by religious language.

Injustices are real and they need to be identified, made known, and resolved in favor of greater justice. What could be more righteous than that?  Injustice is not named because it is not recognized. When it is named by some, the majority is likely to disbelieve it as a few agitators upsetting the equilibrium of acceptable social norms.  The process of making an injustice known, understood, and then mobilize public support to force change is a drawn out messy affair. It challenges the patience of those most committed to addressing it. Peaceful assemblies to demand correction of injustice, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, can easily be corrupted by self-righteous zealots who turn to threatened and real violence.  Self-righteous indignation tries to clothe itself in the language of righteousness, but it’s a flimsy veil.

Self-righteous indignation is solipsistic. It offers no room for consideration of other views.  It assumes anyone not in full agreement is an enemy to be defeated.  Assemblies legitimately protesting real injustice in non-violent civil disobedience can easily tip over into self-righteous destructive civil disobedience, especially on college campuses, because “hot heads” can be more persuasive in firing up a crowd than can cooler heads promoting non-violence.  When destructive protests break out, reserved adults, liberal and conservative, will blame a failure of public morals, undisciplined entitled youth, schools, leftist agitators, communist agitators, MAGA agitators, outside agitators, anyone other than themselves or the issues at hand. It is not unique to America.  I can think of no nation in any time of history that has not experienced the same.

What about righteous indignation? There were times when Jesus showed righteous indignation: when disciples refused to let children come to Jesus, when Peter told him not to go to Jerusalem, when he drove the merchants out of the temple.  His indignation was righteous because he was righteous.  You and I are not Jesus.  Speaking only for myself, my own occasional bouts of righteous indignation were always triggered by an injustice that had to be faced, but later reflection forced me to admit it was driven more by anger than understanding and did nothing to make things better.  

Searching for a contemporary model for how Christians should respond to injustice?  Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to mind. He proclaimed boldly but with humble conviction and was non violent even when civil disobedience was called for.  While accepting the consequences of civil disobedience, King used it as an opportunity to continue making injustice known.   The Indian Gandhi, the Russian Navalny, the El Salvadoran Bp. Romero may be other examples.  Wait a minute, weren’t they all killed for their efforts?  Yes.  It’s not the price most of us will ever pay, but they followed in the way of Jesus, as must we.

There is more to be said.  A better conclusion.  Readers can provide  it in their own words.

The woman who orchestrated a gathering of Black college students to be with Trump at an Atlanta fast food place last week was interviewed on Fox News.  A true believer, she was joyfully triumphant.  She declared that what she, and presumably the students, likes about Trump is his truthfulness, his honesty, his reliability to do what he said he would do. 

In view of Trump’s legendary history of lies and betrayals about things trivial and major, it was hard to take her seriously.  But she was serious and oddly enough there was some truth in what she said.  Trump’s truth sprouts from his rubble of lies, betrayals, convictions for sexual assault and business fraud.  It emerges from multiple indictments yet to be tried and amidst the blistering testimony of former aides.

Trump has promised to trash the public reputations of those he considers disloyal and he has done that.  Trump has promised to seek retribution on enemies both real and imagined and he’s done that. He has threatened to unleash violence on those who displease him and has done that.  He’s labeled southern border immigrants as subhuman predatory animals and has treated them that way. Trump has truthfully said he wants immigrants from “nice” countries and will do whatever it takes to keep Latinos from entering the U.S. He has lauded Hungarian style authoritarian rule as the way to make America great again.  He tried to impose that rule when last in office and will do so again if elected.  In all of these instances he has been truthful and reliable. 

It’s hard to separate Trump’s truth telling from his obsessions,  illusions and delusions, but in his defense, he has sometimes bloviated on the obvious as if he alone discovered it. It’s true that the U.S. has borne the weight of protecting NATO countries.  It was a moral imperative during the post war years, but Europe has recovered and become wealthy.  It should do more for the defense of Western democracies, including our own.  It’s also true that the southern border has always been porous. It’s not secure now nor has it ever been. Until recent decades there was freedom of travel back and forth with seasonal Mexican workers welcome to follow the harvests from Texas to Montana.  Times have changed.  No one disputes that the border needs to be made more secure and immigrants allowed through in an orderly manner.  A wall of some kind may be needed but the security it could offer is a pipe dream, something Hadrian and the Chinese learned long ago.  More credible would be a new, simple, efficient immigration law. 

As for a new law anytime soon, I think that can be forgotten unless the Democrats gain solid majorities in both houses while keeping the presidency.  Even then I have my doubts as  the terms simple and efficient aren’t evident in the congressional dictionary. 

What it comes down to is this.  Trump can be trusted to exaggerate real and imaginary conditions all the while stoking the fears and anxieties of ordinary people.  He can be trusted to declare, as he has before, that he alone can fix the problems and save the people.  He may be a stupid man, but in this he is a master.  He knows the exaggerated promises fearful people want to believe, but will it work well enough for him to be elected? We shall see.

The presidential election campaign season has reached full momentum which means candidates for every level of office are promising, once again, to be unifiers, not dividers. The illusive goal of a unified nation has taken on the mythic importance of the Holy Grail, which as legend has it, has never been found. 

I’ve always questioned what national unity would look like.  Some have said it would look like what we displayed after 9/11.  If I recall, we were unified in shock, outrage, grief, and desire for revenge.  That event unified the collective us with shared emotions that quickly dissipated.  The shared emotions were not the same as unifying behind a national purpose to face hard times at great cost.  That kind of national unity requires silencing opposition and enforcing conformity.  It’s the sort of unity favored by the MAGA movement.  We see an example of it played out in real time in the current House of Representatives.

Democratic nations need cohesion not unity.  Political cohesion creates space where competing voices can willingly find a workable way to a common cause in spite of rancorous voices from the fringe.  We’ve seen examples of national cohesion in the Union of Civil War times, Britain in WWII, and the FDR, HST and DDE era.  There may be others but these are the most well known. 

National cohesion working toward coherent national purpose is what the Constitution, as amended, tried to define as the unique mark of American democracy.  It’s a work in progress that has admitted by incremental measure the voices of those entitled to have seat, voice and vote in the public debate. The tendency has been to privilege wealth, social status, power, and the well organized. It’s not unique to the U.S. I don’t know of any truly egalitarian civilization in human history, but we have done better, and against greater odds, than most others.  The U.S. is a heterogeneous not homogeneous society. We have engaged in battle with every form of prejudice and racism, sometimes violently to forge a better understanding of what it is to be American.  It’s an unstable understanding.  Each wave of “people not like us” has threatened the image of who we thought we were.  Indeed, those “waves of others” have changed for the better who we are becoming.  

The MAGA march toward national unity promises to put a stop to unwanted change, and restore power to the elect few who believe their rightful place is dominance over others.   The struggle for cohesion works for the ever evolving coherency of national purpose.  Cohesion does not demonize others whether rich or poor, powerful or powerless, organized or not.  It does not aspire to social or economic equality but it does demand accountability from the wealthy and powerful. It is intent on demolishing barriers to social, political  and economic mobility.

There is a biblical injunction to bear one another’s burdens.  It means not only to help bear the burdens of those who need help, but to receive from them the help needed to bear our own. The difficulty is that we too easily see the help we think another needs and too often impose it on them.  At the same time, our mental myopia cannot recognize the help we need and to see the other as the source of that help.  It’s a difficulty resolved only in mutually honest conversation that sets assumptions aside in favor of discovery.   When that measure becomes a coherent national purpose then the way to a truly democratic egalitarian society will be opened. 

It is a fool’s errand to think the MAGA movement can become a participant in making national cohesion workable.  The movement is constructed on a foundation of imaginary and real social anxieties deliberately stoked toward violence.  The forces of cohesion recognize and address the anxieties but reject in their entirety MAGA demands for coercively enforced unity.  Let them rant and rage from the sidelines, but do not let them gain the power to demolish our democracy.

Note: You are correct if you detect echoes of Rowan Williams in this column.

Brands, branding, and rebranding are the big deals these days. What’s your brand? Do you even have a brand? Corporations and their products have brands.  Celebrities are said to have brands.  A brand is a label providing superficial information about a business, product or service.  Brands are designed to elicit an emotional response appealing to some value, want or need, while revealing little about the substance of what is behind the label.

It’s all old news.  What’s new is a trend among ordinary individuals to create brands for themselves, or to rebrand the poor image they think others have of them, or they have of themselves.   It’s a new twist on the old “How to Make Friends and Influence People” of many decades ago. It’s not far from the equally old bromide that honesty, integrity and authenticity are important to success, so if you can fake them you’ve got it made. Each of us is conscious about the image we think we present to others and the image we have of ourselves.  It affects our sense of confidence, how we behave with others, and what we want out of it. The hard work of changing beliefs, attitudes and behaviors to develop a healthier life of greater authentic wholeness is seldom taken seriously.  It’s only the new brand or new label with its veneer of credibility that counts often allowing the old behavior to remain.

There are two problems with personal branding being today’s self-help panacea.  First, it’s likely to be nothing more than ineffectual play acting achieving nothing and leaving integrity in the dust.  Second,  it makes image the measure of a person’s worth, demeaning the greater value of the whole person. A few years ago it was all about authenticity, being the real person you were without apology.  Maybe that was too much work with little to show for it.  Branding seemed easier and cheaper.  Pretending to be a better you through branding sounded like more fun, especially when rebranding was always possible if and when last year’s brand became passé.

There is a better way, a brand that delivers what it promises, the only brand that is truth itself, now and forever.  Oddly enough it’s a way that began with branding imposed on it by others who mislabeled what was true as false and what was real as fake.  

Jesus was branded as a dangerous criminal.  His first followers were branded as peasant hicks. Yet it was Jesus who exhibited a living demonstration of everything good about humanity and everything true about God’s abounding and steadfast love for us.   The first decades of Christians were the living demonstration of courage, faithfulness, and integrity lived out in the imperfect way of ordinary people.   

In Christ and through Christ God has called each person and every person into the fullness of who they are as beloved and redeemed. It is the fullness of life forgiven, healed, and restored to wholeness.

The full humanity of each is unique to each, grounded in God’s love.  Different for each person, there’s no set rule or method to be followed.  But there are rules and methods that help open the way to receive the gift of God’s healing grace.  Branded by the sign of the cross Makes it possible for one to be comfortable in one’s own skin, aware of one’s weaknesses and failures, and equally aware of the better way presented by each new day. There is nothing sentimental about it.  Valleys of the shadow of death will be encountered, but they are not dead ends, God is both with us on the way and present at the other end to welcome us into his presence. 

We humans are odd creatures not easy to understand.  While it is true that we are prone to acts of selfishness, greed, envy, and desire for power and place, most of us want to be good people leading good lives, and, for the most part, try to be. 

There is a good deal of truth in both sides of our human nature.  In creation, God declared that we are good and that the good earth is here to be nurtured so that it can nourish us.  The biblical story is a metaphor for each of us.  We are, each of us, Adam and Eve.  There are exceptions, but most of us want to be good and still mess up in ways that hurt others, ourselves, and the communities in which we live. 

I don’t know why but for some reason God loves us, engaging in human life without coercion.  Holy Scripture is the record of continuing engagement with humankind, revealing how we can live with one another in a reasonable degree of harmony that will lead to more fulfilling lives.  It shouldn’t be hard to do but we were created with the freedom to choose and choose we do according to our own devices.  For good or for ill, the consequences of our choices are ours to bear.  Speaking through the prophets God has time and again said of ‘his’ people, “if only they would listen to my voice.” 

The freedom to choose, free will as it were, is not unlimited.  Genetics, mental and physical abilities, circumstances of life and education create boundaries to free will and condition the ways in which choices are made. Within these constraints there remains a tremendous range of freedom.  It is possible to choose to live as best one can according to God’s commandments and to be persons of integrity acting toward godly justice.  As Christians intent on following in the way of Jesus, it is imperative that we do our best to live into God’s supreme commandments: love God with all we have; love others as Jesus has loved us.

We are obligated to live in ways that honor the hard road of faith trod by our ancestors.  We are obligated to live as stewards of creation and all in our possession for the good of others, and the lives of generations to come.  It takes a lifetime with many mistakes made along the way.  We do things that bring great harm into the lives of others.  We discover ourselves to be implicit in evil done on our behalf. Harm comes to us by intention and by chance.  God is present through it all guiding us in confession, repentance, healing, forgiveness and reconciliation, the way forward lighted by the beacon of the commandments to love.  

The power in following Jesus’ way is not in  his moral teaching alone.  There are many teachers to choose from.  In his birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection he is the Word of God made flesh.  His words and deeds illuminate the authority of Almighty God.  With his crucifixion we exercised our free will to rebel against God to establish us as the ultimate authority and arbiter of what is good or bad.  If Satan exists, he is the manifestation of human free will untethered from God.  Jesus is reported to have said from the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”  Indeed we didn’t.  We acted out of hubris mixed with good intentions and fear of each other.

In Jesus’ bodily resurrection, the rebellion was quashed; once and for all time death was destroyed.  The way of Jesus is declared to be what it has always been, the only way of life because God is the source of life, there is no other, and not for us only but for the whole world. It is the thunderous, explosive revelation of eternal truth in temporal time.

All of this raises a challenging question: if we know the truth that sets us free, why don’t we see better results?  I think it is because we are loathe to give up the sense that we can make better moral decisions on our own than with bothering God for guidance. I’m reminded of childhood road trips when dad set aside the map in favor of his intimate knowledge of shortcuts. They not infrequently ended up in some farmer’s back yard.  Humanity’s shortcuts lead more toward betrayal and violence that does real damage to others, to us, and to creation. In other words, the moral evil we experience is of our own making.

I’ve been thinking about the reported rightward shift among Black, Hispanic and Asian voters. The media make it sound like they are on a steep slope sliding toward MAGA.  That seems unlikely.  I suspect for particular segments of the population, it is more a matter of a slow shift from center-left to center-right.

Media also report that “they” are more socially conservative than progressive liberals presumed to be leading the Democratic Party. I suspect that could be partly true.  If and when someone has recognized the value of liberal democracy working for ordinary people, they’re unlikely to drift far from the center.  At the same time, if their life is consumed with what’s needed to get through the week or month while tending to the other demands of daily life, they’re more likely to be socially conservative.  In other words they want to hold onto the stability of existing social standards because the pace and degree of social change they feel is being forced on them is too much to deal while the more important demands of daily life are being met.  Political leaders who appear to push social change to the exclusion of the obvious problems affecting ordinary people will lose support.  Politicians with con-man savvy will be posed to take advantage of that kind of discontent.

Among liberals are many who are passionate about cutting edge issues, especially when they are about redressing old injustices and desperate current needs.  More power to them, but they are easily and angrily disappointed when ordinary people do not share their passion.  Ordinary people, including fellow liberals, may agree about the importance of such matters but are burdened by too many issues of their own. They want to slow down, understand more, and take time deciding.   Push too hard and there will be backlash.

I think that might be what’s going on in today’s world.  It doesn’t seem to have much to do with race or ethnicity but more to do with the onslaught of rapid change. Back in the tea-party days, I ran into a very conservative friend and we had some time for private conversation.  It turned out his tea-party anger was thin, just a way to make his voice heard. All he wanted, he said, was a nice, safe place for his kids too grow up in the middle class.  Society, he felt, was changing so fast that he couldn’t understand why or what was happening and it all just felt threatening. His comment has stuck with me all these years because it was so plainly honest.  I wonder if that conversation speaks to today’s so called shift to the right. 

I’m reminded of another friend, very liberal, passionate about helping immigrants and speaking out against armed conflict everywhere.  He goes to the boarder to volunteer, marches in protest, studies deeply, and encourages everyone he meets to join with him.  It disappoints him when others tacitly agree but don’t share his passion.  They are happy to encourage him. It’s his hurry up, let’s move, time is short, nothing else matters, that pushes center right and left people to respond with “Don’t push me!”

This, I suspect, may be what’s going on now. It has nothing to do with MAGA or its leaders.  It’s just the ordinary way of ordinary people.   It’s precisely what Martin Luther King, Jr. understood well and knew how to manage for the good of society.  It’s also what Reagan’s people understood well and knew how to manage for the good of the wealthy and powerful.  Who understands it well today?