Cognitive Vulnerability, Artificial Intelligence, and the Image of God in Humans

Abstract

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) opens up the possibility that one day machines could do anything that a human being can do, raising thus serious questions regarding human distinctiveness. For theological anthropology, the prospect of human-level AI brings a fresh opportunity to clarify the definition of the image of God. Comparing human and artificial intelligence leads to replacing the Aristotelian-like interpretation of the image of God as rationality with a relational model. Instead of regarding our cognitive biases as vulnerabilities, they should be seen as instrumental in bringing about our unique type of intelligence, one marked by relationality.

Keywords:

• Human-level artificial intelligence
• cognitive biases
• imago Dei
• relationality
• human distinctiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The substantive interpretation has come under severe criticism from evolutionary science for drawing artificial boundaries between humans and non-human animals, given the lack of any ontological gap between the two (Burdett, 2015, pp. 6–8). However, as argued earlier in the paper, a compelling case can be made that the degree in which many cognitive faculties are present in humans can account for a qualitative distinction between humans and animals.

2 Benno van den Toren draws a useful distinction between doctrine, which is the non-negotiable core of belief, and theological theory, which evolves over time with our increased knowledge of ourselves and the world (Van den Toren, 2018).

3 Although the term “cognitive vulnerability” refers in clinical psychology only to those cognitive biases “that are hypothesized to set the stage for later psychological problems when they arise” (Riskind & Black, 2005, p. 122), there is a strong tendency throughout scientific and popular literature to see all cognitive biases as vulnerabilities (see Ciampaglia & Menczer, 2018).

4 In philosophy, this is known as “the problem of other minds” (Avramides, 2019).

5 This is, in fact, the basis of the standard test for establishing whether AI has reached true intelligence, known as the Turing Test (Turing, 1950).

6 The Goldilocks principle means having just the right amount of something in order to fulfill certain conditions. In astrobiology, for example, the Earth is considered to be in the Goldilocks zone, being simultaneously close and far enough from the Sun to sustain liquid water

Additional information

Funding

This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton World Charity Foundation.