Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a topic that I’d not really thought about much until last year. In 2020 I read ‘The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity‘ by Jason Thacker. That book sparked a little bit of an interest in the topic and was the introduction I needed to read more articles on AI and ultimately to read this book…
In ‘Masters or Slaves?: AI And The Future Of Humanity‘ Jeremy Peckham talks about AI with a lot of experience and knowledge. This book is a step or two up from ‘The Age of AI’. Peckham says this about the purpose of his book…
“I’ve set out in this book to alert the reader to a number of specific threats to our humanness, as judged against what the Bible teaches about being made in God’s image and our calling to be faithful image bearers. It’s my hope that you’ll be stimulated to think further, dig into the Bible, discuss the issues with others and, where necessary, take action, in order that we may be masters of this technology, rather than become unwitting slaves to it.”
What exactly is AI and how does it, or should it, shape the way we as Christians use technology? It’s so easy to jump straight to the practical implications of a topic like this without thinking about the out workings and implications of the background knowledge of AI. Peckham does a great job at exploring the history of AI, the early developments of it and some of the dangers of AI today.
In this book Peckham asks poignant questions, some of which you may not have considered before you read them, and helps you think through them from a Christian perspective. One of those questions that stood out to me was the question “is AI morally neutral?” Peckham tackles that question by looking at the effects that AI has on people. He states two reasons;
- Technology is designed and sold by people for a purpose, and that purpose is laden with values and a world view.
- Technology isn’t neutral in its effect because its users are fallible people and products are designed to offer us more possibilities.
This book touches on the implications that technology has on our understandings of humanity being made in the image of God. Peckham talks about technology and its effects on relationships, personal interactions, church life, sex and many more topics. This book will help the reader who has an interest in AI to dig a bit deeper and to think through the implications of AI for themselves, their family and the society that we live in.
I enjoyed this book and I think you might too. You can buy a copy here.
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