Exposing the Limits of Technology

I bear in mind when Logos’s “philosophy of expertise” match on a T-shirt. It was this quote attributed to Johannes Gutenberg:

Non secular reality is imprisoned in a small variety of manuscript books, which confine as an alternative of unfold the general public treasure. Allow us to break the seal which seals up holy issues and provides wings to Fact so that she might win each soul that comes into the world by her phrase now not written at nice expense by palms simply palsied, however multiplied just like the wind by an untiring machine.

Such optimism! But Gutenberg’s invention not solely provides “wings to Fact” however to each printed phrase, from poetry to pornography, from calls to prayer to directions for assembling landmines.

There’s the issue. Know-how allows, however by its nature and design, doesn’t discriminate. That’s as much as us. Know-how is each highly effective and harmful. It extends, augments, and even replaces human effort—for higher or worse. In actual fact, expertise tends to create new issues even whereas it solves previous ones.

It’s pervasive, too. Any time we use data in regards to the world to resolve a sensible downside, we generate expertise, by which I imply any human-crafted system, course of, or artifact optimized to provide a set of identifiable outcomes.

• A sledge hammer is an artifact optimized to transform muscle vitality into forceful impacts.
• Wool-dyeing is a course of optimized to provide coloured yarn and material.
• The web is a system of interconnected artifacts and processes optimized to “take a look at footage of cats and get in arguments with strangers.”

Know-how so permeates our world that people can now not thrive on this planet with out it. There could also be some place left the place individuals can nonetheless reside in a near-edenic state of nature (pre-fig leaves), however even the North Sentinel islanders, lower off from contact with the remainder of the world, have clothes and weapons.

A lot of our every day life is mediated by expertise, it could possibly develop into nearly invisible. Know-how is the water, and we’re all fish. As a result of tech is so commonplace, it’s simple to take it without any consideration, to develop into blind to its penalties.

But as a tech employee for practically three a long time, I wrestle with this query every day: How do these tech selections have an effect on the world, for good or sick? And the way do we all know?

To reply that, we have now to outline the issue. When dreaming up new software program, because the designer I begin with many prospects and add constraints till a workable resolution emerges. Likewise, by exploring the limits of expertise—what it’s not, what it can’t do—I consider we are able to make it much less invisible.

Read more about how Logos is thinking about AI.

Not nature

There’s an previous joke: A gaggle of scientists challenges God to a duel, claiming they can also create life in a lab. God accepts. A scientist reaches down to assemble a handful of clay, whereupon God interjects, saying, “Maintain on, make your personal grime!”

Whether or not you assume evolution or intelligent design formed the mobile motor, photosynthesis, or protein replication, you possibly can’t deny their resemblance to working techniques, processes, and artifacts. Relatively than being the reverse of expertise, the pure world is itself a type of expertise, which the Creator optimizes for his personal pleasure.

“The Bible begins with a backyard and ends with a metropolis,” is true. However importantly it’s God who builds each Eden and the New Jerusalem, not us. Nature (or higher, Creation) is the unmediated technē (Greek, “work, artwork, ability”) of God’s palms, and what we name “expertise” is the technē mediated by ours. All human technē eat or convert a few of God’s—we begin with his grime.

We additionally know that God is jealous of his creation and the way his stewards discharge their duties. We must always subsequently keep away from studying limitless license into the so-called cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28 (see Gen 1:28; 9:1–2; cf. Ps 8; Jer 29:6). Scripture hardly calls us to rapaciousness, however one thing extra managerial.

Not magic

Know-how and magic have at all times been twins. C. S. Lewis wrote that “[f]or magic and utilized science alike the issue is the best way to subdue actuality to the desires of males”; each might require us “to do issues hitherto considered disgusting and impious—reminiscent of digging up and mutilating the useless.” Related ends, completely different means.

The important thing distinction is transparency and the way we consider their outcomes. Magic consists of opaque forces harnessed by the (often elite) practitioner, whereas expertise is supposed to be understood, replicated, used, and constructed upon by anybody who can perceive it. Thus, when magic fails, we fault the individuals concerned: an imperfect incantation or inadequate religion. When expertise fails, this means the necessity for retooling or redesign.

But it’s simple to deal with expertise—particularly tech we don’t perceive—like magic (or in Christian phrases, miracle or thriller). As science fiction creator Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote, “Any sufficiently superior expertise is indistinguishable from magic.”

A hazard, then, lies in complicated expertise for magic, as if expertise is a supply of energy past the observable world reasonably than inside it. If I faux my automobile runs on an inexhaustible provide of pixie mud (and it might as properly, for as a lot as I perceive it), that doesn’t change the truth that inside combustion engines run on tangible pure assets, the consumption of which creates financial, environmental, and political results and unwanted effects.

The place technological necessities battle with moral ideas, magical pondering can tempt us into what Lewis calls the “magician’s cut price: hand over our soul, get energy in return.” Jesus, in fact, would have us ask: “[W]hat does it revenue a person to realize the entire world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36 ESV).

We should, subsequently, preserve a sober thoughts about what’s a part of the thriller and what’s not. This turns into more and more essential as we transfer into the age of synthetic intelligence. I’ll anthropomorphize a chatbot, however that misperception can’t magically implant an ethical conscience for it to attract upon.

Not morally impartial

It’s tempting to guage any given expertise within the summary. For instance, a patent utility might seem to be a pocket universe confining tech to a web page of diagrams. However as soon as somebody decides to design, develop, or deploy that expertise, containment is breached.

Applied sciences often maximize outcomes that ignore ethical issues altogether. Certainly, expertise by its nature encourages us to assume this manner, as a result of we measure a expertise’s outcomes in line with the metric we intend it to maximise. For instance, bullets, by definition, maximize for “penetration,” “stopping energy,” and different euphemisms that measure how properly they trigger injury. Sports activities betting, by definition, consists in tech that leverages utilized statistics and psychology to maximise money flows to the Home. In case you lose, slightly or rather a lot, that isn’t an indication of a damaged course of, however the tech working precisely as designed. The ethical issues such applied sciences elevate are wholly irrelevant, as a result of builders optimize the expertise following different standards.

It’s not that expertise is essentially immoral, however morality isn’t a metric that tech builders optimize for. Its success or failure doesn’t relaxation on moral issues, however technical ones.

This abstraction affords some ethical distance—and shifts culpability—to those that make use of such applied sciences. However these choices don’t exist in a vacuum. Know-how will not be morally impartial, however morally complicated, and navigating that complexity is our ethical obligation.

Not simply

The Bible, particularly the Outdated Testomony, typically views expertise with skepticism. That is comprehensible, because the patriarchs had been a pastoral, semi-nomadic individuals surrounded by huge empires with superior expertise.

The Egyptians discovered Israelite pastoralism “detestable” (Gen 46:31–34 LEB), an early instance of the techno-elite wanting down on their supposed inferiors. Later, the Egyptians pressured the Israelites to construct “storage cities” (Exod 1:11 NASB)—an ironic twist, on condition that Joseph’s prudent administration of that very same expertise had earlier averted famine (Gen 41:29–36, 47–49).

In Judges, we’re instructed the Israelites couldn’t drive out among the individuals of Canaan as a result of “that they had chariots of iron” (Judg 1:19 LEB). In 1 Samuel 13:19–23, the Philistines hoard the expertise for repairing iron instruments so the Israelites couldn’t “make swords or spears for themselves” to withstand them. Even after adopting the monarchical “expertise” of the encircling nations (1 Sam 8), Israel remained outclassed on each entrance.

The Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans all leveraged superior expertise to beat their neighbors, and the nice colonial powers of Europe and Asia adopted go well with. On a smaller scale, governments use tech to torture prisoners or surveil residents, and (some) corporations leverage tech to use employees.

It’s not that expertise is at all times unjust, however that justice is irrelevant—and thus, our accountability. Christians ought to at all times be on guard that our adoption and use of expertise will not be treating our neighbors as means to unjust ends.

Not God

The Outdated Testomony typically frames reliance on expertise as non-reliance on God. If an idol is a little bit of cultic expertise for invoking the favor of a deity, then tech could be a option to exchange relationship with God with the “work of human palms” (see Ps 115:1–8 LEB; see additionally Ps 135:15; Isa 2:8; 31:7; 44:17).

The story of the golden calf explicitly pits the expertise of a graven picture in opposition to the expertise of the graven tablets. Each are technique of worshipping Yahweh, however the technē of God’s finger is the professional instrument (Exod 31:18), not one the individuals produced by taking issues into their very own palms (Exod 32:1–35).

The Tower of Babel was an try by individuals to bypass God with mortar and bricks (Gen 11:1–9). Right here I see parallels within the race to construct god-like synthetic super-intelligences meant to resolve our social and technological issues. OpenAI founder Sam Altman, for instance, claims that AI will “repair the local weather” and “uncover all physics,” utilizing its “practically limitless intelligence.” This appears far-fetched, however the truth that anybody is attempting is unnerving!

Usually, if over-reliance on expertise isn’t leaning “by yourself understanding” (Prov 3:5 ESV), I don’t know what’s.

Not human substitute

Constructing a pc as omniscient as God is inconceivable, nevertheless it’s not onerous to think about one smarter than myself. Any primary calculator app is healthier at addition and subtraction, by no means thoughts sq. roots. Wikipedia has already “forgotten” extra in editorial deletions than I’ll ever know.

These outperform me in a single space. Now what if a machine might outpace me at each psychological process? That’s now not a software, however a substitute.

Changing handbook labor includes financial trade-offs, but nearly no person is fearful about people shedding the power to shovel grime or haul rocks. However what if we worsen at reasoning? Or higher at it, however solely with mechanical crutches (pondering of my smartphone)?

Human aptitude for expertise is clearly a energy. Dependence, nevertheless, is a weak spot. At the same time as expertise giveth a brand new set of capabilities—beginning a fireplace, constructing a wall, driving on the interstate—it taketh away the corresponding private skills. I’m sure I wouldn’t thrive within the Eighteen Nineties with out my trendy conveniences. I’m not even certain I’d take pleasure in re-living the Nineteen Nineties all that a lot. I’d miss that smartphone.

Since Socrates first complained about how the invention of writing eroded the power of scholars to memorize and recite each technology has accused the youth of relying an excessive amount of on expertise. And but, shedding the power to assume successfully isn’t in any respect the identical factor as, say, now not instructing cursive penmanship in faculties—one you possibly can simply do with out, and the opposite, not a lot.

Virtually talking, we at Logos are being even handed in our adoption of synthetic “intelligence” expertise, rigorously contemplating how these (in the end mechanical) processes can mismatch, overfit, or introduce error and bias into their responses. We’re additionally cautious to obviously label AI-generated content material so it may be differentiated from old style brains-and-fingers content material.

We’re an info expertise firm, and we’ve skilled some thrilling developments in our sector, to make sure. However our mission is to empower our customers, not exchange anybody’s personal studying or inventive course of.

Not inevitable

Exterior of some survival wants, no particular expertise has to exist. It solely appears so as a result of engineering is cumulative. Each invention that exists allows extra to exist—if not outright requiring additional improvement, no less than dangling the chance.

Vehicles require the wheel, gears, electrical energy, wires, and so forth, but in addition manufacturing expertise, provide chains, and gas. The worldwide petroleum trade has spawned a number of sub-industries, together with plastics, to optimize the byproducts. We want mechanics to restore and keep our automobiles, and development crews to construct and restore the roadways—and legal guidelines to control them, too. Electrical autos require one more vitality infrastructure and improved battery tech. Now we’re engaged on making automobiles drive themselves. What’s subsequent?

Because the gyre turns, it widens.

This isn’t a foul factor. This inertia drives prosperity as we all know it. However our mass consumption society is intrinsically biased towards extra. Anybody who argues in any other case should swim upstream, partaking a proxy argument in opposition to the wonders the brand new tech could have wrought. You’re not in opposition to [insert benefit to humanity here], are you? This forces the controversy into utilitarian phrases: Now one should exhibit that potential downsides outweigh upsides, whereas additionally proving that no competitor will construct the expertise first and acquire a bonus.

For years, I’ve admired the Shaker design philosophy, often quoted as, “Don’t make one thing until it’s each vital and helpful; however whether it is, don’t hesitate to make it lovely.” I apply this precept utilizing a collection of questions:

1. Does it have a helpful function?
2. Does it fulfill that function?
3. Can it’s lovely?

I ask every in flip, and if the reply is “No!” I cease what I’m doing and check out once more. The tactic will not be foolproof, however pausing to think about if we’re being fruitful or simply making noise definitely helps.

So what?

For years, the Logos firm motto was “superior expertise for everlasting reality,” which neatly captures the strain inherent in our enterprise; specifically, that we are constantly adapting the latest technologies for materials optimized for prior ages—typically very prior. Our mission is each explicitly spiritual and technological.

What occurs when these issues come into battle? Will we compromise our mission and pursue expertise for its personal sake, or can we forego expertise that conflicts with our mission, even when it could improve the enterprise or make our lives simpler?

I typically say that in the event you ask a software program engineer to resolve an issue, don’t be shocked if the answer is extra software program. Tech corporations like Logos construct tech. However I believe we construct it greatest once we mood our enthusiasm. Our innovation will not be pushed by pursuing tech in any respect prices or for its personal sake. Relatively, we routinely make technological selections that make our lives as technologists harder as a result of we expect it is going to higher serve our mission, our imaginative and prescient, or our clients.

Reverse Interlinears, Factbook, Good Search—none of these items are part of nature; neither are they magical; nor a adequate substitute for God or ourselves; nor morally impartial or inherently simply. They usually definitely aren’t inevitable, however the product of deliberate, considerate selections as we battle to construct the very best “superior expertise for everlasting reality” that we presumably can.

Advance your pondering on superior tech with these suggestions from Eli Evans

Ellul, Jacques. The Technological Society, tr. John Wilkinson. New York, NY: Classic Books, 1964.

Ellul, Jacques. “Technique and the Opening Chapters of Genesis.” in Theology and Know-how: Essays in Christian Evaluation and Exegesis, eds. Carl Mitcham and Jim Grote. Lanham, MD: College Press of America, 1984.

Galladertz, Richard R. “Chapter 3: Field Responsibility.” in A Christian Area Information to Know-how for Engineers and Designers. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Educational: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Homosexual, Craig M. Modern Technology and the Human Future: A Christian Appraisal. Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Educational, 2018.

Kaplan, David M. Readings within the Philosophy of Know-how. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009.

Kudina, Olya. Ethical Hermeneutics and Know-how: Making Ethical Sense via Human-Know-how-World Relations. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2023.

Prior, Matthew. Confronting Technology: The Theology of Jacques Ellul. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2020.

Reijers, Wessel, Alberto Romele, and Mark Coeckelbergh. Deciphering Know-how: Ricoeur on Questions Regarding Ethics and Philosophy of Know-how. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021.

Reinke, Tony. God, Technology, and the Christian Life. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022.

Shrader-Frechette, Kristin, Laura Westra, Danny M. Cohen, Richard DeGeorge, et al. Know-how and Values. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997.