5 highlights from John Lennox on 'Diary of a CEO': AI, transhumanism and Christ
1. Warns of ‘idolatrous’ worship of AI, ‘reducing people to machines’
As artificial intelligence becomes more powerful, Lennox believes society risks elevating the technology to a position it was never meant to occupy.
“The Christian faith has a great deal to say to this arms race,” Lennox said, warning against making technology “the ultimate source of truth.” He also expressed concern that AI is “reductionist,” adding, “We’re reducing people to machines.”
Lennox stressed that AI systems, regardless of their sophistication, lack consciousness, emotion and true understanding.
“This is a machine. Machines do not think,” he said. “They do not understand the redness of red. They do not experience emotion. They have no consciousness.”
Instead, he said human beings possess a unique dignity because God created them with both intelligence and consciousness.
“We need to step back and realize that we are conscious beings,” Lennox said. “And that gives us a supreme dignity and value.”
Lennox added that “the genius of God is that He’s made you and me and He’s connected in us consciousness and intelligence.” He also chastised efforts to “anthropomorphize everything” and treat AI “as if they’re conscious beings.”
“To reduce ourselves to merely machines or, on the other hand merely animals, is to demean our value,” he said.
Bartlett then shared a quote from a former Google engineer, who predicted that “what is going to be created will effectively be a god.”
“It’s not a god in the sense that it will make lightning or cause hurricanes,” he clarified while pondering, “if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else can you call it?”
Lennox acknowledged that some people already attribute godlike qualities to AI.
“You have a system even now that has got some of the qualities we normally associate with God,” he said. “It appears to be omniscient. You can ask it any question. It is omnipresent through the internet.”
He noted that AI worship communities already exist and warned that such devotion amounts to idolatry. “It's bowing down to something that in the end is idolatrous because it is less than God,” Lennox said.
“And some people welcome this and say, ‘Well, this is the way we should go.’ And other people say, ‘Just wait a moment, there’s something very strange going on here.’”
Bartlett noted that “people are basically praying to it now [and] confiding in it in a way.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
