What might AI reveal about our own humanity?

How do we make sense of AI? In what sense is it human? What might AI reveal about our own humanity? What do we gain and lose when we use it? Here is one perspective. 

"It is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth.

This is taken from the Encyclical Letter, "Magnifica Humanitas", of Pope Leo XIV,  "On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence", paragraph 99.

It continues, with a heading "A valuable tool that requires vigilance".

In light of what has been said, we can better understand why AI can be a valuable tool and, at the same time, why it calls for a measured and vigilant approach. In recent years, its private use has expanded significantly, prompting growing reflection on both the opportunities it offers and the risks tied to its rapid spread. In personal use, three aspects in particular deserve careful consideration: the ease with which results are obtained, the impression of objectivity and the simulation of human communication. The speed and simplicity with which information, complex analyses, media content and practical assistance can be accessed undoubtedly makes life easier. Yet they can also encourage excessive reliance and the search for ready-made answers, and weaken personal creativity and judgment. The apparent objectivity of the responses and suggestions these systems provide can lead us to overlook the fact that they reflect the cultural assumptions of those who designed and trained them, with all their strengths and limitations. The artificial imitation of positive human communication — words of advice, empathy, friendship and even love — can be engaging and at times genuinely helpful. However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject. When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships, but only their appearance. The artificial imitation of care or support can become particularly risky when it enters contexts where real relationships and emotional bonds are lacking. Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections.

This beautifully says something about what it means to be human and to have human relationships, with all their vulnerability, warmth, confusion, and beauty.

Questions to evaluate technologies

How do we evaluate the benefits and costs of technologies? Neil Postman (1931-2003) was a media theorist and cultural critic at New York University who spent a lifetime wrestling with such questions. In a talk given in 1998, he considered five things we need to know about technological change. Postman's enduring influence and relevance are marked by the fact that these five things featured in a column in The Washington Post, "Is the Internet Evil?" by Christine Emba, published in 2018.

Below, I summarise the five ideas from Postman's talk and provide questions (in italics) we should ask about any technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI).

1. All technological change is a trade-off. 

"the greater the wonders of a technology, the greater will be its negative consequences" 

Don't just ask the question "What will a new technology do?" Also ask, "What will a new technology undo?"

"a sophisticated perspective on technological change includes one’s being skeptical of Utopian and Messianic visions drawn by those who have no sense of history or of the precarious balances on which culture depends."

Through adoption of the technology, what will we lose, individually and as a society?

2. The advantages and disadvantages of a new technology are never distributed evenly among the population.

Who will benefit? Who will be harmed? 

Winners will try to persuade losers that they will benefit as well.

Benefits and harms can relate to employment, finances, social status, health, and political power.

3.  Embedded in every technology are powerful ideas. 

"These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a somewhat abstract nature. But this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical consequences."

"The telegraphic person values speed, not introspection. The television person values immediacy, not history... the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom." 

"The medium is the message."

What ideas are embedded in the technology?

How does it make us use our minds and bodies?

How does it affect our personal relationships and social cohesion?

4. Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. It changes everything.

"The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible."

The entrepreneurs who started the television industry "did not mean to turn political discourse into a form of entertainment."

The consequences can be social, economic, political, environmental, religious, and health-related.

What are the unintended consequences of the technology?

5. When a technology becomes mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control.

"...our enthusiasm for technology can turn into a form of idolatry and our belief in its beneficence can be a false absolute. The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God’s plan but a product of human creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of what it does for us and to us."

How does the technology lead to idolatry? Do some people worship it, its creators, or its owners?

Finally,

Do we use the technology or does the technology use us? 

In different words, will we shape our lives to fit the requirements of the technology, rather than have our values shape our use of the technology?

Addendum (12 August, 2026). In his last book, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, Postman suggests six questions to ask about new technologies. 

1. “What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?” 

2. “Whose problem is it?” 

3. “Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution?”

4. “What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem?” 

5. “What sort of people and institutions might acquire special economic and political power because of technological change?”

6. “What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies, and what is being gained and lost by such changes?”

Science, technology, and ethics

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has stimulated discussions about its potential value and dangers. Before engaging in discussions about AI specifically, it is worth making some general observations about the relationship between science, technology, and ethics.

In the discussion that follows, you might consider how it relates to concrete examples such as screwdrivers, guns, washing machines, cars, smartphones, or AI. They vary greatly in their capability, impact, scope of application, and interaction with our humanity.

Science is not technology. Science and engineering are different academic disciplines. Science and technology are distinct, albeit interrelated, entities. Science is concerned with describing the material world and understanding of how it works. Technology is concerned with controlling it. Technologies are tools, machines, and devices that may make human life easier or better. Note that deciding what is "better" is a subjective judgement and involves human values. Furthermore, one technology may make life better for some people and worse for others. Because science and technology are not the same, important distinctions need to be made and are discussed below.

Scientific knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of technology. Steam engines were developed before the science of thermodynamics, which describes how they work. Nikola Tesla was a brilliant inventor. But many of his beliefs about physics, and particularly the science of electromagnetism were wrong. Large Language Models (LLMs) work extremely well, but we have a poor understanding of why they work so well. On the flip side, scientists and engineers file endless patents for possible new technologies that never come to fruition. The problem is not that the science is wrong, but it is not possible to build viable, let alone commercially viable, devices. For example, we understand the science behind how a quantum computer will work, but building a useful one remains elusive.

Scientific understanding sometimes leads to improvements in existing technology and the development of new technologies. However, there is no guaranteed connection. Sometimes tinkering or intuition is enough to make progress. Scientists commonly use the prospect of new technologies (and the associated potential economic benefits) in their arguments for the public funding of their research. Consequently, scientists, their institutions, and the government agencies that fund them may be reluctant to acknowledge that the science-technology link is not as strong as sometimes claimed.

Technology shows that science works. There are laws of nature. Nature acts in predictable and repeatable ways. Thousands of planes fly safely every day. Most phones will probably work for years. If many of the laws of physics were wrong, a lot of technology would not work. On the other hand, let me be intellectually cautious. Some technologies may work for reasons different from the currently accepted scientific explanation. For example, the explanation of how a specific drug works may change with time. 

The power of technology should inspire awe and wonder at the way the world works, our ability to understand it, and to manipulate it.

What effect does technology have on our relationship with the world?

This question is important because our answers may have a significant influence on our views on the ethics of specific technologies. Broadly speaking, there are three different perspectives.

Instrumentalism. Technologies are just material artefacts that we can use to do stuff. They are not human. They have no agency and so don't affect us or the world.

Determinism. Technology is not neutral. It can have a powerful influence on us and society. It can control or alienate us individually or as a society. 

Mediation. This is a compromise between the extremes of the other two views. As an individual uses a technology, it mediates between them and the external world. Consequently, it can influence the individual and the world, for better or worse. It may change how the individual experiences, perceives, or understands the world.

Ethics: Is a technology intrinsically neutral, good, or evil?  

For any technology, people may advocate one of three moral perspectives. 

Neutral. A technology itself does not do anything. It is just a thing. It has no agency. It has no morality. Only people have agency and morality. They can choose to use the technology for good or evil. This tends to correlate with technological instrumentalism.

Good. By definition, technology makes human life easier or better. Furthermore, history shows this. Consider the significant improvements in human health and prosperity that have come with more technology. The creation of technology also reflects human creativity and the desire to improve the lives of others.

Evil. Given humans' propensity for greed, violence, and domination, it is inevitable that any technology will be used eventually by some people for destructive purposes. This tends to correlate with technological determinism.

To illustrate the moral ambiguity associated with how scientific research can lead to technology, consider the Harvard organic chemist, Louis Fieser. He discovered both antimalarial drugs and napalm. The former has saved countless lives, while the latter has been used in chemical warfare.

The neutral position is helpful if it leads us to focus discussions on good and evil ways a specific technology is used or might be used. It is unhelpful if used to avoid ethical discussions.

Most technologies have good uses and bad uses. The extent to which some uses are good or bad varies greatly between different technologies. We also need to evaluate the likelihood of good or bad outcomes, often unanticipated. The impacts of a technology are multifaceted. They include health, environmental, social, economic, and political impacts.

Our view of humanity shapes our view of technology

Those with a positive view of humanity tend to also be positive about technology. They are optimistic about people's ability to choose to use a technology for their own good and that of others. Any problems can be minimised or solved.

However, if you think people have a propensity for greed, abuse, addiction, and deception, you will be wary about technology.

A Christian perspective on humanity affirms both the goodness and depravity of humanity. We are made in the image of God and have the potential for creativity, personal agency, and benevolence. On the other hand, we are sinful and broken and the potential for evil. This is a dialectic. Different Christians and traditions have differing views of just how good or evil we are. That may shape their views about technology.

Enlightenment worldviews matter

Several beliefs characteristic of the Enlightenment lead to a positive and optimistic view of technology and to opposition to placing limits on its use. These beliefs include the following.

Optimism in progress.

All problems are solvable in principle.

Humans are emancipated and autonomous individuals.

The history of the impact of technology suggests we should question these claims.

Negative consequences of technology should not be used to criticise science. Science did not create these problems. Humans created them as a result of choices about how to use the technology.

In future posts, I hope to discuss questions we should ask about technologies and then use them to consider AI.

Problematic translations of book titles

There is a world of difference between "A Christian view of science" and "The Christian view of science." The latter implies that there is only one possible view. However, publishers love The rather than A in book titles.

It turns out that translators do too. In Territories of Science and Religion, Peter Harrison discussed how the translated title of John Calvin's most influential work changed with time, reflecting underlying shifts in views about what Christianity was. 

unlike English, Latin has no article—no “a” or “the.” Accordingly, when rendering expressions such as “vera religion” or “christiana religio” into English, translators had to decide on the basis of context whether to add an article or not. As we have seen, such decisions can make a crucial difference, for the connotations of “true religion” and “christian religion” are rather different from those of “the true religion” and “the Christian religion.” The former can mean something like “genuine piety” and “Christlike piety” and are thus consistent with the idea of religion as an interior quality. Addition of the definite article, however, is suggestive of a system of belief.

 The translation history of Protestant Reformer John Calvin’s classic Institutio Christianae Religionis (1536) gives a good indication both of the importance of the definite article and of changing understandings of religion in the seventeenth century. Calvin’s work was intended as a manual for the inculcation of Christian piety, although this fact is disguised by the modern practice of rendering the title in English as The Institutes of the Christian Religion. The title page of the first English edition by Thomas Norton bears the more faithful “The Institution of Christian religion” (1561). The definite article is placed before “Christian” in the 1762 Glasgow edition: “The Institution of the Christian religion.” And the now familiar “Institutes” appears for the first time in John Allen’s 1813 edition: “The Institutes of the Christian religion.” 

The modern rendering is suggestive of an entity “the Christian religion” that is constituted by its propositional contents—“the institutes.” These connotations were completely absent from the original title. Calvin himself confirms this by declaring in the preface his intention “to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness.”

Problematic translations of book titles continue today. Here are more examples.

"The Presence of the Kingdom'' is a wonderful book by Jacques Ellul. The title of the original French edition was Présence au monde moderne: Problèmes de la civilisation post-chrétienne. The literal translation is "Presence in the Modern World: Problems of Post-Christian Civilization''. I wonder if something is being lost in the English title.

A similar concern applies to Ellul's book, La Technique. The English edition has the title "The Technological Society.''
L.M. Sacasas states

Ellul defined Technique (la technique) as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” It was an expansive term meant to describe far more than what we ordinarily think of as technology, even when we use that term in the widest sense.

In the next two examples, the English titles are not problematic but have a different sense from the original German. The first took away something, and the second added something.

In 1955, Hans Urs von Balthasar  published Das Betrachtende Gebet, "Contemplative Prayer"). The English edition has the title Prayer.

The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, had the title Nachfolge, which translates literally as "succession" or "following".

Deep Life

Reflecting on trends in society, churches, and universities, a significant challenge and concern is the accelerating rush to superficiality. Constant electronic connectivity through email, texting, and social media promotes urgency, immediacy, oversimplification, fads, and superficiality. Noise, hurry, and crowds push out quietness, stillness, and solitude. The nuance associated with deep reflection is lost and replaced with a Twitter storm of celebrity, "spin", and conspiracy theories. Money, marketing, management, and metrics dominate discussion and decisions.

On the one hand, this reflects human nature. On the other hand, to see the problem is getting a lot worse consider history, whether that of the church or universities. What individuals, institutions, and work (scholarship, art, music, literature) have had a lasting positive influence? 

Who do I admire and respect? I suggest that two essential features are the depth of what was produced and the long and sustained effort (free from distractions) that was required to produce it. The depth may be in insight, creativity, scholarship, personal integrity, engagement, understanding, or relationships. I see this depth in people such as Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Augustine, Calvin, Karl Barth, Mother Teresa, Einstein, John Stott,...

The figure above shows how some trees have root systems that have a depth greater than their height. The image is from here.

Now I consider how this issue of depth is receiving increasing attention from a range of authors in quite different contexts: business, the knowledge economy, social commentators, universities, and churches.

In the context of the modern information economy the need to turn from "shallow work" to "deep work" has been carefully argued by Cal Newport, a computer science professor, in his 2016 book, Deep Work:

"Shallow work is non-cognitive, logistical or minor duties, often performed while distracted. These efforts require little cognitive effort, tend to create little value, and are usually easy to replicate." Examples include replying to emails, browsing websites, looking at social media, filling in forms, and attending meetings.

"Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

This ties in with Malcolm Gladwell's argument that the 10,000-hour rule is one key ingredient for professional success.

In a different vein, in The Road to Character, The New York Times columnist David Brooks confesses, “I was born with a natural disposition towards shallowness.” He recounts his efforts to find a way out of shallow punditry and to cultivate personal character, particularly to move beyond "resume virtues", beloved by the modern world, and to move towards "eulogy virtues" such as humility, bravery, and kindness. The book is based on a course that Brooks taught three times at Yale University.

Piling higher

Some of the language that follows may offend some. But consider what the Apostle Paul said in the following verses. Interestingly, most English translations are sanitised. Here are renditions from The Message.

Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves! (Galatians 5:12)

Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. (Philippians 3:8)

Christian Smith is a distinguished sociologist who has done seminal work in the sociology of religion including adolescent spirituality, racism, and American evangelicalism. (Perhaps I particularly like him because he argues that critical realism and emergence are important in the philosophy of the social sciences). 

Of relevance to this post is that in 2018 Smith published an excellent (but depressing) article, "Higher Education is Drowning in BS: And it’s mortally corrosive to society" in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

 

Harry Frankfurt, a distinguished philosopher at Princeton University, wrote  On BS  that became a New York Times bestseller. According to Wikipedia,

Frankfurt determines that bullshit is speech intended to persuade without regard for truth. The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what he or she says is true or false, but cares only whether the listener is persuaded.

Anthropologist David Graeber refers to Frankfurt's book in his book Bullshit Jobs, which argues that today, half of the jobs are pointless and are psychologically destructive.

Now I turn to the church in the West. It is embedded in this culture and prone to fads, superficiality, and a focus on the four M's: money, marketing, management, and metrics. In his book, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World, Michael S. Horton expresses concern about the preoccupation in the USA church with the "next-big-thing" that promises radical transformation, and advocates instead "a renewed appreciation of the commonplace."

The pandemic has made this even more urgent and challenging because the world (including everyday life, work, ministry) has become even more complex, unpredictable, and fragile.

Deep Life in the Bible

The Bible addresses the issue of superficiality versus depth, particularly with regard to integrity and relationships. For example, in Isaiah 58, the Israelites complain to God.

"Why have we fasted and you see it not?. Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?"

God responds that their worship is actually superficial and lacks integrity.

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,

    and oppress all your workers.

4 

Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

    and to hit with a wicked fist.

Fasting like yours this day

    will not make your voice to be heard on high.

5 

Is such the fast that I choose,

    a day for a person to humble himself?

Is it to bow down his head like a reed,

    and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?

Will you call this a fast,

    and a day acceptable to the Lord?  

“Is not this the fast that I choose:

  to loose the bonds of wickedness,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
    and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Matthew 13 recounts Jesus telling the parable of the sower, which describes different responses to Jesus' teaching (the Word).

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

Jesus' condemned the Pharisees, the religious elite of his day, for their hypocrisy, particularly their concern with outward appearances rather than a deep integrity based on a pure heart. For example, in Luke 11 Jesus says,

“Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you."

We don't need just Deep Work, we also need Deep Integrity, Deep Relationships, and Deep Spirituality. I suggest they are often interrelated. Deep Work is concerned with "cognitively demanding tasks" but we also need to set aside time to focus on tasks that are morally, relationally, or spiritually demanding. In different words, this is about Formacion (spiritual formation and discipleship).

Christian leaders in a smartphone world

Is there depth to how I follow Jesus with my heart, hands, and mind? This involves movement and engagement in horizontal, vertical, and inward directions. Is there depth in my relationships: with God, with family, with co-workers, with students, and with supporters?

A deep understanding is required of God's Word, the world, ourselves, our context, and the university. Such understanding can only come with sustained periods of thinking, reading, writing, learning, listening, praying,... 

How can we move in this direction? It is not easy because we are all constantly being pushed in the wrong direction: noise, superficiality, rush, distraction, ... 

Although it is not possible to cut out all the noise and distractions, they can be reduced with planning, organisation, and discipline, from the individual to the institutional level. Many of the practical suggestions that Cal Newport makes about Deep Work are relevant to other areas of life. His suggestions include quitting social media, digital minimalism, and rigorous scheduling of time for deep life.

Institutions are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. As they grow and age they have a natural tendency to lose the passion, commitment, innovation, outward orientation, and flexibility of their founders. Instead, they tend to become self-focused, bureaucratic, inflexible and centred around the careers and interests of their management. 

Institutions and their leaders can move in the right direction by hiring and promoting people with real depth, implementing policies and procedures that shift the emphasis away from the four Ms, and create space for deep life, including by shifting conversations towards deep work, deep integrity, deep relationships, and deep spirituality. 

Politics, farming, science, and culture

On a flight, I enjoyed watching the feel-good Bollywood movie Basmati Blues. On the serious side
 it looks at a significant modern problem: wealthy multi-national corporations use scientific research to develop technologies that the companies market (in deceptive manners) in the Majority World and disregard the culture and needs of local communities. The fictional story reminded me of real controversies involving Monsanto and Nestle.
Unfortunately, the movie does fit the white saviour trope.

Five key ideas about technological change

These are taken from a 1998 talk by Neil Postman, and recently featured in a recent Washington Post column, Is the Internet Evil?, by Christine Emba.

1. All technological change is a trade-off.
2. The advantages and disadvantages of a new technology are never distributed evenly.
3.  Embedded in every technology is a philosophy.
4. Technological change is not additive; it is ecological.
5. When a technology becomes mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control.

Is efficiency a Christian value?

Many decisions in modern life seem concerned with the goal of increasing the efficiency of processes, whether economic or engineering. This flows into the life of the church and personal decisions that Christians make. But I wonder is there a theological justification for this preoccupation? Jacques Ellul raised questions such as this in The Technological Society [which I am yet to read].

I really struggle to find passages in the Bible, and particularly teachings of Jesus, that support the priority of efficiency. There is certainly teaching about stewardship [not wasting God-given resources] but often this relates to "reckless" acts of generosity and faith, rather than "strategic" decisions that optimise personal benefit and comfort. God is certainly "economical" and "efficient" in that Jesus' death is "one sufficient sacrifice for all sin for all time". I can see that it is loving not to waste other peoples time, energy, and money. But it seems that prioritising technology and economic efficiency can do violence to relationships, community, and human dignity.

I welcome suggestions on how the Bible can be used to justify efficiency.

A scientist testifies to God's grace

Last week I really enjoyed reading Witness to Grace, the brief autobiography of John Goodenough. I knew of him for his scientific work in solid-state physics and chemistry because some of it overlaps with my research. He is best known for inventing lithium rechargeable batteries. Although aged 91 he is still publishing papers!

The book mixes his spiritual history with his scientific career. He came from a family that had a church background but his parents "outgrew" religion, seeing it as a superstitious and psychological crutch. His father was a Professor of the history of religion at Yale University, and studied at Harvard Divinity School and received a D.Phil. from Oxford. But experiences while a student at Groton school eventually led to him becoming a follower of Jesus, while working on a Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Chicago. His family was not impressed.

The scientific parts of the book may not be accessible to some readers, without the necessary background! Nevertheless, it is a compelling story and a moving witness to the grace of God, as revealed in Jesus.

Update (October 2019). Goodenough was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His autobiography is now out of print. However, most of it can be read on Google books. For readers at UQ there is a hard copy in the library.

In a TV interview he is asked ``What are you most proud of?'' and mentions ``Witness to Grace".

India: forward or backward?

I am in the middle of a five-week trip to India. Two things that are clear about India today. First, it is rapidly changing.
Second, it is struggling to cope with change, just like most societies.
Rapid economic growth and restructuring are accompanied by rapid technological and social change. Institutions, all the way from the family to the national government are struggling to adapt. On this trip, I am reading the newspaper, The Times of India, every day. It accentuates the observations above.
In the Western world, dramatic changes associated with globalisation, economic restructuring, and technology are also happening. However, I feel that the change is happening slower than in India.

Is all this change positive or negative?
It depends on your perspective. The following quote from the book India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking is particularly interesting. It compares the problems of the old India, where life in villages was dominated by caste, to the new India, where life in the cities is dominated by capitalism.

this narrowing of tasks, while making things more efficient, also made it harder to find meaning in work. ... what caste did flagrantly, putting humans into their different boxes, globalization was doing more artfully: giving every worker a sliver of a specialized role, making him work harder and harder, depriving him over time of a sense of the whole, and eroding his connections with other humans. ... cousins in deprivation [are] the labourer driven from his land for the software company and the software coder who writes his narrow code, slogs for people he has never met, and suffers the fate of the new-economy worker bee: fifteen-hour days, bumper-to-bumper traffic, sexual and marital frustration, children who ask, `How come Papa never comes home?'

When caste wanted to separate man from man, it used the concept of dharma.. When capitalism wanted to separate man from man, it used the concept of production, of higher consumption, of better livelihood - whatever. The end result was separating human being from human being and erasing the socialness, the human essence, from the human being.

This is not the author, but someone he interviewed. You will have to look at the book to see who said it. That makes it of even greater interest and challenge.

You don't have to be Einstein to understand this

Since October a message and set of photos including those here has gone viral on emails and blog posts with the following quote which is attributed to Albert Einstein.

"I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."

I think the point is valid and the pictures are endearing [or pathetic or alarming?] and don't need to be backed up by the supposed authority of Einstein.

There is a further problem that there is no concrete evidence that Einstein ever said this. No source is provided. I did a search in The new quoteable Einstein and it yielded nothing.
In a similar vein see Out of all those quotes attributed to Einstein which ones are really his? How can you tell?

The issues this raises are similar to those in my earlier posts
John Piper plays chinese whispers with Einstein
Urban legends about science and religion

The perspective of time

We are preoccupied with the immediate. Everything happening now seems so urgent and so important. To get things in perspective it is interesting to look back at old magazines and see what was in the headlines, what the hottest gadgets were, and what people were predicting about the future.
I have just been going through an old pile of Time and Newsweek will titles such as "The Best of 1999",  "Pictures of 1980", "The Most Influential People in America in 1997."
Here are a few things that struck me.

The recurrence of wars, of corruption in government and business, of famine and environmental problems.

Forgotten celebrities, politicians, and sports stars.

The Best of Cybertech of 1999 is an interesting list. Top is the Sega Dreamcast [what is that?!]. Google only ranks no. 7 on the list!

How seriously we take ourselves.

The presence of cigarette advertising (such as the 1989 ad below). We have made some progress by banning it.

Masters of our destiny?

We continually hear how new technologies such as the internet, Facebook, email, mobile phones have changed the world. But have they really?

It is amazing what humans can now do. We can make iPods, tailor make molecules to use as drugs to cure deadly diseases, move single atoms around at will, understand the beginning of the universe, ...  If we can't do it now (cure cancer, understand quantum theory, ...) surely it is just a matter of time. Maybe..., This can lead to incredible hubris and optimism. But there is a lot we cannot do:
⁷For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, ⁸but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 
James 3:7-8
This is just one of many reasons why I consider that the message of the Bible is not the least bit dated. All that email and Facebook has really changed is that it has provided new media and made it easier for us to have the same old relationship problems...  

Empowering the poor

There is a fascinating and inspiring story in the New York Times about how low cost solar cells and LED lighting is beginning to have an impact on some of the 1.5 Billion people in the world who live without electricity.

One of the companies involved Barefoot Power  advocates a commendable bottom up [i.e. small scale] approach to meeting basic needs in the developing world. I was interested to see that the company has Australian origins and one of the board members is a former Anglican minister.

I wish I was somewhere else

Actually, I don't.

But, to me this is the message I get from observing peoples obsession with (addiction to?) their mobile phones and texting. I actually don't have one. I think they do have there role. But, why not talk to the people you are actually with or focus on enjoying your current surroundings and engaging with them.

'Hello Mum... The Doc wants to know if I have difficulty making decisions. What do you think?'

Would Jesus own an iPhone?

I was recently asked:

In what ways is a technology good or bad from a Christian perspective?

How should we approach the development of technology?

The pace and scope of new technological developments presents many ethical issues. Sometimes it is claimed that technologies such as internet, stem cells, drugs, in vitro fertilisation, nanotechnology, ... are so far from the culture and world of Biblical writers that we are in a moral vacuum. I agree we are in a "different world" in some sense but we are in the "same world" of human sin, aspirations to bless, greed, desire to heal, idolatry, love, ego, .....

Hence, I strongly disagree that the Bible is not adequate to address these issues.

I have found a helpful way to see this is to view money as technology. The Bible says a lot about money. It is intrinsically neither good nor evil. It can be used to bless others. It can facilitate an orderly and prosperous society. But,

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

1 Timothy 6:10

I am hard pressed to think of a technology which is intrinsically good or intrinsically evil. The key issue is one of attitude. What is the ultimate purpose of it? Do people worship it? Can they not live without? Does it lead to greed and injustice? Is it used to heal and or bless?

Christian perspective on technology, suffering, and justice

Each year Christians in Science hold a one day conference in London. This year it is on saturday October 31, with the theme, Applying Science in a Suffering World. They have the usual high-profile and able speakers.
I have been able to attend two of the previous conferences because I was in the U.K. at the time. They were excellent. Unfortunately, I won't be there this year. But, I mention it here since I have a reasonable number of U.K. readers and also "globe-trotting" readers.

The idolatry of efficiency

Every few months my wife and I get together with several other couples for a discussion group where we discuss how Christianity relates to various issues. Topics we have covered include: caring for aging parents, money, parenting teenagers, private schools, politics, capitalism, ....
This week we will be looking at technology. In preparation, I recalled that Jacques Ellul had done significant work in this area. The Wikipedia entry on Ellul is fascinating (it is interesting that he was strongly influenced by Barth). There also a significant archive of his publications here. The one page piece on modern idolatry is particularly worth reading.

My understanding is that Ellul was a critic of not just technology but the de-humanizing effects of "la technique", a concern with maximising efficiency:

Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.

Grey goo or great God?

Previously I discussed some issues in Christians evaluating new technologies. I later remembered that a few years ago while on sabbatical in the U.K., Andrew Briggs (Professor of Nanomaterials at Oxford) and I gave a couple of talks on a Christian view of nanotechnology. One version of the talk is here (without the video clips from the movie Agent Cody Banks). We gave the talk at the 2004 London Conference of Christians in Science and at St. Andrews church in Oxford. Later, Andrew gave a public lecture at the Faraday Institute in Cambridge.

The economy of grace

Today my wife and I went to a "Money and Christian Discipleship Seminar" sponsored by TEAR Australia and the Bible College of Queensland.

A few random thoughts and things I learnt:

When is enough money, enough?

By law in Australia superannuation funds (IRA's in the USA) are required by law to maximise profit. Hence, it is actually hard for them to make "ethical" investments.

CHOICE reports that many investment funds that are advertised as "ethical" or "sustainable" still invest money in dubious enterprises.

Fear and greed is what drives the stock market.

Corporations are based on the separation of ownership and management.

Institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and GATT are sometimes actually counter-productive and working against the goals for which they were set up.

I need to be better informed about globalisation and fair trade.

"Theology must be political if it is to be evangelical"
Desire of the Nations, Oliver O'Donovan, formerly Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."

John Kenneth Galbraith
US (Canadian-born) administrator & economist (1908 - 2006)

We need to combine ethical consuming, ethical investing, and direct advocacy.

16 of the 38 parables Jesus told are about money.

The Torah instructs Israel how to not live like the surrounding nations, especially how not to live in slavery like they did in Egypt.

The account of the manna in Exodus 16 illustrates how what God provides is to be distributed equitably rather than being accumulated.
The Sabbath is to be kept to proscibe work and be reminded of the economy of grace.