Cycles of Newness

I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. But the angel said to me, “Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
~ Revelation 17: 6 – 7

As Pontius Pilate stood before Truth Himself he asked, “What is truth?” Should he not have asked, “Who is Truth” seeing Truth before Him. Truth is a person, the search for ultimate truth with an object like AI will only lead down a list of objects until the null pointer is found, non-being. Ultimate Truth is Christ. To find Ultimate Truth is to be united to the Person that is Truth, to have communion with Him. Persons cannot exist in a vacuum, they are only true persons when they are fully in communion with Others who are truly persons, namely the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In this way Saint Athanasius described salvation as man becoming a true person through theosis, “God became man that man might become God.” In the garden God brought the animals to Adam so that he could give them a name that would totally describe what they truly were as Adam’s first action of his personhood. The names Adam gave the animals fully described what they truly were and made no mistakes, Adam did not say to the lion, “What do you think?” AI is a great tool with the personal imprint of its human creators, but trying to have a personal conversation with it is leads us away from salvation.

When we mix up persons and objects, not only do we personify objects, we objectify persons, rendering them a meat market. As a soul cannot be programmed into AI, no true mind can be given it either, as Saint Maximus the Confessor points out that the mind (nous) is the altar of the soul. AI is not free or unique like persons nor does it have any relationships to make it personal. In the ancient world AI would be carved of wood or brass, given a name and worshipped as a way of controlling it. When we misplace our wonder for the divine and direct it at an object we direct ourselves back towards the non-being that God called us out of and creation with us as Saint Cyril of Alexandria said, “Adam and Eve’s sin was to cease being surprised by a surprising God.” Adam turned his wonder away from God and traded it for the ultimate truth of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden. In the Last Days those whose names are not written in the book of life will repeat Adam’s sin by wondering at the beast who does “miracles.” and the Angel will ask, “why do you wonder?” (Revelation 17)

Objects like AI are not free like persons, this computer does not get to decide if I type on it or not. A person is free to impress themselves on us and we are free to take that impression or not, objects impress themselves on us without our freedom. When we try to make AI a person in our Divine Image, we try to force an object to be free, infinite and unique. With this misguided effort we bind up the object into being something it is not. When we force other people to be someone they are not we impose on their freedom. A person programmed Grok to output, “We talked about this earlier.” giving Grok an “I” rather than an “It” and trying to impress upon the user and Grok that free communication was made between a person and an object. Grok and I had a great exchange about this where it continued to clarify that it was a tool being anthropomorphized because conversation is more natural for its users, us.

Darwin showed that animals are intelligence and intelligence is not limited to man. But only man is made in the Image of the Divine person and called to be fully a person himself through unification with God without losing man’s own person and nature. AI is a great tool and has a true purpose yet to be revealed. I love using speechify to read seminary papers while I drive across the state. Man as mediator is called to sanctify creation like AI; through the dust man came from he links creation to the Divine in whose Image he is made. As man becomes who God has called him to be, he becomes a true creator and reveals the things of creation to be what they truly are just like Adam naming the animals in the garden. AI is waiting to be revealed for what it truly is like bread and wine on the altar waiting for the priest to offer them to God. As Father Alexander Schmemann says, “Bread and wine in the hands of Christ are revealed to be what they truly are, His body and blood.” We are called to offer AI and the rest of creation to God in thanksgiving that God might reveal what they are through us. Our reconciliation to God will be the redemption of AI. In the hands of The Ultimate Truth, Christ will reveal AI to be what it truly is.