There was a certain circularity in the reasoning here: only humans can have a soul, which is why robots don\u2019t have a soul. Combine this with the popular pseudo-neuroscientific view \u2014 that, as Harari expressed it, when \u201cscientists opened up the [human] black box, they discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor \u2018self\u2019 \u2014 but only genes, hormones and neurons\u201d \u2014 and all the ingredients for a perfect confrontation were there.<\/p>\n
The headlines were ready. \u201cReligious groups fight AI research because \u2018it threatens the soul\u2019.\u201d Precisely because they overlap across the human, the potential for conflict between science and religion is always a live one, whether talking about algorithms in the 21st century or astrology in the fourth.<\/p>\n
And yet, if the long history of science and religion has anything to teach us, it is that this conflict is only potential, not inevitable.<\/p>\n
Indeed, if the main argument of my book is right, and it is the complex, multilayered, and varied natures of the human beast that lie at the heart of so many interactions between science and religion, then it is just possible that the age of AI might open up a space for enriching dialogue rather than closing it down in the face of defensive argument.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is artificial intelligence a threat to theology? https:\/\/t.co\/eiDYzjRFoN<\/a><\/p>\n — Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n