Man as God

As believers in Christ, we are called to acknowledge the absolute authority that God possesses. Isaiah 45 contains these verses:
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me,
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other;
7 I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.'

There is no other - ponder that for a moment.  We are prone, as fallen human beings, to control our own lives, but as redeemed human beings, we can relinquish control to the One who has made us, who has formed us for His purposes.  When we are tempted to think our way is best or to try to figure out the best way to live, God has prescribed a satisfying, exhilarating life - He wants us to experience His best, but we fall short if we think that we know better than He.

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The struggle for control - humanity vs. divinity, is seen so clearly in Genesis 11 in the story of the Tower of Babel:
4 And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 And the Lord said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

At the Tower of Babel, you saw God thwart the desire of human beings for absolute control, and we are seeing that desire, an unquenchable thirst for power played out on so many levels.   Now, the European Parliament will be considering a resolution that will grant special rights to...robots!

The Guardian reports that in a 17-2 vote, with two abstentions, the legal affairs committee of the parliament passed a report which "outlines one possible framework for regulation."

The author of the report is parliament member Mady Delvaux of Luxembourg, who said, “A growing number of areas of our daily lives are increasingly affected by robotics,” adding, "In order to address this reality and to ensure that robots are and will remain in the service of humans, we urgently need to create a robust European legal framework."

The article says that this "proposed legal status for robots would be analogous to corporate personhood, which allows firms to take part in legal cases both as the plaintiff and respondent."

The Irish Times leads off an article with this paragraph:

"Can a robot sin?” the journal Christian Today asks readers. That, in essence, is what we are asking when we consider, for example, how the artificial intelligence (AI) driving a driverless car programmed to avoid accidents, can consider such ethical questions as what to do when faced with a choice between two accidents?

It mentions a report to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.  The story says:

Although it argues that reducing human oversight may increase efficiency and is necessary for applications such as driverless cars, it warns of “dangers in coming to depend entirely on the decisions of AI systems when we do not fully understand how the systems are making those decisions”.

The report adds: "Some serious thinkers fear...that AI could one day pose an existential threat: a ‘superintelligence’ might pursue goals that prove not to be aligned with the continued existence of humankind.” The story says, "That 'one day' may be upon us."

The website CNet reports that:

It's a boom time for robots of all kinds. Market researcher IDC forecasts that worldwide spending on robotics and related services will hit $188 billion in 2020, more than doubling the $91.5 billion spent in 2016. Manufacturing accounts for the largest slice of that, but the consumer robotics sector last year reached a not too shabby $6.5 billion.

The article explores what makes a robot a robot.  In addition to the mechanical aspects, it declares that "autonomy" is a "key defining factor of robotics."

So, while we tinker with devices to make our lives easier, we are also training technical creations to think, and with thought comes emotion, perhaps even ambition, when you factor in the component of autonomy.   Humanity's creation could possibly backfire.  And, these attractive human creations can become high-tech idols.

I think, to a certain extent, it all goes back to power and control.  There is the freedom and the desire to innovate, but one has to check on what motivates.  And, when a culture is willing to grant special rights to human creation but deny the right to life to divine creations, i.e., pre-born children, our priorities are certainly out of line.  

It all boils down to whether we revere God's creation and His principles more or less than we revere our own.  And, all too often, the fallible human wisdom wins out.  So it goes for our own individual lives - we identify as disciples of Jesus Christ, but in our minds and our motivation, we struggle with placing ourselves in charge.  It is all too tempting to promote our own way and then place a God-stamp on it and think we're doing His will.  You might even say to become a productive Christian, we really have to tear down our preconceived beliefs in order to align ourselves with Him. We have to rewire our thought processes, based on His principles, not our own.  It's a lifelong conflict, but God's power and truth give us the capacity to be victorious over the ungodly ambition for control.