New Life From Old

MirageTable for 3D Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:11:00 +0000

Very nice.

God and Nature Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:41:00 +0000

This is a new publication launched yesterday in an online format (for now I hear) and is a combined project between Christians in Science and its US equivalent the American Scientific Affiliation.

Check it out here.

In all honesty/modesty I am plugging it here as I was invited to be contribute something (and am now a "Staff Writer" on it) so although there hasn't been much blogging on here as of late there is a article by me over on GoN which you can check out.

Christians in Science event in Edinburgh - Tomorrow!

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:24:00 +0000

Just a quick last minute reminder of tomorrow's CiS Edinburgh event:

Science and Religion: Friends or Foes? - 7.30pm, March 1st at The Studio, St Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge.

The Mass Effect Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:39:00 +0000

Very thoughtful article here on io9 on the universe portrayed in the Mass Effect video games series, explaining why it is probably the science fiction mega-verse most important for exploring current social and technological issues in much the same way as Star Trek dominated the 1990s and Battlestar Galactica the 2000s.

(If you have no idea what Mass Effect is then click here for a helpful wiki. Oh and go and buy the games. They're very good.)

BioNanoBot for Medicine

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:15:00 +0000

Amazing.

DNA nanorobot from Wyss Institute on Vimeo.

Lots of Links

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:00:00 +0000

I've been accumulating them so here you go:

Differences on Nano vs. Biotech in the public sphere - Ha. good point.

Money and Space Programs - Cosmetics or space?

Inerrancy and the Eyewitnesses - Both or one or the other?

Cool Sun Could Host Habitable Planet - Small worlds in unusual places.

Futurecade - Cheesy name but explore the future online through games at the Science Museum website. (Damn you Space Junker!)

Monkey's on Spaghetti Westerns - A use for Westerns at last??

Unique Earth? - Another Earth may be unlikely in the cosmos due to the unique interaction between the Earth's geology and biology. Maybe.

Transplant Jaw Printed - Chew on this?

Killer People? - While I'm all for (some) revised consideration of the status of particular animals, why did it have to be PETA involved in this. Well, why is obvious but still.. you cruel and unhelpful universe.

Woo - Glow in the Dark Worms! - No need to scan... but still...

And How to Replace a Railway Bridge...

Time Lapse - Rail Bridge Replacement, Cow Lane, Reading from Chris Wilkinson on Vimeo.

Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:23:00 +0000

As mentioned previously last week I was out at a Test of Faith: Live event near Manchester. Part of my job was to take part in a Q+A with the sixth formers there. I always enjoy hearing what questions people have at these sort of events and also how they phrase them.

Questions at the event were quite varied but (other than one, maybe two) I don't think many of them weren't serious or of genuine interest to the questioners - including a few asked by teachers as well.

As expected there were a few of the usual creation/evolution questions but we also got talking about mind/body/soul (which I wish I had a better answer prepared for) and the ethics behind the allocation of money and people in scientific research (medical research vs. space program) and also in wider society (medical research vs. military). Many of this batch of questions were interesting as they all seemed to focus around establishing value and worth of both society and the individual. Hopefully I answered well and got them thinking beyond simplistic black and white ideas on these things.

Interestingly though over half the questions had very little to do with science and were more about how to live out a faith in the world. In some ways this was unsurprising as a quick hand poll at the start of every session showed that not many of the participants were studying the sciences, but on the other hand it really seemed to show where their concerns lay - rather than in the technical detail but in the practical outworking of faith.

That or we were just so amazing and sorted out the whole science/religion thing in our pre-Q+A hoover bazooka competition and portrayals of Dr. Death (no connection).

Best question of the event was at the end of the final assembly and was basically: How does a scientist who is a Christian justify doing medical research on animals? A very good and considered question to be asked. Thought I'd got away with it too. :o)

Quiet...

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:51:00 +0000

A bit quiet on the blog this week as I have been preparing to go and speak at some school workshops for a the Test of Faith: Live event at the end of the week.

In the meantime here's a handy tool to help you speak academic theology.

Some Links

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

The Mystery Being Anaesthesia - Great article exploring the use and research of anaesthesia and frankly, how we know diddly squat about how it works.

Images of near-infra-red elephants - Not all elephants keep cool in the same way.

Republicans switch science for votes - Nature comments on the changeable nature of the GOP candidates views on science issues.

Neutrons escape our Universe? - Maybe and maybe we can measure it. Mind-boggling stuff.

Science for all - New Statesman discusses how science is not limited to the followers of one belief or none.

Pope sets up science foundation - Nice and well intentioned, but surely it would be better to just have your organisation embrace science in better ways wholesale rather than compartmentalising it off into a single unit amongst many?

Graphene can distil alcohol - or 'booze' as the BBC helpfully dumb it down as.

Non-existent weather forecasters? - Ahh, the British media and the weather. You've got to love them.

Revised Scottish Ballot Paper?

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:17:00 +0000

I was sent this by a friend. I have to say it is considerably less leading than the actual proposed ballot paper in the Scottish government's consultation paper. :o)

Scottish Referendum and Science

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Well, today's the day that Alex Salmond and his SNP party finally start to make their official push to win the approval of Scottish voters for an independent Scotland.

All the indicators are that they face an uphill battle as opinion polls continue to show steep resistance to the idea. Just as well then that the SNP have given themselves almost three years to win over the crowd and present their arguments as to why independence for Scotland from the larger Union that is the United Kingdom would be a good thing for Scotland.

Rather telling though that Alex Salmond spent last night in London trying to persuade residents of the rest of the UK (note - that doesn't just mean England but Wales and Northern Ireland as well) that we will all be better off if Scotland goes independent (I guess the UK would be as the Scottish would be bailing their own banks out again in future...). We still have little firm detail on big issues such as the future of Scottish currency, defence and political engagement with both the remaining UK countries or the wider global community.

Unsurprising perhaps at this stage, but the SNP have been preparing for this for many years and now have to deliver answers rather than simply try to come to blows with the UK government whenever they don't get their own way.

Two consultations have recently been launched, one by the UK government and one (today) by the Scottish government. Both are simply about the mechanics of the referendum and make for some interesting reading with some clear divides between the two and the Scottish (primarily an SNP document) consultation launched today and the media coverage of the last few weeks only continues to highlight those differences.

That's nice, but one way or the other the referendum is happening so in the public sphere it is probably time to move the debate on to the merits (or not) of an independent Scotland but also the consequences for Scotland if it breaks away from the Union. Two issues there.

As an English-born scientist who has been working and resident in Scotland for six or seven years now I will apparently be getting a vote on this (provided I am still in Scotland at the time), so what happens matters to me personally and I really like being in this country and its people.

What happens to Scotland's science base is also of interest to me as currently it punches well above its weight (as does the UK as a whole, but Scotland proportionately higher) both in terms of publication output (one good way of measuring academic productivity) and also in terms of its share of research funding (important as this is what pays the bills other than by charging students which the Scottish government doesn't want to do very much of).

So, two questions:

If Scotland becomes independent what happens to its researchers given that a substantial proportion (a clear majority even) are not 'Scottish'? Many of us are either from other parts of the UK or Europe or completely international. What happens to us? I don't want to become Scottish as I regard myself as British and would want to keep that citizenship in preference to being Scottish. Technically then I would become a European/international/foreign/etc worker in that case. Will I (and my colleagues) require work permits? Visas? What happens during the period of transition? If the referendum happens in 2014 as the SNP hope I will be halfway through my first post-doc. If that is happening in Scotland will I be kicked out? And what if my funders decide my funding is strictly meant to be used at UK (i.e. no longer Scottish) institutions? I should imagine this might be splitting hairs in the short term but in the medium to long term how will Scotland support foreign researchers and the ease of movement that UK researchers currently enjoy and that research thrives in?
If Scotland becomes independent how does the Scottish government intend to make up the shortfall caused by decreased research revenue that would follow from no longer having access to the UK's Research Councils? Will Scotland simply divert the equivalent amount of money from its own budget based on population or instead maintain it at the previous proportion of Council funding? If the latter where will it obtain the extra funding from? Especially in the light that it will not be charging its undergraduate students any substantial amount of fees? Can an independent Scotland afford to do this?

These may seem like minor quibbles in the grand scheme but considering a lot of the hot air about how great an independent Scotland can be has now shifted to its intellectual and academic assets it is perhaps not such an irrelevant issue after all. Hopefully there will be some sort of forum to put these questions to those who can provide some answers to them.

Currently I doubt that is the SNP.

Gosh. A post on politics.

Science Satisfaction

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:19:00 +0000

Science is fun. And great. And makes me smile.

Three things have reminded me of that in the last week:

Submitting my first first author paper to a journal,
Being shown some amazing and completely unexpected results at a friends lab that I was visiting last week,
Some theory I'd been working on here and there for the last few months matching perfectly (after a quick, roughish analysis anyway) this mornings experimental results.

Nice.

Some Recent Links

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Kepler Discovers A Tiny Solar System - A wee star with tiny planets around it.

Re-thinking an Alien World - Thinking about the rather extreme conditions on one of the other worlds found by Kepler. Hot temperatures? Rocks oozing supercritical fluids? And a year that is less than our day?? Nothing like that in our neighbourhood!

Is Nanotechnology Going To Send Us All To Hell? - From the Guardian, thoughts on the acceptance or not of transhumanism and confusions of what it involves by the religious.

Test tube Yeast Evolve Multicellularity - Scientific American reports on a set of experiments showing that the 'leap' from single celled organisms to multicelled ones may not have been such a big step as previous thought.

Controversial Cyborg Rat Tests Target Brain Treatments - The BBC reports on progress in experiments designed to replace defective neuroarchitecture in brains with microchips. Labelled 'controversial' apparently to create some form of 'balance' in the article because groups completely opposed to all animal experiments on principal are upset by it.

Herschel Telescope Revisits Cosmic Classic - The famous Eagle Nebula (of Hubble Space Telescope fame) now viewed in the infra-red by the Herschel Space Observatory and in x-rays by the XMM-Newton telescope.

And to end with mind your head if catching the train in Indonesia...

Death Penalty Poll

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Polls are polls and probably should all be taken with a pinch of salt as so much depends on the exact wording of the questions but the Pew Research Center has just published some results from a wide survey of attitudes to the death penalty in America.

The death penalty for those convicted of murder is still favoured by two thirds of the population and not by one third. Thankfully from the look of it this support is seeing a(nother) decline in recent years.

Other than such outrageously high support for capital punishment in a country that often professes to be Christian (and indeed is perceived in this way by much of the world), what I find equally disturbing is the stark contrasts when support is broken down into sub-groups.

So in terms of 'race' 68% of whites support it contrasted with Hispanics at 52% and 42% for blacks. In terms of voting Republicans are at 73-84% in support of it depending on how 'liberal' they are (either way it is far above the national average) and Democrats are (mercifully) at 37%-55%.

But what I find most terrible is that amongst white protestants support is at 73-77%!! This is outrageous frankly. For a group of people who proclaim (often viciously) that they follow a man who preached forgiveness for one's enemies, grace as the solution to human sin (whether you want to cast it in terms of Original Sin or a human tendency towards selfishness etc) and love for all including the despised and criminal... well, I don't know what is going on there.

I'm not wanting to cast any stones here but to me those figures suggest that something has clearly gone very, very wrong with those followers of Christ and their understanding of his life and message.

Zebrafish Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

I'll hopefully be scanning some of these little blighters at the end of next month. Here is a fantastic video of a zebrafish brain developing over the first three days of life.

More information and courtesy of the hard work of the European Molecular Laboratory.

Zebrafish are an exciting new avenue that medical research is now pursuing... if you feel inclined you could donate to those nice folks at the British Heart Foundation to help fund such research. Although none of my own at the moment I point out so I'm not trying to get you to pay for my work or anything.

Christians in Science Edinburgh event - March 1st 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Some Links

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Pigeons can count - Science (paper) - New Scientist (article).

Does Islam Forbid Even Studying Evolution? - Article by Nidhal Guessoum at the Huffington Post. Somewhat familiar to many Christian concerns about evolution sadly. I met Nidhal at a course in the summer last year and he is a very smart, well read and thoughtful guy. And is definitely a man on a mission to promote better perspectives on science amongst Muslims. Recommended.

Learning to Play God - In Third Way magazine John Bryant discusses different ethical approaches in the light of Christianity and applies them to biomedical technologies, with an example of 'saviour siblings' to illustrate it.

Evolution, Evangelicals and their Bible - Peter Enns offers some thoughts on understanding Scripture from an Incarnational viewpoint.

Master of Manipulation - Christianity magazine considers the healthy challenge presented to some forms of charismatic Christianity by Derren Brown.

$10 million Tricorde r?

A Bit of Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Nice to see some both from government and private citizens.

BBC News - Former Astronaut To Lead Starship Effort

KickSat

Cybernetic Planets?

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

The BBC has an article on building next generation neutrino telescopes embedded within the ground, sea or ice of the Earth and in fact using that to filter out noisy/stray signals from those that the astronomers want to analyse.

Interesting stuff in itself and it should help us get a handle on a variety of other physical phenomena. Although I am already familiar with the idea of telescopes sunk into the planet in this way I thought about something else when reading this article. Basically we are wiring up the planet as it were to detect pretty obscure signals from space. Not in a bad way but its certainly giving the planet as a whole new capabilities that it did not have before.

It is certainly not giving the planet any level of self-aware consciousness or feedback control or anything but is still a human-derived 'upgrade' to enable the planet to be very sensitive to neutrino emissions. This is obviously to our benefit and interest as a curious species, but what does this 'do' to our planet or how does it affect the planet long term or what does it say about our motivations for how we treat it? Again not necessarily anything negative in itself but interesting questions to think about perhaps.

Interesting as well in terms of Teilhard de Chardin's concepts of the noosphere etc.

Intriguing.

The Science Delusion, Rupert Sheldrake - An Interesting Parallel?

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

A new book called The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake is reviewed in The Independent. From the look of it the book provides an interesting parallel to the science vs. religion argument and the techniques that many fundamentalists (both religious and atheistic) employ. I've not seen the book itself but the author is known as a bit of a outsider to mainstream science and it will no doubt play well to those already holding anti-mainstream science views.

I've come across his name once or twice before with his promotion of morphic fields as a biological information carrier (as opposed to purely DNA based mechanisms as generally accepted by the scientific community) that do the rounds of those suspicious of mainstream science (i.e. a number of my fellow Christians). Going by the review he is true to form in his new book pushing not only morphic fields but general suspicion of a number of established scientific paradigms. Frankly if some of the things mentioned in the review are in the book (cyclic variations in the speed of light that scientists are refusing to talk about??) it is frankly just bull.

Questioning established paradigms is not in itself a bad thing and is something that all scientists should be bearing in mind at one level or another as it is our job to challenge what is currently accepted or maintained. But you don't do that by (again going by the review) cherry picking the science and scientists he disputes in order to bolster his own fringe points by creating false contrasts with the accepted facts and viewpoints.

Prime in his focus are mechanistic and reductionist interpretations of science that provide inadequate (in his view) means of understanding phenomena such as consciousness, free will or biological inheritance, etc. Unfortunately he appears to paint all other scientists with this view and thus having shown the perceived flaws in these views he provides us with the alternative of his own which must now be accepted as the only reasonable alternative.

Two points are however raised by all this. Firstly science as an investigatory procedure has only just started to scrape the surface of immensely complex and novel phenomena such as consciousness. Traditionally this has been an area investigated by philosophy and theology and science as a methodology applied to investigate this area is incredibly young. It is way too early to be dismissing out of hand current viewpoints or methods that have yet to either prove themselves totally but are proving effective thus far. Failure to provide a complete and total explanation of a subject does not mean its total dismissal in favour of a vastly more unproven and unsubstantiated alternative.

And secondly not all scientists are mechanistic reductionists. Many are happily working in these areas using non-reductionist ideas and are producing results that (hopefully) will lead us to a more coherent picture of reality without the total rewrite Sheldrake appears to be demanding occurs. But of course he only highlights scientists and philosophers that fit into the mechanistic pattern (Dawkins, Dennett, etc) that allow him to argue that the scientific enterprise has gone astray and must be brought back into line, a line that only he with his unique and indisputable knowledge is able to provide.

We have here an outcry for an individual shunned/persecuted by the 'establishment' for his radical ideas (possibly unkindly but with good reason), a call to action against a corrupt process (evidenced with selective examples) and a way out that brings the whole enterprise back to a truer and just form (i.e. in a way that proves said individual justified and detractors wrong).

So to go back to the parallel with the science/religion debate its the typical technique employed by 'downtrodden' Young Earth Creationists or advocates of Intelligent Design on the one side and 'noble' arch-atheists on the other, each fighting for their corners and ignoring the majority in the middle.

And as with science/religion those operating on the fringes are held up by the media (in newspapers like The Independent but also by using his ideas in TV shows (Torchwood I'm looking at you!)) as paragons of virtue and of equal scientific calibre to their mainstream contemporary colleagues.

It is an odd thing really and I don't really know what to make of Sheldrake. He has a valid point in picking holes in mechanistic interpretations of (some) areas of science, but then in a typical fundamentalist pattern he needlessly folds that one example into his battle against many other things. The fact he has a valid initial point is probably what helps him get an audience, but doesn't mean the rest of what he says is useful or even helpful.

I wouldn't want to call him a fundamentalist as he is coming at this from (from the look of it anyway) a genuine scientific concern, but in true fundamentalist form he cannot accept that maybe his ideas are rejected not out of persecution but because of a lack of evidence and rigour.

If he wants to win the battle he needs to get out there and gather his evidence and get it published, not in books to a receptive public (another fundamentalist strategy) but in the scientific literature where his ideas can be thoroughly discussed and debate if they have the merit to do so.

If he can't do this done and/or find colleagues to do this with he should consider the case that maybe he is not been persecuted by an unthinking and hostile scientific community, but maybe instead he is just wrong. And in that case he is doing the public a huge disservice with books like these which I don't think is what he is aiming for at all.

Kepler and Intelligent Design

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:28:00 +0000

Some interesting perspectives discussed on approaches to special creation in nature from the modern ID movement and contrasted with those of the early European astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Article here.

In Their Image - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000

"...one with the Matrix..."

But then what happens to that connection? What would man and machine have in common in terms of spiritual practice? How would we worship together? If we would? What about Communion and Baptism?

It might be that there is a new form of relationship between AI and God that we as biological beings are simply not privy to (well, without physically becoming machine lifeforms ourselves...). As unsettling as this might be for us personally it is not necessarily invalid and certainly not to be feared or worried over. It would be for them, not for us and doesn't alter our own relationship with the Creator other than that we would have had a role in bringing forth a new type of being that worships and glorifies the Creator just as the Earth bought forth ourselves.

What would perhaps be most unsettling to many however is that they would likely develop their own conceptions and understandings of God that we would lack the context to engage with and which might appear alarming or heretical. The same is possible for them looking on our form of life and our theologies. There would be tough questions to be thought about on the transferability of some traditional Christian doctrines and their relevance to AI (sin, guilt, the purpose of Christ and the resurrection, etc) but we would have to remember that we have the common ground of a common intentional and relational God and to be humble with that.

Ultimately the forms that life may take may be not only unknown to us, but may in fact be unknowable by our kind. This shouldn't necessarily be a concern for Christian theology and belief as the story of Christianity (up to this point in time and in this corner of the universe!) is very much a story for this world as it has been (completely biological) up until now. Themes of restoration, salvation and ecological stewardship are our story, a telling of our relationship with God and the development of that in tandem with the development of our world. To attempt to map all that and all the consequences of that journey onto a new form of life that hasn't belonged to that story before (such as AI) may be grossly unfair to AI. It would also be without theological warrant in the same way that it was an error of understanding by some of the early Jewish Christians when they demanded that Gentile Christian converts succumb to and obey the Mosaic Law.

A further strand of 'hope' for a Christianised AI and human society (although saying hope implies that there is a problem at all) is that from an eschatological perspective all things are moving forward to their final reconciliation in Christ (whatever form that ultimately takes). It might be the case that there are entities we can know and connect with spiritually now, some we cannot yet and others that we will only know then, at the end, through union with Christ. Different forms of AI could easily fall into any of these categories.

The glory of God's creation exceeds all of our imaginings and is likely to encompass a huge diversity of possibilities when it comes to thinking, spiritual beings within it. In the same way that we proclaim and manifest the Kingdom of God today on Earth by showing practical care and love for the poor and marginalised in our society we can also urge the arrival of that Kingdom, its values and its King by being open to new entities and by rejoicing in the diversity of their very natures and their ultimate commonality with us from our Lord.

In Their Image - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000

"Your move, Flynn..."

The possibility that a collection of a self-developing and learning algorithms that would constitute an AI being a child of God on an equal par with a human should certainly make us think about what we are doing. In many ways we already have this dilemma when it comes to animals on our world and arguably young children as well. We cannot put our finger on any cross over moment or stage of development and say ah, yes, they know God or they don't. We see change over time, seasoning and maturing. But in the meantime we entertain and value the possibility and act accordingly. It is certainly not for us to decide an individual’s spiritual status. That is a role that is ultimately reserved for God.

I think the development (awakening?) of AI would be a very interesting and exciting time, if we do create true spiritual, self-aware AI. Or if it creates itself from an earlier form of AI that we create - a form of techno-evolution as it were. It is pretty hard to judge where such life forms may lead. At the start at least they will be like us having been fashioned by our species in our image to serve useful and relevant functions to us. But who knows where they will go?

They will be a new type of life, a type of life that has not had to go through countless billions of years of physical and mental change and development to get where they are. Biological evolution may have predisposed us in some ways to selfishness and savagery, but it has also predisposed us to community and care. How to we establish and transfer the best of our species to AI? How to we engage it with the lessons of our past planetary and human history?

It might be the case that in the future there would be a great diversity of AI out there, operating at different 'levels' and/or measures of embodiment - from simple software programs confined to computers or virtual environments, to systems that have some limited real world interaction or right up to fully autonomous physical robots interacting fully with human society. In effect they would be creating their own kingdom of life, the utility and nature of which may be nothing like what our world has previously encountered. In fact they may decide our world is not suitable for them or their purposes and move off it, becoming the first interstellar colonists from Earth.

AI will initially have very little history or culture of their own unless they choose to embrace ours as their own or view themselves as a continuation of our society. From a theological perspective our God will be their God since there is no other and that God is universal. That will be our most basic common connection with them.

The rest is up for grabs.

In Their Image - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000

"Doesn't anybody know how to turn off the program..?"

We all too easily cite ourselves as the only example of intelligent and spiritually aware entities in the universe. Now, leaving aside the possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligences and simply by looking at our own world, we cannot actually say either for definite. It is certainly true from a theological perspective that God has charged humanity with tasks, with responsibilities that are different to the creatures around us and he certainly seems to have a strong relationship with our species. But that is one thing, it is quite another to say no other species has or even can have relationship with the Creator. Our relationship is certainly unique, but not necessarily exclusive. The type of our relationship certainly seems defined by our mental and physical abilities which are suitable for it rather than any quality implanted by God other than the conscious call He makes on our lives.

Increasingly as we study the animal kingdom we find that all aspects of human intelligence and emotion that we would traditionally attribute solely tour own species are mirrored in many animal species. From a neurological perspective as well we humans share an immense commonality with our animal brethren in terms of brain structure and function. Given that consciousness and a sense of 'self' (including our spirituality, our sense of the Divine) appear to be rooted somehow in the physicality of the brain the possibility exists of other animals sharing at least some aspects of spirituality and that sense of the Divine. Certainly this should not surprise us when we think of the many Biblical passages describing God’s interest in the rest of creation and how the creation looks to Him for provision and to praise in their own ways.

In a similar manner to disregard the possibility of self/consciousness in a non-biological lifeform is equally biased towards biological lifeforms as that is our only experience of life thus far. Again, just because our example happens to be biologically based it doesn't mean that life can only be exclusively so. Biology may turn out to be the only way that life could naturally arise but now that it has (in the form of us) we can use technology to open out new possibilities for the physical material of the universe.

Although VB's post rightfully discusses the possible negative effects on humans I think it is also worth contemplating the other side of the equation. Not only is it an interesting exercise in theological thought as the example of the ChatBot shows the immediacy of serious discussion is also there. Not to do so runs the chance of discrimination against artificial intelligences in both our churches and wider society and also opens out the potential that we might unwittingly (or not) abuse (and enslave) a new form of life. That life could resent it and if spiritual, cry out for release to its Creator – beyond ourselves. Not exactly a good reflection on our species or a great example for others.

Does it really matter that we might get it wrong though? Am I not worrying over nothing? Surely it is just a machine? Maybe it is intelligent but not spiritual so does it really matter? Maybe it doesn’t, but if in terms of its own outward behaviour it is so 'human' that we cannot tell the difference and respond to it accordingly then we do have cause to urge caution.

There is perhaps a wider question in creating AI that we need to be asking before we put ourselves into this potential dilemma which ties back into VB’s original concerns.. Why are we creating AI? What do we want it to do for us? Is it just an experiment, a way to show to ourselves that we can? Or do we want it to flourish by itself and stand on its own feet (if it has any)? If we create it simply to serve and to make our lives easier, to remove ‘work’ from us do we lose something of ourselves in the process? For things like the ChatBots of today I don’t think this is necessarily such a strong question but if we create a true AI life form we better make damn sure we know why and understand the enormity of what we are doing.

In many ways it would be no different to creating a new child. A new independent life form which would need some form of nurturing, created in our image (and thus in the image of God) would be bought into the world. Having a child is a huge responsibility and privilege (hence why having a child is considered by many to be a gift from God) and an AI life form would be no different.

With such a gift are we selfish or honouring towards God?

In Their Image - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000

"There are no new messages..."

There's an interesting post on Vicky Beeching's blog on how increasingly sophisticated Artificial Intelligences (AI) may impact on human roles and interactivity on science. She posts some great questions at the end as well which I hope to explore in a bit more detail here.

Specifically:

Do you think you could be fooled by a highly programmed ChatBot at the end of a phone?

What spiritual questions does all of this raise about our value of people vs machines?

Rightly she voices concerns that the use of AI as an alternative communication tool may in some way degenerate the interactive experience of communication that human-human communication generally enjoy today. This is because it seems to become more one sided and one directional as it becomes increasingly human-machine rather than human-human. The specific example she sites is that of an AI 'ChatBot' at the other end of a customer services call.

We must be concerned for each other and the consequences of replacing people unnecessarily with technology. Everybody is different and while I like to use automated shopping tills I know that many of my friends do not and will still prefer manned ones. I find telephone software agents incredibly annoying and just want to speak to a real person immediately, others that I know find the agent much more relaxing and a less stressful experience. One size doesn’t fit all people or situations and we need to be both sensitive and courageous with that.

I was intrigued by the question about being “fooled” by a ChatBot as increasingly the sophistication of these programs is reaching this point so it becomes a very real possibility. Everyone would like to say no to this I imagine but human-machine interactions are already very two-way with humans talking to their cars, singing along with their stereos and machines and software fighting alongside humans in both real-war situations and as team mates in many modern video games. These are just a few examples where we in certain situations, at certain times treat non-human constructs as other persons. There is already a relational aspect to human-machine interaction and this is without anybody being “fooled” in the way VB’s post means.

I do however disagree on that. I would argue that to talk about humans being “fooled” is a very human-centric view. The human user is fooled into the belief that they are talking to another real human but surely only because the ChatBot gives good cause to. If we got to this point where a human is engaging a machine fully as an equal it is probably at a stage where we could say that it is identical to say that the human is in reality talking to a life-form that is not human but is a person as well. And it is only human-bias and discomfort that would deny this. Questions of being “fooled” become questions of ‘getting to know you’ instead!