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03 - Artificial Intelligence Will
Save the World
1. Those who witnessed the beginning of the internet may remember
the "Millennium Bug," which caused global panic at the end of the
last century. Around the world there was concern about an
apocalyptic scenario in which airplanes would fall from the sky,
hospitals would lose control of their equipment, and computer
systems would collapse on the first day of the year 2000. The
fateful day came, and nothing happened.
The Industrial Revolution was viewed pessimistically by Pope Leo
XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891, which warned about
the exploitation and social misery caused by economic progress
without justice and dignity. The document denounced the degrading
conditions of workers, insufficient wages, exhausting working hours,
and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few wealthy owners.
The concern was justified, but society did not degrade as a
consequence of the industrialization of the economy.
Today, there is another legitimate concern about the impact of AI on
society. Some experts even fear that AI may exterminate humanity.
However, just as happened with the Industrial Revolution, AI will
follow the same pattern, and society will not only survive but also
prosper immensely. Artificial intelligence will be our salvation,
not our downfall.
2. Artificial Intelligence, like nuclear energy, is neutral by
nature. The danger does not lie in the technology itself, but in how
we choose to use it. While we worry excessively about scenarios in
which AI destroys humanity, we have lived for decades with the
nuclear threat - a real and immediate threat that could annihilate
humanity instantly.
There are fears that we humans will become cognitively deficient and
passive in the face of technology that will be more intelligent than
we are and will do everything for us. We should look at it from
another point of view and see the glass as half full. AI will be our
teacher and master in all areas of human knowledge. We will be able
to learn about everything and anything that interests us. Just as
writing, criticized by Socrates in the myth of Thoth (Plato's
Phaedrus) for supposedly weakening men's memory, did not make us
less intelligent, AI will not "dumb us down" either.
3. Consider the historical Jesus - that man of flesh and blood,
anatomically equal to you and me, who ended up condemned to death on
the cross. He was a simple man, a Jew born in Nazareth, in Galilee,
and most likely did not know how to read or write. The important
historian of early Christianity, John Dominic Crossan, after
studying first-century Galilee from sociological, economic, and
archaeological perspectives, concluded that Jesus was very likely
illiterate.
As a humble Galilean, would Jesus have known how to create some
ingenious machine or invention, as his contemporary Heron of
Alexandria did? Would he have been able to master the mathematical
calculations required to build pyramids, bridges, or aqueducts?
Could he have read and understood Euclid's Elements, or the works of
Plato and Aristotle?
The answer is certainly no. But being simple and unfamiliar with the
most advanced knowledge of his time did not make him a human being
of little value. On the contrary: he was an extraordinary man who
brought the world the message of salvation for humanity, the path to
eternal happiness. Jesus was an exceptional man and left his mark on
history, despite being a humble carpenter.
Bringing this to our own time, with the help of artificial
intelligence and robots taking over both the physically hardest work
and the intellectual work of doctors, engineers, programmers,
lawyers, and many others, we will have more time to develop other
capacities and powers. Artificial Intelligence will allow us to grow
spiritually, psychically, and mentally, and we may achieve immense
powers, precisely because we will no longer need to exhaust
ourselves working merely to guarantee our own livelihood and that of
our families. AI and robots will do the hard work, and this will
give us space to evolve as people and become special human beings,
almost a "superman." We will have time for spiritual development and
will become similar to Jesus in his powers - after all, he himself
affirmed that we can do everything he did and even greater works
(John 14:12).
The revolution of artificial intelligence will not transform only
work, the economy, and technology. It may promote an even deeper
change: a transformation in human values themselves. Historically,
society has always valued "HAVING" over "BEING." Human beings have
worked, competed, accumulated, conquered territories, exploited
natural resources, waged wars, and subjugated the weak with a single
intention: wealth, power, and strength as signs of superiority. The
admired man was, and still is, the one who possesses more land, more
money, more influence, more authority, and more control over others.
However, the new era of the human revolution, Artificial
Intelligence, may radically alter this logic. As machines take over
a large part of productive, administrative, technical, and
intellectual tasks, material possession will cease to be the main
criterion of distinction among human beings. When the production of
goods and services becomes increasingly automated, there will be
abundance of everything, and the value of the individual will no
longer lie in what he possesses or produces, but in what he is.
In this new world, perhaps human beings will begin to admire not
only those rich in material goods, but those rich in good feelings,
pure consciousness, wisdom, sensitivity, and moral virtue. True
prestige may belong to those who develop higher psychic, emotional,
and spiritual capacities; people capable of loving their neighbor,
understanding, creating, forgiving, and inspiring others toward good.
Humanity, then, may pass through a great civilizational transition:
leaving the era in which what matters is HAVING and entering the era
in which what matters most is BEING. The most admired beauty will
not be merely outward beauty or the brilliance of wealth, but the
beauty of the soul. The most respected power will not be the power
to dominate, but the power to serve, heal, guide, help, and
illuminate the lives of others.
Artificial Intelligence, by freeing human beings from many material
limitations, may open space for a new question: after man no longer
needs to conquer so many things, will he finally learn to conquer
himself?
If that happens, the greatest revolution AI will promote in human
civilization will not be technological, but spiritual. It will not
be merely the creation of more intelligent machines, but the birth
of a new humanity, more conscious of its value on the planet and in
the universe.
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