AI has become a kind of trigger word for me lately.
On one hand, it’s an incredible innovation that has progressed exponentially in the last decade.
On the other, it’s become a tool to spread fear and uncertainty across the world.
The talk of the town is that AI will fundamentally change the way the world operates. And I don’t disagree.
AI has the power to radically disrupt virtually every industry.
Banking. Creative. Infrastructure. Government. Everything.
Although the technology has become more advanced, I believe there is one fundamental thing that AI will never be able to do, and that is love.
Now, the die-hards will tell me that I’m wrong. But here’s the basis on which I’m making my claim.
In order to truly have the capacity to love, there needs to be a party that is self-sacrificing.
Now, the last I checked, the main function of AI is to leverage data to draw logical conclusions, mainly to solve the problems that we (humans) ask it to solve.
AI in itself learns when we give input, AI interprets that input, draws on it’s “past knowledge” and puts together a response. Without historical data, AI is nothing.
So what does this have to do with self-sacrifice?
AI will always fall short of the ability to love, because AI itself does not have the capacity to sacrifice itself for the good of another.
Sacrifice is the fundamental ingredient that distinguishes humans from machines.
Sacrifice is often contrary to logic and reason.
One party gives everything for the good of another. There is no calculation that can make sense of sacrificial offerings. The sacrificial act, cannot be quantified or calculated.
When I think of this issue of AI and the ability to love, I think of the movie “Her.”
It’s an intriguing tale of the lengths people will go to find love – even if we seek it in the wrong places.
It’s too easy to turn to technology to affirm us, to pleasure us, to love us.
But the truth is that technology is a servant of information that we feed it.
Technology itself is inherently unoriginal.
So if you’re feeling loved by AI, it’s likely because someone taught it to be that way, not that it is itself a loving being.
AI will change the future, there’s no doubt about that.
But what brings me comfort is that the truth is that we, humans, created in the image of God will always have an advantage because the one thing that makes everything make sense, is love.
There is nothing in the world that can replace our need for love.
There is nothing in the world that can replace the requirements to love.
There is nothing in this world that can replace the source of love, which is God the Father.