When it comes to matters of the soul, the Catholic Church has been one of its closest observers of human nature for centuries now. So, as the field of artificial intelligence grapples with the possibilities of emulating human intelligence, perhaps the Vatican would be in a good position to provide some insight into the current challenges of emulating human intelligence in digital form.
On Monday, Pope Francis passed away, though in January, the Vatican, under the auspices of Pope Francis, posted a document, “Antiqua et Nova” or “Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence,” that grappled with this very question.
It serves as the Church’s response to the emergence of AI, which the Church admits is bringing about a profound “epochal change” across numerous aspects of human life.
For decades now, the tech community has been eagerly working towards what they call artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is to say, machines that could act and behave like humans, and even fool human beings into assuming they are real people (which is the very challenge of the Turing Test).
Futurist Ray Kurzweil is convinced machines will have a human-like sentience in the near future, as is OpenAI co-founder/CEO Sam Altman.
But is this even the right way to think about how AI works? Or how it could work?
Antiqua et Nova back centuries for wisdom back centuries, not only to the Bible, but to philosophers and theologians who struggled with the question of what it means to be a human being.
It concludes that human intelligence and the artificial sort are two entirely different things, driven by different needs altogether.
“Human intelligence is not primarily about completing functional tasks but about understanding and actively engaging with reality in all its dimensions,” the Vatican writes. “Drawing an overly close equivalence between human intelligence and AI risks succumbing to a functionalist perspective, where people are valued based on the work they can perform.”
AI’s logical mathematical framework “imposes inherent limitations.” As a result, “AI should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence but as a product of it.”
In an interview with Vatican News, Bishop Paul Tighe asserted that “Antiqua et Nova” was not written to be the final word on AI, but rather to spark debate with a set of assertions to consider.
What AI experts may miss is “a broader understanding of intelligence, which is about our human capacity to find purpose and meaning in life,” he said.
We’re No Mere Machines
By now, we know that computers can do many complex human tasks at a rate that far exceeds what humans themselves are capable of. And in many cases, they do this with an efficiency that can spook humans into thinking they already possess human-like characteristics.
But this does not follow that the machines engage in the kind of understanding that characterizes human intelligence, the paper argued.
The paper draws not only on Christian philosophical traditions but also on centuries of Western classical theological and philosophical study, centering around what separates humankind from the other beasts that roam the Earth.
Humans are rational beings. Our intelligence draws on two facets: one is reasoning, which is a discursive process to discover the truth; the other is the intellect, which is an intuitive gasp of the truth.
“A proper understanding of human intelligence, therefore, cannot be reduced to the mere acquisition of facts or the ability to perform specific tasks.”
Computers can certainly be rational, and by collecting data, they certainly can build up an intuition.
But we are also deeply rooted in our bodily experience, and transcend the material world via a spiritual dimension (which includes the love we may feel with one another and for God). Our search for truth transcends the physical realm to embrace these “transcendent realities.” This is the work of the soul, the philosophers of yore have argued.
And this is where computers fall short, the Vatican charges.
Humans are not mere machines for acquiring facts and performing tasks. Because a person can be rational does not mean rationality is the person’s sole function.
All the frivolous ways we spend our time — basking in a sunny day, enjoying a beverage with a friend — may not be so frivolous after all.
Hallucinating False Idols
Pope Francis has commented in the past that the word “intelligence,” when used in conjunction with AI, “can prove misleading.”
And confusing. AI is designed to imitate the human intelligence that designed it. It is trained on the results of human creativity and generates new content with the skill of humans. It makes choices anonymously, and often without direct precedent.
The Turing Test is, after all, a test on how a computer can perform certain tasks. It is a behavioral definition of being human, focusing only on matching outputs.
“AI’s advanced features give it sophisticated abilities to perform tasks, but not the ability to think,” The Vatican asserts. We proactively seek to understand and engage with reality. We are driven by a desire to know, as Aristotle pointed out.
For the Catholic Church, the Pope is the direct representative of Jesus Christ, and the Bible is the word of God.
So while we don’t know what God thinks of AI, we know the Bible takes a dim view of imitators, those entities that falsely take the form of a deity.
And for the most fervent, AI can lead one into that trap, the authors warn. Hallucinations, anyone?
“The presumption of substituting God for an artifact of human making is idolatry, a practice Scripture explicitly warns against.”
As we journey through life, we seek to understand the reality that is around us and use all the tools at our disposal to do so, including not only rational thought and hard-won intuition but also creativity and humor. And these things may not so easily be replicated.
Now, if we can only get the Buddha to weigh in…
Update: This post was updated Monday to include news of the Pope’s death.
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Pope Francis had some well-considered views about the differences between artificial intelligence and the real thing. They could be useful in thinking about AI going forward.