Masters or Slaves?: AI and the Future of Humanity

For most people Artificial Intelligence is the dream of sci-fi writers or the scaremongering of popular authors who suggest AI will soon surpass human intelligence. The rapid increase in computer power coupled with the availability of vast amounts of personal data has resulted in the widespread deployment of AI around the world. This significant uptake of current technology across a large range of industry and commerce, as well as by public institutions and healthcare, has created a range of ethical dilemmas. These include data privacy and freedom, the influence of AI on our personhood through to the use of human-like digital agents, the assignment of moral agency to self-drive vehicles, and the impact on work. Our response to these ethical issues will determine whether we become slaves to or masters of this technology. Masters or Slaves? lays a theological and ethical foundation for our response by considering what the Bible teaches about our being made in God's image, moral responsibility, the dignity of work, and idolatry. A framework for evaluating the impact of AI is proposed, starting with a taxonomy of applications reflecting different influences and challenges to humanness. A virtue approach is used for determining our responses, as individuals and as a society. The book concludes with a number of propositions as a 'Christian manifesto' for AI.