The intriguing thing about your comment (well, one of them) is how the human-to-AI dynamic (AI as a reflection of human capacities) mirrors the way many theologians understand the imago Dei (human beings as a reflection of divine attributes). It’s almost an inversion of Freud’s critique of religion as wish-fulfillment or projection. Instead of saying we imagine God as a person because we are persons, Christian theology suggests the opposite: we are persons because God is personal — or perhaps better, suprapersonal.
This comes into sharper focus within Trinitarian theology: God is three persons in one essence, whereas human beings are one essence, one person. From that perspective, one of the clearest ways humans bear the divine image may be in our capacity to create other “persons” — beings who instantiate personhood differently than we do. A divine person, a human person, and (if we stretch the category this far) an AI “person” would all express personhood in distinct modes of embodiment.
It’s not quite Neo-Platonic emanation. It’s more like a child learning a craft from a parent — say, a young girl in the kitchen with her mother, playing with scraps of dough while her mother bakes a pie. The child’s pie is recognizably pie-like, but not of the same quality or origin as the original.
This is really good, Michael! Love the emphasis on what is uniquely human and can't be generated by A.I. It's highlighting what has always been most important.
Loved this. Thank you for sharing! I found the principles of GCUT useful. To add something I've been wrestling with, I think part of the reason that AI challenges our view of various anthropologies is because it is trained on us. It creates a misdirection. If an AI was trained on your favorite author and produced text akin to his/her writing, you might appreciate the output and ascribe some humanity to it that actually belongs to that original author. The AI sermons hold a strange weight due to the scores of pastors we don't see it mimicking, all of whom may be relational, embodied, justice-oriented, and open to God’s Spirit. AI feels human because it is -- refracted. But copying traits of real human beings does not create one
The intriguing thing about your comment (well, one of them) is how the human-to-AI dynamic (AI as a reflection of human capacities) mirrors the way many theologians understand the imago Dei (human beings as a reflection of divine attributes). It’s almost an inversion of Freud’s critique of religion as wish-fulfillment or projection. Instead of saying we imagine God as a person because we are persons, Christian theology suggests the opposite: we are persons because God is personal — or perhaps better, suprapersonal.
This comes into sharper focus within Trinitarian theology: God is three persons in one essence, whereas human beings are one essence, one person. From that perspective, one of the clearest ways humans bear the divine image may be in our capacity to create other “persons” — beings who instantiate personhood differently than we do. A divine person, a human person, and (if we stretch the category this far) an AI “person” would all express personhood in distinct modes of embodiment.
It’s not quite Neo-Platonic emanation. It’s more like a child learning a craft from a parent — say, a young girl in the kitchen with her mother, playing with scraps of dough while her mother bakes a pie. The child’s pie is recognizably pie-like, but not of the same quality or origin as the original.
Excellent Substack! I am really looking forward to your book! I used this SS as the basis for a reflection I gave this morning at work.
This is really good, Michael! Love the emphasis on what is uniquely human and can't be generated by A.I. It's highlighting what has always been most important.
Loved this. Thank you for sharing! I found the principles of GCUT useful. To add something I've been wrestling with, I think part of the reason that AI challenges our view of various anthropologies is because it is trained on us. It creates a misdirection. If an AI was trained on your favorite author and produced text akin to his/her writing, you might appreciate the output and ascribe some humanity to it that actually belongs to that original author. The AI sermons hold a strange weight due to the scores of pastors we don't see it mimicking, all of whom may be relational, embodied, justice-oriented, and open to God’s Spirit. AI feels human because it is -- refracted. But copying traits of real human beings does not create one