Data Dreams - A Catholic Perspective on Artificial Intelligence

By Eric Hanna, S.J.

“Data, if you ever do realize your dream of becoming human, I don't think you'll be a bad one.”

− Star Trek: The Next Generation

It is wrong to assume that a religious understanding of the sacredness of life is automatically opposed to the concept of artificial intelligence. We believe that human souls are sacred … but does this imply that an intelligent machine, being non-human, must be a soulless impossibility? What is sacred about intelligence? What can be sacred about machines? To begin to answer these questions I offer a few philosophical and theological tools. At the moment, human-like artificial intelligence is but a dream: an unknown possibility. But exploring our dreams can help us learn more about ourselves.

Thinking Through the Evidence with Richard Dawkins

By Adam Hincks, S.J.

Hamlet: Do you see nothing there?
Queen: Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

Back in December, Al Jazeera aired an interview of Richard Dawkins by Mehdi Hasan. Despite the content being nothing really new under the sun―Dawkins was defending his popular arguments against religion and faith in God―it was an engaging programme because Hasan is a forthright interviewer and Dawkins is as cool as a cucumber―surely one of the reasons for his popularity. It’s hard not to like a gentleman.

During the question period in the last third of the programme, there was one question (starting at about 32:15) that really got to the heart of the matter, in my view. An older gentleman asked Dawkins, “If the Almighty God appears suddenly on the cloud or in the airs or [in] part of the universe, what is your reaction? Are you going to believe, or are you going to go against him?” In other words: “What evidence would you need for God’s existence?” Here is the response: