Keswick: ‘My conversations online with AI’

Have you experimented with ChatGPT or Google Bard? These two extraordinary chatbots based on large language models can have ‘conversations’ about anything and everything.

It is like an interactive form of Wikipedia, a helpline, a travel guide, a review site, and much, much more. The conversations can mimic ordinary human chat to an incredible degree. They were very excited to hear all about my new dog and asked sensible questions, though it was a bit like talking to a child who has just read a book and wants to list all the facts they have learned.

Both these tools are a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI). True or real intelligence is found in living beings. Animals have varying degrees of intelligence and human beings have a capacity for intelligence far beyond that. But AI can outstrip human intelligence across all kinds of metrics: memory, analysis, decision-making, precision. Google Bard tells me that: ‘For tasks that require speed, accuracy, and repetitiveness, AI is often better than humans. For tasks that require creativity, empathy, and common sense, humans are often better than AI.’ ChatGPT makes a similar point and adds: ‘While AI can excel in specific domains, it cannot fully replicate the broad range of skills, experiences, and consciousness that humans possess. The goal of AI is often to augment human abilities and assist in solving complex problems, rather than replacing humans entirely.’

Well, that’s a relief.

These examples of AI have not quite met the Turing Test yet. That is, you can tell that you aren’t talking to a real human being. The responses are good imitations of human conversation, but they are definitely imitations. They don’t ring true.

When I asked if they were human, both said no, and explained what they are. ChatGPT also said this: ‘I do not possess consciousness, emotions, or physical form.’ I asked what it thought a human was. Its response mentioned cognitive, physical, social and emotional characteristics. Google Bard, by contrast, thinks that this is a question we must all decide for ourselves, which led to a lengthy ethical argument about whether all people are human, and whether all humans are people. In the end, it tied itself in knots by trying to be both tolerant of all views and demanding that all views are equally tolerant. It is rather reassuring that even AI can be illogical and incoherent.

The applications of AI extend far beyond an online chatbot. It is credited with medical developments in the fight against MRSA. We all enjoy its benefits in voice-activated devices or filtering out the spam in our emails. AI can be used to make accurate models of climate-change effects, predict pandemics, and protect biodiversity. But experts are also warning that it has the potential to make human beings extinct. It’s also easy for it to be dangerously wrong, exclusionary and biased.

That potential for great good and great harm is just another way in which AI mimics humanity. We too were created with enormous potential to care for the earth, to build civilisations, to make decisions, and to bring our intelligence to bear on all kinds of problems. But human beings have also shown themselves capable of mass destruction and unthinkable wickedness. Not everything done by humans is humane.

Our humanity is not defined by our capacity for moral reasoning or emotional understanding. There are amazing examples of people demonstrating exceptional altruism, compassion and love. But we can all think of people who demonstrated exceptional cruelty, selfishness and hatred. For every person who stuns us with their intellectual capacity, there is someone who struggles with basic literacy and numeracy. Some human beings exhibit great physical prowess, but most of us will never match a Mo Farah or a Paula Radcliffe.

But all of us will far outstrip Google Bard or ChatGPT in our humanity. Not because of any skill or ability. Not because there are things we can do that they can’t. But because we aren’t artificial. We are truly human.

We are human because we are created by God in His image. In His image we are created. Male and female, we are created by God, for God, and in the likeness of God. We are created body and soul, life and breath. We are created to care for the earth, to rule and subdue it. We are created to build communities, families and nations. We are created to know God and be known by Him. We are created to worship.

Whether you are old or young, whether you are disabled, whether you are unconscious, whether you feel deep emotions or struggle to process your feelings, whether you are compassionate or intellectual or creative or not – whoever you are and whatever your life is like, you are human. You are made by God, in His image. You are precious and significant. You are real and true and known by God.

Although our humanity is distorted by our own sin, as well as our experience of living in a fallen world, it is nevertheless true and real. We don’t need AI chatbots to tell us what it means to be human. We need our creator God to tell us, and His son Jesus Christ to show us, and His Holy Spirit to bring it to new life within us.

Ros Clarke is a human being. She has been alive for nearly 50 years and following Christ for 33 of those years. She has studied physics and theology, and especially focussed on the Song of Songs. She loves to read and write, and open up the Bible with anyone who will listen. Ros Clarke is the author of the 2023 Keswick Convention theme book Human covering various topics surrounding this year’s theme. The book will be available to buy from the 10ofthose bookstall at Keswick Convention as well as from IVP: ivpbooks.com/human-930

Ros will be hosting a four-part seminar series during Week 3 of Keswick Convention on Being Human.