Since the year 2000, global corporations have been stepping up the use of machines to replace people. Hundreds of billions of pounds are being poured into developing yet more sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) systems. We are living through the biggest technical revolution in history.

As a result, AI is sliding into every aspect of our life almost unnoticed. We just accept it as we did CDs, VHS and DVDs. But it is not the same. It should raise ethical and social concerns – and it is beginning to do so.

The edges of our reality are also progressively becoming blurred by AI-driven Virtual Reality (VR). It’s an illusion - a deception even!

How should we respond to it as people of faith?

Should we see it as just another tool to make life easier or, as Elon Musk has said, as a greater threat to humanity than nuclear war? It certainly feeds into our need for connection but ultimately it restricts us to the closed virtual world of machine systems. Spiritually it is a dead end.

Whatever religion you follow, faith in a Creator is about a living connection to the very Spirit of Life: the essence of all freedom and equality. This Greater Cosmic Reality is written into our DNA, in atoms and stars. It underpins the mystery of consciousness, of life and death.             

AI may be a human construct but what we do with it will affect our future as a species. It is an illusion. Let us be careful where we place our faith.

Written by John Pickering at www.onelight2beyond.com

To share an insight about how your faith impacts your view of things, please contact: faithviewpoint@gmail.com.