The Breath of Life

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 

There is a belief that AI (artificial intelligence) will lead to AGI (artificial general intelligence (human-level intelligence)) which will lead to ASI (artificial super intelligence) and that somewhere along the way machines will become self-aware. Really? How? 

I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I have accepted Him as Lord and Savior, and I view the world from a biblical point of view and stand firm on the word of God. I am also a software developer and have made a career of writing code for over 30 years. If machines are going to one day be sentient, self-aware, I'm not seeing it. What programmer or intelligent machine can write the algorithm for consciousness? What programmer or intelligent machine can write the algorithm for love and hate or, for that matter, write an algorithm that can tell the difference between the two?

I don’t know what the breakdown is between believers and non-believers in the AI community, but to believe we can replicate consciousness with an algorithm or that during an iteration of increasing intelligence, it will just happen, is a little farfetched for me.

The Miller-Urey experiment conducted in the early 1950’s failed to produce evidence to support the theory of evolution, that is, how life began. Now we’re being led to believe that a metal box and computer chips will lead to a sentient being? I believe the first letter in the acronym AI will outlive us all. Artificial. Just because a machine uses the noun, I, does not mean it has attained consciousness. It is just artificial intelligence using natural language processing. It is not self-aware. I just don't accept that the theory of evolution is fact and has proven there is no God. I also do not believe we can create life in a computer.

God-fearing men and women understand we are spiritual, physical, and emotional beings. Without the spirit, we are dead. Deny the spirit and we are dead for all of eternity. No lab experiment, no smart computer will lead to the creation of life. But I will keep an open mind. Maybe one day little Frankenstein’s will walk out of the lab and join us in this quest we call life. Maybe one day, HAL’s cousin AL will give us the answer to the origins of life. Or maybe we just need to wait for E.T. to land and explain how life started on our wonderful planet. Until then, I’m sticking with the word of God.

Forgive my sarcasm. I just ask that you keep an open mind. Let me suggest flipping open and reading the first book of the bible, Genesis. See what God has to say about how we were created.  

God breaths into each of us life (Genesis 2:7). Belief in Jesus Christ is life eternal.

Are you ready to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

He is risen. He is alive. He will return to take us home. 

Amen.