I am of the opinion that one cannot begin to comprehend the risks of artificial intelligence without knowing oneself. We are embedded in a culture of “more” that teaches we should never be satisfied and we never see that “more” for what it is, an idol. The drive for the more, more wealth, more power and with that somehow a better life for oneself is the context in which decisions about artificial intelligence are being made.

More is the zeitgeist of the norm of civilization, so much so that most of us are willing to accept it as desirable and our true calling.

Christians, particularly American Christians, are raised so deep within the norm of civilization that they do not know or do not comprehend that Jesus preached an alternative to the norm of civilization, which he called the Kingdom of God.

What is the zeitgeist of a civilization under the reign of God?

Consider the story of how God provided for Israel while they wandered in the desert told in Exodus 16, particularly verse 4:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.”

Consider how Jesus taught how to pray as told in Matthew 6:5-15, particularly verse 11:

Give us today our daily bread

Consider this teaching attributed to Paul told in 1 Timothy 6:3-10, particularly verses 6-10:

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

The zeitgeist of the Kingdom is contentment, or if you prefer, enough.

Today Fr. Stephen Freeman writes:

The modern cult of excellence is largely defined by our consumer economy. Excellence sells.

Our lives are driven by false assumptions in which we become our own greatest disappointments, all the while wondering at the excellence of others. In truth, our lives lack true wonder. We do not attend to the things that are most directly at hand. That which is uniquely proper to each of us is not our marketable skill – it is our very existence! That we do not rightly see our own existence means that we fail to rightly see the existence of others. We become like a movie audience in which all of the real people sit in the dark, unaware of one another, with the digital images dancing on the screen as the center of our short-term world.

Contentment allows us to remain attentive to where we are (and who we are). The drive of our culture always distracts us and focuses our attention to where we are not and to where we want to be. It creates an anxiety and makes our present life a distraction. The present is a marvelous place. It is also the place of the heart.

The obsession with more is the unnoticed hot water raising the temperature of our culture to the point at which we will burn. A characteristic of humanity is our development and use tools or technology to make life better. Technology does tremendous good for the world, but we know that the dynamite that bores tunnels through mountains also propels projectiles that kill. Obsession with more leads to abuses of technology, the consequences of which become more dire with each iteration.

The solution is not the elimination of technology, rather it is the changing of our minds about how we should live. What Jesus proclaimed more than two thousand years ago is more relevant today than ever!