AI Sentience and the Human Soul

  7Then the Lord God formed a man c 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)

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  (Genesis 1:27)

The word above for living being is "nephesh."  Literally "the man became a living nephesh."
This is distinguished from rocks, trees, shrubs or simple molecules.  

I just washed some of the key speeches at the AI Summit in France.  There was a debate about whether AI should be regulated (mainly continental European) in order to protect human control and human jobs- or whether we should de-regulate AI in the believe it will enhance human production and comfort- even multiplying (but changing) jobs.  Vice President Vance was pushing for deregulation pointing out that new technologies tend to create new and better jobs, and we do not need to fear change.  Yet, we are told that most in technology are publicly nervous about generative AI.  

I also watched a video that is AI deregulatory friendly.  It was saying that to an alien from outerspace AI Bot 3 is just as salient as human beings.  It said that we are just an organic machine.  

The problem with this is a devaluing of human beings into just rocks to be played with or used.  Our value is not simply in service to others, or being productive.  If so, humans can be unplugged or killed with no moral detriment.  In fact, if we are just stuff, morals are reduced to complex mathematical formulas.  But if we, as the Bible says, are made in the image of God- every human being has value just by existing.  We have the breath (nephesh) of God in us.  It is not a matter of just being "self-aware."  Believing that God made you makes you different, special, unique, and valuable.  Christianity teaches that our souls last beyond this life- we don't rush out- or have to be replaced or remade.  

Sentience is not a machine telling us it is or is not sentient.  It really is not just self-awareness.  For humans self awareness is only one symptom of the existence of the soul.  But it is evidence.  For example, the human body loses and grows millions of cells each day.  But we are aware that we are the same person despite these changes.  This is an argument for the soul- this self-awareness.  But it is not the same as the soul- the nephesh.  If we cannot believe in a soul, we find ultimately very little value in our lives or our existence as opposed to something that thinks faster and requires less resources and makes less mistakes.  But if we have a soul, then who we are and what we do matters.  




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