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Will we become masters or slaves of artificial intelligence?
Find out in Jeremy’s latest book.
Summary
Artificial Intelligence (AI) pervades much of our lives. We use facial recognition to open our phones, and the state uses it to track us – so what’s the problem? Decisions are made using machine learning on our private and personal data, from shopping habits to medical history –have we lost control? We order our digital world in conversation with chatbots – how convenient, but is it changing our relationships with people? The prospect of a self-driving vehicle lies just around the corner – should we care that it might run over a child to save the passenger’s life?
Jeremy Peckham shows us how we have become seduced by progress, embracing AI applications for their convenience, yet unwittingly diminishing our ability to be God’s image-bearers and losing moral responsibility. Rooted in the biblical truth that humanity is created in God’s image, Masters or Slaves? explores six ways in which AI has an impact today. We are challenged where, and how, to set boundaries, both privately and as a society, in order not to fall into addiction, slavery and idolatry.
This book shines brightly in the constellation of books on the subject. Written by an expert, it is historically situated, technologically informed, well-modulated in tone, coherent in argument, theological in orientation, and judicious in illustrations. More than a book of conclusions, its design and structure model the best in the art of robust critique while offering possible ways to consider the appropriate deployment of Artificial Intelligence.
More Commendations for Masters or Slaves?
This is a book that needed to be written. We are surrounded by technologies which are new and ever changing. They impinge on almost every area of our lives – from work to leisure, from personal freedom to self-image. And they are not neutral. How do they affect us as human beings made in the image of God? How might AI have a negative impact on authentic relationships? How do we avoid technology becoming a cruel taskmaster? Jeremy Peckham has a profound grasp of both biblical truth and the AI revolution. He helps us to think in a Christian way about a subject we cannot ignore. His book is highly recommended.
At last, a Christian critique of Artificial Intelligence written by a domain expert which succeeds in making the subject readily accessible to non-experts. Steering a biblically grounded and carefully argued course between the refuseniks and the techno-optimists, Jeremy Peckham unpacks the implications of Artificial Intelligence for real people made in the image of God. This is a word in season for twenty-first century disciples.
Jeremy Peckham’s Masters or Slaves? lists many of the worrying pitfalls and problems that he feels currently, and potentially, evolve from an unthinking embrace of Artificial Intelligence. By the end of the book, he presents us with a ‘Christian manifesto’ for technology, that encourages us to put up barriers in some of our uses of and development of AI to safeguard genuine humanness and the image of God in humans. All this is controversial territory — a field that Peckham has significant familiarity with given his background in AI — and not all readers will agree with everything in the book; that is the nature of these unknowns. But the conversation is important, and the principles are necessary: while we embrace technology for the progress of the gospel, we should not idolize technology.
