Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 94 No. 1, 2024.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.53745/bs.94.1.6
Christian Anthropology and Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Transhumanism
Odilon-Gbènoukpo Singbo
orcid.org/0000-0002-2154-8935
; Catholic University of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper explores contemporary challenges related to the development of artificial intelligence and its influence on theological-anthropological reflection. The main idea is oriented to the analysis of the transhumanist movement with its promises of cybernetic immortality and the enhancement of the human species. Starting from some characteristics of that movement, the author analyses its implications for Christian anthropology. The paper is divided into three parts. The first chapter, »Some characteristics of the transhumanist era«, analyses transhumanism as a transhumanism as a melioristic philosophy in which the Promethean challenge can be easily recognized. The second chapter entitled »Artificial intelligence and/for a new understanding of man« explains the monistic and dualistic approach to human reality and seeks to answer the question of whether a machine can think. The issue of dataism as the belief that organisms are algorithms that can be controlled is highlighted here. The power of data would lead to the supremacy of artificial intelligence that is attributed with divine properties. The third chapter, »Man’s creation in the image of God versus the creation of artificial intelligence in man’s image« deals with the key theological-anthropological question about man’s value and specificity. Various interpretations of man’s creation in the image of God are firstly explored, followed by an analyses of the sense in which artificial intelligence can be considered as a creation in man’s image. The concluding part brings some theological thoughts, at the centre of which is the danger of idolatry and the question of the inviolable dignity of man.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
316179
URI
Publication date:
17.4.2024.
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