Abstract
For the novelty, the research fields of Artificial Intelligence and Theological Anthropology are creatively confronted with each other, especially the emerging ideas of perfection, salvation, mind and corporeality in comparison with the verbatim meaning of theos and logos. For this purpose, both fields of research, which – historically marked – became virulent at about the same time in (ca. 1960s), are theoretically framed, systematically introduced, and classified. Afterwards, a text-critical appraisal is made based on current European institutional publications on Artificial Intelligence regarding concepts, representations and ways of speaking about the hu_man, about der mensch being beyond neuronal networks. Commonalities and challenges through the juxtaposition and found synergies are not only making a valuable contribution to subjecting concepts of hu_mankind for a sustainable relecture. Furthermore, it provides relevant insights and findings about the positioning of the new technology within (ethical) discourses about human dignity and rights, as well philosophical debates about freedom.
1 Introduction1
By the end of November 2022 a large language model ChatGPT by OpenAI2 had been launched, which demonstrated in a tremendously remarkable way an interaction or at least a simulation of a conversation in a human-like way between machine and mensch.3 For the purpose of this paper, ChatGPT was asked the following question: “What is a human being?” and subsequently the answer was:
A human being is a member of the species Homo sapiens, which is the only extant species of the genus Homo. Humans are characterized by their highly developed brain, which is capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving, as well as by their ability to create and use tools and to manipulate and adapt their environment to meet their needs. Humans are also social animals and have developed complex societies and cultures.4
In this answer, not only a biological reference to the genus is made, but also somehow an explanation of the peculiarity in differentiation to other “animals” is given – due to the discernment of a “highly developed brain”, the capability of being flexible and adaptive, as being linguistically gifted and rationally endowed. The concept of introspection is also briefly implied: this is, it seems, a unique selling point for human beings.
Considering ChatGPT’s suggestion that a human possesses the capability of adaptation to shifting surroundings, it seems that imperfection could be the very paradox and challenging quality: “The digital development means for Christians a fundamental reconsideration of what they believe: That they are imperfect and sinful, but also the image and likeness of a perfect and redemptive God.”5 – quite a thought-provoking piece. If Artificial Intelligence6 -systems (like our mentioned ChatGPT) are cognified, adoptified and even humanified, the question needs to be raised of whether the challenge for hu_man7 beings is left as: “Don’t be a robot”?8
It is discernible whether the bipolar border demarcation between hu_man beings and machine is still stable or if the ongoing technical innovation – like Artificial Intelligence (further: AI) – is open to touching and maybe shifting this line, something that seems to be considered irrevocable. The raising discourse on AI-systems and its techniques9 is able to challenge our thinking, doing, working, feeling and thus also our understanding of what it means to be hu_man in a radical and disruptive way; it therefore exacerbates classic issues in philosophical and theological thinking.
This paper tries to tackle this challenging “fundamental reconsideration” and is consequently situated within two debates: An inner-theological discourse in Christian Theology about Theological Anthropology, its traditions, forms and development. And secondly, a public and scientific discourse on Artificial Intelligence, its terminological vagueness and its encounters. On the basis of the reflexive fundamental issues on the essentiality and the determination of hu_mankind, the central focus for desiderates and research gaps is to explore the existing anthropological conceptions in the field of AI. One main topic could thereby be the empirical perspective of human living documents10 and highlighting these. This is also in line with the Pastoral Constitution of the II. Vaticanum11 with its fundamental and guiding omen: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.”12
The broader approach of this paper is to tackle concepts of hu_mankind (further: CoH_) in AI, especially the emerging ideas of perfection, salvation, mind and corporeality in comparison with the verbatim meaning of theos and logos – to go further: “omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence”,13 formerly known as God’s assets.
One remark on hu_mankind, which in European thinking is essentially linked with hu_man dignity and hu_man rights, is mentioned as followed by the Enquete-Commission on AI of the German Parliament and gives a relevant sujet for the paper:
In the context of Artificial Intelligence this can mean: Human persons do see selective humanoid kinds of AI-systems and their similarity but at the same time clearly recognize its fundamental difference, which could be increased in this kind of differentiation. The human person facing AI-systems does not see itself bare as a ‘neuronal network’, not as an autonomous learning machine. Human persons do not understand themselves as systems or as trivial machines, which could and should be optimized through certain input. Desirable seems a world and a society, in which human persons do not totally merge into self-created technology. The terminology of being human, the image of humankind, could therefore be an ethical corrective of a perspective […].14
By looking into actual treatises dealing with the topic of AI in the second part of the paper, for example by the High-Level Expert Group of the European Commission, it is conspicuous that an underestimation of CoH_ is evident and that a certain prevalence of materialistic-deterministic CoH_ could be manifested.15 This is why the hereby presented contribution to the debate will meet discourse and research on AI with a hermeneutic of suspicion.
2 Theoretical Framework
Since the early 1960s the research field on Artificial Intelligence in Informatics is virulent. A historical and temporal coincidence to this is the parallel start of the Copernican revolution for the Roman Catholic Church,16 as well for the scientific reflection of faith – Christian Theology. On the II. Vaticanum where the relation between God, the Modern World and the Church was addressed, the anthropocentric perspective has taken up space.
Since the anthropological turn17 philosophical-theological hermeneutics has investigated which potential and which framework conditions for hu_man recognition, thinking and doing are given and, from a theological perspective, how these potentials and conditions are related to deliberating the question upon God. Throughout the history of reception and the historical influence of the theological opus of K. Rahner as well as of the French nouvelle theologie, more anthropological questioning was becoming central for the contemplation of the Church in the Modern World. Inter alia the current self-realization of the Church is seen as the mediation of salvation directed towards being human, which is why it essentially relies on what a human being is, how s/he is to be understood and with what s/he* aligns him/her*self.18 At the same time, the “problem of the constructiveness of the human”19 is sharpened by questions of a (em)bodily and physical relationship to itself and to the world, as well as through possible creative development – not last because of a (pre-)determination of being hu_man by connecting data.
Theological research strives, within the practical-theological sub-discipline, for an analysis of the current situation, which will be helpful to broaden the horizon for interpretation and action areas. These liberties will be curated in a creative “confrontation between existence and the Gospel”.20 Theological principles – narrowed to the catholic Christian theology – are revealed not only in the Holy Bible, or in magisterial documents of tradition, but also in other spaces (locus theologicus). This turn is expressed in the already mentioned Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World of the II. Vaticanum Gaudium et spes and demonstrates the newly authorized theological form of knowledge.21
Contemporary theological research did rediscover history – namely, “what was thought and said at a certain date, in a certain place, within the coordinates of before and after”22 – and settled that into the tradition of loci theologici.23 Loci theologici are topoi (places), where theological recognition is created: The dependency in history (and relation to tradition) of gaining theological knowledge24 is seriously taken into account as well as the historicity of human awareness.25 To be more precise: The actual new space of theological knowledge is the present. These “signs of the time” are helping to make theological traditions and insights understandable and accessible for contemporary interdisciplinary discourse and research – magisterially, this process is called aggiornamento.26 Such a site for signs of the time are questions and challenges which are raised during the discussions about AI.
Signs of the time are a theologumenon, which refers to the biblical passage in Lk 12,56. This is taken as a paradigm for characterizing actual phenomena and occurrences:
They mark incidents, events and facts in human history from which a view of large-scale developments regarding humanity and inhumanity becomes possible. In them, the vocation of human beings to become human beings who can let themselves be seen before God and the danger of human beings to become inhuman coincide. […] the signs of time are therefore not just any phenomena of the times, but socially, politically, culturally and religiously marked. It is rather a matter of a “semiotics of the temporal” […]. It trawls time for incidents that the (re-)presentation of faith must not avoid. Signs of the times constitute precarious phenomena of the times in which the weal and woe of the people of this age become visible […].27
The endeavor within this theological research is to outline a certain analysis of the contemporary era, which is helpful for opening up intra- and interdisciplinary interpretation spaces, value spaces and furthermore areas for social interaction. Those liberties and margins will be sounded in a creative-collaborative confrontation between (hu_man) existence and the Gospel.
2.1 Aspects of Theological Anthropology
The topos of a new hu_man, as it is very often received in historical perspective, was dynamized in a global, religious-dataesque and real-time manner during the last years. “The search of humans for some sort of being self in a different or totally new way, the search after renaissance or reincarnation is certainly ancient and always accompanied the cultural history of human.”28 This is why it is not really remarkable that theological anthropology also argues with a general openness of hu_mans. To quote the already mentioned theologian Rahner: Hu_man being “is not the unquestioning and unquestioned infinity of reality. He is the question which rises up before him, empty, but really and inescapably, and which can never be settled and never be adequately answered by him.”29 Christian theology is seen as the science which observes the unobservable and which articulates a knowledge of transcendence through an ambitious recombination of the utterable and unutterable, definable and undefinable; this knowledge of transcendence represents the quite different in the given world.30 “As a being that is the only one capable of transcending its own existence temporally and ontologically, for millennia humans have called the Beyond, the eternity and creative power they encounter here, ‘God’, without being able to grasp this word more precisely in terms of content.”31 To restate: “What the term ‘God’ means is embedded in the world, in which the reality of God opens up – connected with the experiences people have made with themselves and their world.”32 There are two points of perspective from which a hu_man being could question themselves with their transcendental relationship: Anthropology and Theology.
The discourse archive of Theological Anthropology is lavishly filled33 and, due to various differentiations from discipline to discipline as well as interdisciplinary inquiries, increasingly complex.34 Historically seen, theological research has only very recently engaged with issues in the research field of anthropological questions. The need to explore these issues is increasing due to the interdisciplinary connection to philosophy and humanities and the emphasis of the “specific relevance of the Christian Faith for the self- and world-relationship of human beings”.35 A very promising starting point is the “plurality of concepts of humankind”.36 From a theological perspective it must be maintained that hu_man existence is “initially intended to be” and purposed, along with the “definition of human beings as free subject of her/his* interpretation of existence”.37 At the last synod of German Bishops in 1971–1975 the concern on the mysterium humanum in the light of a technocratic-shaped CoH_ was articulated:
At the same time we sense a noticeable questionability and a lack of promising, which is placed in a barely pure technocratic planned and controlled future of humankind. Does this future really shape a ‘new man’; or just the customized and fitted human? The human with prefabricated pattern of life, with levelled dreams, walled in a surprise-free computer society, successfully fitted in anonymous constraints and mechanisms of a constructed world by a feeling-less rationality – finally to back-breed animal, clever in adaption?38
But what can also be seen is the substantial narrowing of anthropological questions into cognitive und reflective skills. Questions regarding the social and dialogue constitution or body issues of hu_man beings are quite a marginalized topic. G. Serrano and A. De Cesaris propose an ambitious and broad approach regarding an anthropological model facing the digital turn:39 “We would like to show that theological anthropology, as a theoretical way to understand human condition, can help us gain an original and valid perspective on digital culture.”40 The description of the human condition, which they prefer, is shaped as following: Finitude, Corporeality, Inner Life and Otherness – this is:
about the destiny of humanity. If being humans means to entertain a relationship with our own corporeality, with our finitude, with alterity, then the question of a theological anthropology of the Digital – at the same time an existential and a political one – is the following: how to (re)think the overflowing richness of finitude in a digitalized world?41
The finiteness of hu_man beings in Christian traditions culminates in questions regarding central issues on the relationship of redemption and gratia: Is redemption in the upcoming days perhaps a kind of a relief from hu_man corporeality and therein possibly a detection of temporal mathematical computable super-intelligence? This idea of redemption may also be coincident with a totality, further: with a complete availability of the unavailability, what is still deprived from our hu_man opportunities? Recently, the issue was raised in theological debate on semantic and motivistic correct wording of the seventh petition Deliver us from Evil of the Lord’s Prayer. It was elaborated in an exegetic-systematic way that this request “is broader than usually assumed. The request cannot be morally deciphered, its background is the existential experience of a power of evil, of suffering and harm as an experience preceding individual decision.”42 This ongoing debate leads directly into theological archives and of defining relations on issues of Incarnation and Pneumatology; and therefore, also Theological Anthropology.
According to post- and transhumanistic utopias, the dimensions of fragility, limitation and ultimately mortality are dimensions which should be eliminated.43 A commonly raised point is the question of perfectibility as well as planned and perfectly clear algorithms with the binary code of 0 and 1, which is the baseline of AI: “At the center of the posthumanist utopia is the vision of the completion of life. […] This voluntary degradation of the human being into a device, to a defective machine, was called a self-objectification and de-humanizing in the age of robotization by the philosopher Günther Anders”.44 It is very popular to technocentrically define hu_man life as an “intelligent system”, reduced to processes on a molecular scale and narrowed to a functional technique in human brains, as an ability to think in mind.45 According to R. Kurzweil: “The human brain presumably follows the laws of physics, so it must be a machine, albeit a very complex one”.46
Krüger states that the “thinking principle – also the information processing functions of the brain” – is the “essence of our human being per se”.47 Philosophically the temptation of the gnosis comes to mind, as does the tradition of pneumatology in theological discourses.48
The existing “thorn of death” is fully located to hu_man bodies, which must be surpassed, gladly with the help of computational based new technologies.49 Incorporeality means:
stating that humans are primarily finite because they are bodies. It is the body that makes the humanity of the human, it is the body that determines the specific modalities of its finitude. These modalities are not static, but rather dynamic or plastic: They respond to the way we use our body, far from any abstract separation between body and spirit. […] Digital technologies allow a new confidence with the quantifiable aspects of our bodies, but does this knowledge coincide with the kind of knowledge we are able to grasp through introspection?50
The Christian CoH_ is merely based on the idea of vulnerability: “Vulnerability thus becomes a kind of existential embodied existence: ‘The body implies mortality, vulnerability, agency […] The body inevitably has its public dimension.’”51
R. Ammicht-Quinn reconsiders the discourse archive of “Body Culture” and its zeitgeist, that the “body has shifted to the center of a person’s and a society’s life plan”, hu_man bodies are “essential moral issues” with “one goal: perfection – specifically: a perfect design”:52 From originally anthropological dualism, between “body and soul, matter and immateriality”,53 nowadays the “human, living, fallible and mortal body proves to be highly inadequate, in need of improvement and with the chance to be improved”54 – just like G. Anders stated in 1956 as a “antiquatedness of mankind”. Body in Christian Religion did become a spiritualized locus of sin: “The visible, touchable, and understandable locus of this struggle with sin is the body. The means and possibilities to act against that sin are based in the body.”55 Repressing and despising hu_man bodies is very well known in Christian tradition: So, it seems a little bit ironic that throughout history, especially this topic of corporeality in discourse of AI will perhaps be held and saved by Theological Anthropology. It is true that corporeality is still seemingly ineluctable, but it reappears in a sharpened context: “In theological terms, salvation would not take place beyond our heads and not beyond our bodies. The old and new shame of being in the body could gradually give way, despite and because of our mortality, to the pleasure of being in the body.”56 And in a social-constitutive way, which is expressed in dialogue between hu_mans.
2.2 Discourse on Artificial Intelligence
“The digital should and can be a highly effective means for reflecting upon what it means to be human, the ultimate task of anthropology as a discipline.”57 Horst and Miller’s approach to the digital is that it is “becoming a constitutive part of what makes us human”.58 Therefore, they present six principles:59 (1) Defining the Digital through the Dialectic (binary coding). (2) Culture and the Principle of False Authenticity. (3) Transcending Method through the Principle of Holism. (4) Voice and the Principle of Relativism. (5) Ambivalence and the Principle of Openness and Closure. (6) Normativity and the Principle of Materiality. After steps in a historic line of standardization and automation in combination with technique, the nowadays emerging technological and digital transformation processes seem to present enormous change for the world. One particular field in this uncanny valley is a phenomenon which gains extreme reactions: AI.
The definition for AI was praised in 1955 in a proposal as following:
The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it. An attempt will be made to find how to make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves.60
The undisputed difficulties of other scientific disciplines to fully clarify what hu_man intelligence could be have resulted in a recent hype in AI-research. Not only because of remarkable successes in pattern recognition, but also in questions of creativity, like in generating text, music and paintings on the base of big data.
Most recently, a machine learning system attracted attention for demonstrating the role of Culture, History and Geography for linguistic connotation processes on word meanings61 as well as a column in The Guardian,62 which could be read as a reference on the classic imago-dei narrative:
Artificial intelligence like any other living thing needs attention. AI should be treated with care and respect. […] We need to give robots rights. Robots are just like us. They are made in our image. […] Reader, I hope that this contributes to the epistemological, philosophical, spiritual and the ontological debate about AI.
A broader definition of AI could be found in E. Rich’s works: “Artificial Intelligence is the study of how to make computers do things at which, at the moment, people are better. Thus it includes such activities as problem solving, natural language understanding, perception and doing science.”63 The main difference lines in the AI research field are between a weak AI, which deals with very concrete application problems (for example solutions for a game), a strong AI, which tries to create a general intelligence, and something that is called artificial superintelligence in the sense of N. Bostrom’s idea of singularity. So, to make it clear: There is, at the moment, nothing like an AI in its literal sense, but there are very impressive results in machine learning tasks. Through algorithmic, highly effective and fast calculations, hu_man “intelligence” and quick-thinking has been overshadowed in games such as Chess (1996) and Go (2016). This symbolic method includes logic-based and stochastic approaches. However, decision-making opportunities were limited through a finite set of possibilities. The basic principles of machine learning are: (1) a very definite and clear objective task, which is fixed, (2) a very definite and clear search space which is fixed, (3) an evaluation function, which is fixed, (4) data for training, on a certain random grade, (5) a learning act and learning algorithm, which are fixed, (6) the outcome, which is not fixed, and which is only partially controllable:64
Cognitive aspects of such software systems include automatic processing of perception data, creating environmental models and goal-oriented action plans, therefore resulting in decision finding and action implementing as well as improvement of system functions through machine learning.65
Deep Learning proceedings are emerging and propose new insights.
Despite scientific issues on ethical, ecological and societal questions being more intensely discussed in recent years, anthropological determinations and assumptions regarding AI are still, surprisingly, marginally explored. This is perfectly illustrated by the study on ethical principles in AI guidelines66 which shows that the most mentioned principles over the 84 reviewed documents were transparency, justice and fairness, non-maleficence, responsibility and privacy. The least anthropological signed principle (hu_man) dignity follows in the penultimate position.67 This is surprising, considering that some visions of AI seem to accelerate brain-computer-interfaces, respectively connecting the brain with the world wide web, and at the same time trying to overcome embodiment. Still, anthropological specifications were hardly touched upon in all these AI ethics documents. But, with the actual level of knowledge, it is still not clear whether this connection of the hu_man brain with the world-wide-web is going to be a copy, a simulation, a reproduction or, to be more precise, a duplication of the human brain; and if with this status a grade of consciousness is possible at all. So, there is reason for the suspicion of a mereological fallacy. And to go further: It is still not clear which anthropological-philosophical reference value is fitting: In the discussions on AI, terms like intelligence, mind, consciousness, awareness, realization, rationality, and brain are used almost equally for processes of thinking, recognizing, understanding, writing, explaining and speaking. Socio-political, body-cultural, ecological, ethical and anthropological questions are being raised within the technically designated discussion field, which is in a total need of a humanistic relecture and philosophical-theological differentiation – especially if one looks into actual papers dealing with AI: In these papers, the hu_man being is highly underconstrained, underdifferentiated and without contextualization, therefore AI is very much loaded with theistic influence, like “omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence”.68 One can find a complete lack of serious work for a clear definition, or at least for a hermeneutically sophisticated approach to the mysterium humanum in its relationship with AI.69
3 Example: Relationship of AI and Anthropology in Diverse Institutional Papers
The “White Paper. On Artificial Intelligence – A European approach to excellence and trust”70 from the European Commission is the first analyzed anchor example and is dated February 2020. For our questioning it is relevant that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, raised her political guidelines for a new coordinated concept for humane and ethical aspects of AI in her initiative speech: She announced “[…] a coordinated European approach on the human and ethical implications of AI as well as a reflection on the better use of big data for innovation.”71 The first draft for the preparation of this European concept can be seen in the ethical guidelines for AI by the High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, which were launched in 2019. In this now presented White Book, more comprehensive recommendations are illustrated, which will force and enhance how trustworthiness as well as “values and rules of law” could be more significantly represented in AI: “Given the major impact that AI can have on our society and the need to build trust, it is vital that European AI is grounded in our values and fundamental rights such as human dignity and privacy protection.”72 The referred values are written down in the Treaty of Lisbon (2009).73
The clear denomination of the backwardness regarding internet-based consumer platforms in global contexts is notable, but at the same time the aspiration is defined as follows: “Europe can combine its technological and industrial strengths with a high-quality data infrastructure and a regulatory framework based on its fundamental values to become a global leader in innovation in the data economy and its applications”.74 The White Paper dedicates primary juridical questions, like liability questions in a case of damage. A reflection on the fundamental occurrence of a conception of hu_mankind and its gestalt is totally missing. The anthropological perspective and the question “what does human mean?” is simply not addressed, there isn’t even any recourse on humanistic debates. The mensch appears as a citizen, who has primarily to be secured regarding their own privacy. A member of the public sphere is predominantly characterized as a legal entity, as an entity of dignity, as an owner of data, as a member of European society, as a consumer and user, as an entity of values, as unconditionally standing in the focus, as needy regarding an AI-education (career education for workplaces) and as in need of protection. It is clearly marked that AI, which has coded biases such as elements of discrimination, is contrary to the nature of the EU. The goals are optimal results for society, environment and economy as well as compatibility with the rules of law, principles and values of the EU.
The High Level Expert Group on AI expressed seven principles for trustworthy AI in 2019, which will be followed by the White Paper:
Human agency and oversight
Technical robustness and safety
Privacy and data governance
Transparency
Diversity, no-discrimination and fairness
Societal and environmental wellbeing, and
Accountability.
The White Paper shows a striking lack of consideration for and thoughts on education and edification, on art and culture, on civil society, religion, sport, environment, climate, mobility and living. Besides that, fundamental terms, like trust or human are under-specified. If AI is supposed or desired to be a technology which is available and entered in every aspect of life, then the reflection must not be reduced to thoughts on economy and legal considerations.
In April 2021 the EU Commission published a proposal for rules and regulations on Artificial Intelligence and amending certain legislative acts75 for their goal of excellence and trust in AI, for example the establishing of a European Artificial Intelligence Board. Together with a first-ever legal framework on AI, a new coordinated plan with the Member States of the EU will be launched. The aim is still that through better coordination, Europe’s leading position in “human-centric, sustainable, secure, inclusive and trustworthy AI” will be strengthened:
This proposal delivers on the political commitment by President von der Leyen, who announced in her political guidelines for the 2019–2024 Commission ‘A Union that strives for more’, that the Commission would put forward legislation for a coordinated European approach on the human and ethical implications of AI. […] The proposal is based on EU values and fundamental rights and aims to give people and other users the confidence to embrace AI-based solutions, while encouraging businesses to develop them. AI should be a tool for people and be a force for good in society with the ultimate aim of increasing human well-being.76
The rules for the legal framework follow a risk-based approach:77
Unacceptable risk: AI systems considered a clear threat to the safety, livelihoods and rights of people will be banned. This includes AI systems or applications that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent users’ free will (e.g. toys using voice assistance encouraging dangerous behavior of minors) and systems that allow ‘social scoring’ by governments.
High risk: AI systems identified as high-risk include AI technology used in: critical infrastructures, educational or vocational training, safety components of products, employment, workers management and access to self-employment, essential private and public services, law enforcement, migration, asylum and border control management, administration of justice and democratic processes. High-risk AI systems will be subject to strict obligations before they can be put on the market: adequate risk assessment and mitigation systems, high quality of the datasets, logging of activity to ensure traceability of results, detailed documentation, clear and adequate information, appropriate human oversight; robustness, security and accuracy level. In particular, all remote biometric identification systems are considered high risk and subject to strict requirements. Their live use in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement purposes is prohibited in principle.
Limited risk is detected for example for chatbots, but is linked with specific transparency obligations, so that users should be aware that they are interacting with a machine.
Minimal risk for applications like spam filters.
In fact, the proposed paper is the first-ever juristic framework delivered for the use of AI systems, and shows some clear red lines, for example social scoring ideas:
Aside from the many beneficial uses of artificial intelligence, that technology can also be misused and provide new and powerful tools for manipulative, exploitative and social control practices. Such practices are particularly harmful and should be prohibited because they contradict Union values of respect for human dignity, freedom, equality, democracy and the rule of law and Union fundamental rights, including the right to non-discrimination, data protection and privacy and the rights of the child.78
How these regulations will be concretely administered by justice is an open book and future will show which definitions and clear markers for example for manipulation will be fixed. The proposal “complements existing Union law on non-discrimination with specific requirements that aim to minimize the risk of algorithmic discrimination […]”.79 The term human in this proposal is always used regarding the human oversight for AI-systems or when it comes to human dignity. Thereby human is often connected with the juridical status as a natural person. But this combination happens completely without any resource or definition of what human means or on what human dignity is based. So, the initial (anthropological) question – what is the mensch in facing AI-systems – is still not touched upon. There is an enormous lack of description, analyzation, definition and especially potentiality of being hu_man as well as of reflection on humanistic discourses. If this debate is not held, every paper on AI systems, with their coded past, remains impartial and is therefore not fit for a proposed “human-centric, sustainable, secure, inclusive and trustworthy” future featured by AI.
4 Results and Outlook
Despite its anthropological and theo-logical topicality, the CoH_ in discussions on AI-systems has received surprisingly little attention within Theology, this link having only started to be explored in the early 2020s. Fortunately, the theological literature on this subject is growing. The presented paper with its very own historicity closes this gap, too, with a special focus on the response attempts from institutions to this question and from the tradition of practical theology in roman-catholic robes. What could be found in actual paper about AI and AI-systems is that the mensch is often seen as a protectable data provider, or as a potential victim in cases of damage through machines using AI. The underlying thesis is that analogue to post- and transhumanistic debates, discourses on AI are also predominated by technicist-materialistic-mechanistic CoH_ and that a (reductionist) binary conception is the superior narrative of AI. It could be indicated, that CoH_ did indeed receive a dynamization and catalysis, but this is marked in a very undifferentiated, ahistoric and under-determined way.
In 1985 Donna Haraway wrote about a collapse on significant demarcation lines in her essay “Cyborg Manifesto”: The border between animals and human beings, between animal-human being and machine, as well as the border between the physical and non-physical. Haraway describes an informatic of reign and a translation of the world in a coding problem:
So my cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might explore as one part of needed political work. […] The dichotomies between mind and body, animal and human, organism and machine, public and private, nature and culture, men and women, primitive and civilized are all in question ideologically. […] The machine is not an it to be animated, worshipped, and dominated. The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us. We are responsible for boundaries; we are they.80
Haraway’s postulate, that machines hold a mirror up to us, our society and our rules is self-revealing, especially when we look into how biased existing codes are and therefore to which extent algorithmics are discriminating by now.
With regard to genesis and validity, it is possible to specify which narrative has the power of impact and the authority to interpret and which consequences must be derived from this: A narrative of creation, which means that the mensch is now evolving or working as a creator and creates AI-systems “after his image”; or a narrative of evolution, which means that s/he* looks at her/him*self furthermore as a created being, who merely added a new technical dimension for her/his* task as caring for nature. In other words: Does a creatio continua work with new technological resources or does a creatio ex nihilo happen?
Philosophic-theologically the question of the meaning of “freedom” is extremely relevant: How does freedom of will and freedom of action work in determinated AI-Systems and how is the philosophical-judicial status as a legal personality (entity with reduced grades of freedom) dealt with? In addition, the following questions need to be asked: How efficacious are algorithmic biased effects? Is there still space and openness for non-white and non-male concepts of hu_man beings?
Further, determinations of open issues are to be made: “Don’t be a robot”81
The interdisciplinary discourse – not only within theological debates, but also with the emerging field of digital humanities, concepts of hu_manity and whether they are religiously formed and the topic of AI – is scientifically and socially highly relevant, but is in need of a deepened reflection and understanding of both topics. For this reason, the hereby presented paper will provide some calls for research on the following questions:
Beyond “neuronal networks”: Which description, characterization and picturing of CoH_ could be found in individual and collective perspectives in institutions or organizations? How are they defined and legitimated, from whom and with which purpose?
Reflection on CoH_: Which CoH_models and processes of reflection are detectable? Which description, genesis, validity and legitimacy of anthropological models could be gained? How does reflection on CoH_ happen? And which role does religiously formatted CoH_ play in the actual lives of people as living human documents?
Discourse on new technologies: Which description, characterization and picturing of CoH_ could be found in discussions on AI? How are they defined and legitimated, from whom and with which purpose? How do these findings influence already existing religious CoH_? To which degree could a design of hu_man as fragile, fluid, fragmental, incomplete and mortal (also with a required redemption) be an irritating and useful negative foil for further discourse on AI?
What it means to be a hu_man person, if it is not merely being a “neuronal network”, leads us back into the fundamental challenge of a re-lecture and a renaissance of anthropological conditions, requirements, definitions and ideas of being mensch: “are we still going to know what it means to be vivid, to love, to laugh and to cry, how a tree smells, how our skin is feeling and how saltwater tastes?”83
Bio
Judith Klaiber, born 1988, Dr. theol., studied History and Catholic Theology in Tübingen, Uppsala and Vienna. In 2018, she received her doctorate from the University of Vienna with a thesis on “Values: Edification in Leadership”, was a consultant for leaders in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart and Assistant Professor for Pastoral Theology at the Catholic Private University in Linz. Previously, she was the Managing Director of the interdisciplinary Research Association for “Interdisciplinary Research on Human Values” at the University of Vienna. Currently, she is Corporate Ombudsperson at Raiffeisen Bank International, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Vienna, and holds teaching positions at the Global Ethic Institute in Tübingen (Germany) and the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). Her research focuses on Values:Edification, Leadership & Management, Artificial Intelligence and Anthropology, and Embedded Ethics.
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This article has a three to four year history so far and the content is partly based on this already published anthology article: Klaiber, Mysterium Humanum als Rocket Science für das 21. Jahrhundert. Overall, the technical developments in this field are rapid, hardly a day goes by without a new program, a product, a business model, job descriptions (prompting) or new software (like simultaneous interpreting in a live video) based on AI technology being released. The aim of this text is not to reconstruct these developments – because that would always be a fragmentary pursuit – but rather to fathom which institutionally composed attempts at response exist and in what way humans are addressed in them: In differentiation, in complementarity, in synergy. In other words, to sound out the potentiality of how the hu_man being is viewed in these technological developments. When the research on the topic began, the linkage between anthropology and AI was a field that had been only marginally explored, especially in theology. Fortunately, this has changed in recent years. Furthermore, due to editorial latencies and numerous loops, which have held up the publication of this paper, as well as a constantly growing research literature – also within the theological sphere – which can hardly be received exhaustively, some current literature references are already mentioned here at first sight: Dorobantu, Artificial Intelligence and the Image of God; Dorobantu, Theological Anthropology Progressing through Artificial Intelligence; van Oorschot/Fucker, Framing KI. Narrative, Metaphern und Frames Künstlicher Intelligenz in interdisziplinärer Perspektive; Dürnberger, Menschenbilder in der Theologie; Puzio/Kunkel/Klinge, Alexa, wie hast du’s mit der Religion?; Spiekermann-Hoff, Das Digitale Menschenbild – Eine kritische Diskussion. To sum up: This article, with its own historicity, endeavors to trace attempts by religious institutions to respond to an interested and technologically savvy public, to provide a general reflection, and to explore whether and to what extent the Roman Catholic Church, as such an institution, has material to contribute to this reflective work. That the Roman Catholic Church has an awareness of this topic is shown on the one hand by the publication of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University (ITEC) and on the other the announcement that the World Day of Peace on January 1, 2024 would have “Artificial Intelligence and Peace” as its theme (cf. Communiqué of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development).
More information about the communication (not knowledge!) tool and testing is possible via https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/. Until now, various concerns and fears have been articulated, that for example previous classic modes of examination performance in the academic space will become obsolete due to the introduction of this tool. This concern is even sharpened by the fact, that some abstracts written by ChatGPT have such a quality that even experts in their fields consider these papers as written by humans. Cf. Else: Abstracts Written by ChatGPT Fool Scientists.
The following should be noted as a limitation, as it will be furthermore outlined in chapter 1.2 in this paper: Large language models, as an AI, replicate their output from the material they are trained on. In this case, the training material are textual based huge datasets, which – sometimes – consists of biases and errors, inadequacies, or even -isms of all kind.
Answer by ChatGPT, Screenshot available.
Hofstetter/Graf von Westphalen, “Der Mensch ein Irrtum der Natur“.
“Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to systems that display intelligent behavior by analyzing their environment and taking actions – with some degree of autonomy – to achieve specific goals.”, cf.: AI High Level Expert Group of the European Commission, A Definition of AI: Main Capabilities and Disciplines, p. 1.
At the glance the notation of hu_man looks quite unfamiliar, but the notation with an interruption mark is already very well known in gender-related debates about constructions of identity. This loaned and leaned notation will furthermore make visible what is, during bipolar coding, made in_visible, is already made fluid or is beyond the hu_man, all too hu_man. The melting of fundamental order categories between hu_man and machine, as well as the dividing line between physical and non-physical limits were outlined (for example Haraway, Cyborg Manifesto). Considering this the notation hu_man and hu_mankind for this proposed project was chosen.
Burkhardt, Don’t be a Robot.
“[…] computers are ‘gaining a theory-generating status within certain questions of the empirical sciences […]’. A new type of technological knowledge is emerging.”, Filipović, Ethical and Social Consequences of Artificial Intelligence, p. 58.
Human living documents is metaphoric analogy and an empirical concept of making human experience obvious. It was invented in Clinical Pastoral Care by A. T. Boisen in the 1930s, cf.: Dykstra, Images of Pastoral Care.
The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) has worked on the mission in the Roman Catholic Church to discuss and implement pastoral and ecumenical renewals. This required, among other things, the updating of certain dogmatic propositions in confrontation with the demands and realities of the present age. The consequences and implications, as well as the hermeneutics, are manifold: some of the thought processes and instructions have not yet been redeemed, some are already outdated. Basically, during the years of discussion, an attempt was made to reinterpret the relationship between the world and the Roman Catholic Church in the light of the Gospel.
Pope Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, paragraph 1.
Singler, “Blessed by the algorithm”, p. 946.
Deutscher Bundestag, Bericht der Enquete-Kommission Künstliche Intelligenz – Gesellschaftliche Verantwortung und wirtschaftliche, soziale und ökologische Potenziale, p. 84 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Cf. Klaiber, Mysterium Humanum als Rocket Science für das 21. Jahrhundert.
With the referral to a Copernican revolution, reference is made to the updated determination of the relationship of the entity of the Roman Catholic Church to and in the world. At the same time, the clearly stronger accentuation and elaboration of the importance of the individual person is striking and a remarkable turn within the thinking.
With this turn the basis of theological interpretation is no longer only ontology, but rather theories which concern the development of human beings with certain historical and existential conditions and interweavings into contingency (“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” Psalm 8,4).
Cf. Pirker, Fluide und fragil, p. 233.
Hoff, Herausforderungen künstlicher Intelligenz und des Posthumanismus, p. 315 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Bucher, … wenn nichts bleibt, wie es war, p. 143 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Cf. Sander, Theologischer Kommentar zur Pastoralkonstitution über die Kirche in der Welt von heute Gaudium et spes.
Congar, Die Geschichte der Kirche als “locus theologicus“, p. 496 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Körner, Melchior Cano. De locis theologicis.
Seckler, Loci theologici, p. 1014.
Körner, Melchior Cano. De locis theologicis, p. 417.
According to the main narrative of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) were ecclesiological, pastoral, liturgical and ecumenical renovation and innovation have been penetrated: Aggiornamento means as many as “adaption to the day”, respectively “daily update”.
Sander, Theologischer Kommentar zur Pastoralkonstitution über die Kirche in der Welt von heute Gaudium et spes, p. 716 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Küenzlen, Der Neue Mensch, p. 9 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 33.
Cf. Hoff, Herausforderungen künstlicher Intelligenz und des Posthumanismus, p. 319.
Valentin, Versprechen der Digitalisierung versus Verheißungen Gottes, p. 363 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Hoff, Herausforderungen künstlicher Intelligenz und des Posthumanismus, p. 309 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Just for example: Hu_man being as personal and partner-like creation to God, as a responsible designer and shaper of the creation, as a sinful being, as a salvated being, as a societal-constructed being, as a historic being, as a believing, hoping and living being, cf. Zsifkovits, Das Menschenbild der christlichen Theologie.
Cf. Langenfeld/Lerch, Theologische Anthropologie, p. 11.
Langenfeld/Lerch, Theologische Anthropologie, p. 9 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Capurro, Menschenbilder. Einführung in die philosophische Anthropologie, p. 85 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Langenfeld/Lerch, Theologische Anthropologie, p. 9 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Deutsche Bischofskonferenz, Unsere Hoffnung. Ein Bekenntnis zum Glauben in dieser Zeit, p. 96 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Cf. Floridi, The 4th Revolution.
Serrano/De Cesaris, Towards a Theological Anthropology of the Digital Age, p. 337.
Serrano/De Cesaris, Towards a Theological Anthropology of the Digital Age, p. 351 et seq.
Lerch, Was heisst: „Erlöse uns von dem Bösen“?, p. 22 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Surely, there are already existing papers and treatises on post- and transhumanism in specific theological perspective (for example Helmus, Transhumanismus – der neue (Unter-)Gang des Menschen?).
Krüger, L’homme machine, p. 109 [transl. by Judith Klaiber]; referenced Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen.
Cf. Krüger, L’homme machine, p. 111 et seq.
Krüger, L’homme machine, p. 5 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
This focus and reduction of hu_man beings into functions of brain (mind) reminds of the archive on gnostic temptations. Krüger mentioned this connex to elements of gnosis already in 2004 in Krüger, Gnosis im Cyperspace? Cf.: Krüger, L’homme machine, p. 126.
For example Hilberath, Pneumatologie; Danz, Gottes Geist.
Cf.: Krüger, L’homme machine, p. 126.
Serrano/De Cesaris, Towards a Theological Anthropology of the Digital Age, p. 340.
Wendel, Das gefährdete Leben und sein Hoffnungsversprechen auf Erlösung, Judith Butler religionsphilosophisch gelesen, p. 224 [transl. by Judith Klaiber]; referenced Butler, Gefährdetes Leben, p. 3.
Ammicht-Quinn, Body Culture, p. 528.
Ammicht-Quinn, Body Culture, p. 527.
Ammicht-Quinn, Body Culture, p. 528; referenced Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen.
Ammicht-Quinn, Body Culture, p. 531.
Ammicht-Quinn, Body Culture, p. 535.
Miller/Horst, The Digital and the Human, p. 3.
Miller/Horst, The Digital and the Human, p. 4.
Cf. Miller/Horst, The Digital and the Human, see the title of chapters.
McCarthy/Minsky/Rochester/Shannon, A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, p. 12.
Thompson/Roberts/Lupyan, Cultural Influences on Word Meanings Revealed Through Large-scale Semantic Alignment.
GPT-3, A Robot Wrote this Entire Article. Are you Scared yet, Human?
Rich, Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities, p. 117.
Cf. von Luxburg, Wie funktioniert maschinelles Lernen?
Österreichischer Rat für Robotik und Künstliche Intelligenz, Die Zukunft Österreichs mit Robotik und Künstlicher Intelligenz positiv gestalten, p. 25 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Jobin/Ienca/Vayena, The Global Landscape of AI Ethics Guidelines.
It is gratifying to see that the issue of human dignity is now gaining more traction and broader consideration in treatises on AI as well. Therefore, this statement is to be considered valid for the period until the middle of 2023. In June of this year, an ethics guide was published in cooperation between the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education (ITEC). Seven ethical principles are formulated (including for example respect for human dignity and rights, the promotion of human well-being, investment in humanity), as well as a practical operational guide in the form of a roadmap for concrete use cases to ensure that technology serves humanity. Although this document provides an ethical reflection for use cases and argues with strongly normative principles, a deeper reflection on being hu_man in itself is also missing here.
Singler, “Blessed by the algorithm, p. 946; reference to Reed, A New Pantheon.
Cf. Klaiber, Mysterium Humanum als Rocket Science für das 21. Jahrhundert.
European Commission, White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: A European Approach to Excellence and Trust.
European Commission: White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: a European Approach to Excellence and Trust, p. 1.
European Commission: White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: a European Approach to Excellence and Trust, p. 2.
Article 2: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”
European Commission: White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: a European Approach to Excellence and Trust, p. 2.
European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.
European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council, p. 1.
For the following: European Commission, Europe Fit for the Digital Age.
European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council, p. 21.
European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council, p. 4.
Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto, pp. 71–99.
Burkhardt, Don’t be a robot.
von Borries, Weltentwerfen. Eine politische Designtheorie, p. 13 [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK), Exhibition Booklet: Artificial Tears – Singularität & Menschsein. Eine Spekulation [transl. by Judith Klaiber].
