While we regularly take into consideration our thought (or interior) life as separate from our embodied (or exterior) life, a growing field of research, also known as embodied cognition, suggests that our thoughts, reasoning, and understanding are rooted in our interactions with the physical world. Our needs, the resources available to us, and the structures and other people we encounter significantly influence how we predict. While embodies cognition is removed from a settled field of research, we can be unwise to disregard the connection between embodiment, or how we, as bodily beings, think in regards to the world around us.
For instance, my wife and I were taking an extended weekend away in Chicago. At around 10:30 pm, I suggested we walk to Lake Michigan. As we walked, my wife made the comment that walking at night wasn’t something she ever considered doing while traveling alone. For some reason, at that moment, the comment hit home. I hadn’t thought twice about suggesting a walk to the lake. I might have taken the walk by myself. As a six-foot, two-hundred-plus pound human, I don’t have the identical concerns as my wife, who, by any measure, can be considered petite. Though I’m not blind to the risks related to walking in a city at night, I don’t “know” them in the identical way that my wife does. Our alternative ways of embodying the world change the way in which we perceive the situations through which we discover ourselves.
As a separate example, my son recently jogged my memory of a guided mountaineering trip we took while visiting Utah. At one point, we were led through a narrow crevice. While I’m willing to bet that the guide knew I could make it through, I used to be extremely uncomfortable doing so. Unlike my wife and youngsters who were half my weight on the time, there have been moments when my chest and back were touching opposite sides of the crevice. My size was a detriment within the situation. While my family can have “felt for me” or been concerned that I might get stuck in some unspecified time in the future, none of them “knew” that situation how I knew it.
Embodiment is one in all the first reasons that AI won’t ever think exactly like humans.
Even though humanoid robots are more common than they’re today, they won’t experience the world in the identical way we do. They won’t “know” in the identical way that we all know. They may give you the option to “parrot” a few of their experiences quite well, but I believe there’ll at all times be some remainder. An AI-powered robot won’t have the identical needs as we do, feel the identical fears, or get pleasure from the identical experiences. As such, they may remain artificial.
So what? Does it really matter that AI can have a special perspective on the world than humans? Not necessarily. If AI can “artificially” reproduce our experience such that we are able to’t tell the difference, it is cheap to assume that the knowledge it provides wouldn’t be so skewed as to be unusable. AI, if nothing else, shall be good at mimicking us.
Noticing the way in which embodiment changes our perspective, nevertheless, isn’t nearly what sort of data AI can provide. It can be in regards to the indisputable fact that it provides it. To put it otherwise, AI is changing our surroundings. It is a latest element. As such, it’ll impact the way in which we engage with the world around us. By changing our surroundings, it’ll also change the way in which we predict. This change in pondering will likely enhance and diminish our ability to perform our basic human task of pointing to and glorifying the Triune God.
Christians must take into consideration how AI is changing the way in which we understand the world.
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