
As I was putting the finishing touches on this essay this morning, I’m seeing news that Pope Francis has died. I do not believe in divine signals but it’s quite the timing given the themes touched on below. I hope his reformist approach to Catholicism endures, and my condolences to those grieving his loss.
I’m typing this in an apartment in Melbourne, Australia, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and I’ve got the Almighty on my mind. What’s this—God and Man at Cognitive Resonance? I grant this may seem a topic far afield from cognition and artificial intelligence, and I’m not sure whether this essay will cohere in any meaningful sense, or whether it’ll lead to (ahem) an exodus of subscribers. Nonetheless, I want to share with you what I feel happening within me, and how matters of faith are increasingly permeating my own cognition.
But before getting to that—welcome, new subscribers! Two weeks ago, Dan Meyer announced he’d be pausing his newsletter, and while that’s a big bummer for us all, I was grateful he pointed his readers this way for insight on artificial intelligence. Dan also spoke at the ASU+GSV conference and the adjacent AI-in-education “AIR Show” and, fittingly, invoked a religious theme—that AI will not deliver unto us the Rapture. It’s an absorbing sermon and well worth 15 minutes of your time—find it here.
Speaking of ASU+GSV, more than a few people have reached out asking if my session will be made public. Short answer: yes, and hopefully soon. I’m working to get the recorded audio synced with video footage and my slide deck—here again, Dan has set the bar high with his slick video, which he tells me he made himself—so stay tuned. I’m also grateful to those who attended in person and reached out to share how it impacted them. To put it plainly, it’s as close as I’ve gotten to preaching in my career of public speaking, and for at least a handful of attendees, my message seemed to resonate.
Before continuing, some disclosures are in order. My entire life, I’ve identified as an atheist, and indeed, have long considered it core to my identity. Neither of my parents were devout, and like many men of my generation, I was attracted to Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins—the whole New Atheist thing was very much my M.O. in my 20s and 30s. Of course, the fact that the latter two have slid into blatant Islamophobia is something I reflect on frequently, and I suspect Hitchens would have gotten there too (his notorious support for the Iraq War was perhaps a harbinger).
Yet although I’ve never identified with any particular religious faith, matters of the divine have always fascinated me—mainly because of my Grandma, an Evangelical Pentecostal. Throughout my childhood and into adulthood, she relentlessly preached her gospel to me. Trust me when I tell you it was all Jesus, all the time with her, and when not preaching directly, she’d be humming a spiritual or otherwise manifesting her faith visibly and loudly.
To be honest, it seemed borderline pathological, and I spent much of my life trying to avoid religious dialogue with her. “Did you go to church this Sunday?” she’d ask. “Aw Grandma, you know I love you…” I’d helplessly deflect…to which she’d reply, “Don’t you ‘aw Grandma’ me—did you go or not?” It was a lifetime of saying no to her, and it wounded her deeply.
Yet she could also find humor in her heathen grandson. She used to love telling the story of the time she took me to church and the pastor was preaching that all things of this world come from God. I apparently raised my hand and declared to the congregation, “Well, I am looking around and it seems to me a man must have built all of this.”
So my skepticism of the divine started early.
My Grandma may have failed in her efforts to bring me into Christian faith, but her broader endeavors to shape my character bore greater fruit. For one, she became (and remains) my moral conscience. Whenever I acted up—which was fairly frequently—the absolute worst punishment that could befall me was my parents telling me I’d need to call her to tell her what I’d done. Some confess to God, but me, I had to confess to the higher power that was Tempa Swan Riley. Even today, when faced with an ethical decision, I pray to her for guidance.
For another, I believe my love and faith in the United States of America were nurtured primarily through my grandmother’s own love for this country. You see, she managed to be both a devout Evangelical and a dyed-in-the-wool FDR-loving New Deal Democrat. Growing up as I did on Long Island, she’d fly out from California and take me to see the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, or FDR’s home on Sagamore Hill, or the United Nations in New York City. In fact, another favorite story of hers involved taking me to the UN, where apparently I was so confused watching the UN General Assembly that I walked down to the edge of the gallery and yelled, “EXCUSE ME, just what are all you people TRYING TO DO?” (My question still stands.)
Today, my faith in American democracy is being tested like never before—yours too, I’m sure. My father sent me an email a few days ago, worried that I might run into some trouble re-entering the country because of my visible political activity of late. What a thing to have to email me about! How profoundly un-American to be afraid of my government because of my political beliefs. But of course, there’s a long history of state oppression and political violence in America, it’s just never been so visibly directed at White Americans the way it is right now.
Over and over I wonder, are we capabile of fighting the fascism? From what well of courage will we draw?
This brings me to Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. I’ve been asking my fellow Americans lately if they know about him and the role he played in the Civil Rights Movement. Not one person has said yes, which shows you how poorly we teach our own history. His heroism is worth a long essay unto itself, but briefly, Shuttlesworth was a major figure in the Movement—on par with MLK, really—who vowed to “kill segregation or be killed by it.” The forces of White Supremacy tried to kill him repeatedly—indeed, he was bombed and beaten within an inch of death. Yet he refused to be cowed, and witnessed in his own lifetime the end of legal segregation in the South. He killed it.
I wonder, do I have it within me to kill American fascism? I do possess anything like Shuttlesworth’s courage, nor can I drawn from faith in God as he did. Yet, something has changed within me—something I feel but cannot fully comprehend. There is a greater power moving within me as I see something I love being destroyed, and as I am awash in anguish. I am gripped by a form of quasi-manic energy similar if not to identical to that which gripped my Grandmother—only my devotion is directed toward my country. I feel myself yearning to make a sacrifice.
I understand martyrdom now, and this scares me.
At this point, it may seem crass to bring artificial intelligence into this conversation, but there are connections, if you’ll bear with me. Starting with my trip down under, you may be surprised to learn that the Catholic Church has a strong influence within the Australian education system—some 20% of students attend Catholic schools, I believe. While here, I had lunch with a handful of officials from the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools and was pleasantly surprised by how easily we fell into conversation about the theological implications of AI, and how so many AI enthusiasts seem eager to play God by creating a new form of intelligence. It was also fascinating to discover after our meal that the same school system has published a vision for instruction deeply grounded in principles both of cognitive science as well as “the inherent dignity of every person as a being created in the image of God.”
Back in America, the broad secular faith in technology among the American elite remains the greatest power shaping our contemporary life. Last summer, I met with a successful Silicon Valley-based ed-tech entrepreneur, one working on a new idea involving AI, and over breakfast we had a robust debate regarding the role of technology in society. I made the case that it was clearly eroding the foundation of democracy in the U.S. and elsewhere, and that AI might rapidly accelerate us toward complete collapse. He conceded that media fragmentation was a problem but argued that, on the whole, technology has done far more to benefit society than harm.
Just a few weeks ago, I asked this same entrepreneur if the events of the last three months had changed anything for him. Answer: nope, not in the slightest. He’s “still an optimist” because “Trumps will rise and fall,” and in the end, “progress is the only meaningful driver of long-term happiness.”
I see no rational way to respond to this. People are being tortured in America, the rule of law has been shredded, the Supreme Court is being ignored, concentration camps are being built—we may be heading toward something worse than Nazi Germany—and yet the faith, the blind secular faith in the power of technological progress, remains unshaken in the minds of so many. If the evidence of what’s happening right now is not enough to make you question the role of technology in our culture, nothing will.
Which is why, when it comes to AI specifically, some people of faith seem to be seeing things more clearly. Consider Josh Brake, the engineering professor at Harvey Mudd whose Substack you should subscribe to if you haven’t already. In nearly every essay he writes, Brake raises questions about the role of generative AI in society against the backdrop of, as he puts it, “just how delicate we humans are as moral and intellectual creatures.” I don’t think I’m betraying any confidences to share that Josh was homeschooled in a religious tradition and is a man of devout belief, and when I read his writing, I feel his faith coursing through his words.
Or consider Cecilia Heyes of Oxford, the philosopher-scientist who has deeply influenced my own thinking about cognition and the role that cultural practice plays in shaping our cognitive architecture. Two years ago, I spent an extraordinary day with her, and she shared a bit with me about her faith as she took me on a brief tour of All Souls College—aptly named. Indeed, when she took me into the private rectory (if that’s the right description), she pointedly noted we were standing in the same place where Oliver Cromwell had sacked the college in the 1600s over matters of religion and government. So I do not think it entirely coincidental that Celia’s theory about human cognition emphasizes the role that cultural institutions play in shaping our understanding of ourselves.
Finally, consider Eryk Salvaggio. I was delighted to find him here in Melbourne when I arrived, having just installed an exhibit of his work and others at Australia’s National Communications Museum regarding the role of AI and technology in society—Signal to Noise. Eryk, as much as anyone, has contributed to my understanding of AI—not only through his technical explanations of how it works but through his art, his “creative misuse” of AI to force us humans to think and feel about the role it should play in our society. When I finish typing this, I’m heading back to watch his incredible SWIM piece, where the very human dancer Nini Shipley swims against a diffused sea of information. I have cried every time I’ve watched it, both moved by the beauty of the human experience and the sense of inescapable tragedy.
Perhaps that is part of what it feels like to believe in God. Or maybe it’s fine to just dwell in uncertainty. Eryk has said about SWIM, “I don’t quite know what I am getting at with it, I just know that it says something that I want to say.”
Well, that describes this essay too. But it has brought me solace to share my thoughts with you, and for that, I am thankful.
What a wonderful confluence happening in Australia right now. I just finished Eryk's latest and then find you there, too.
I hope more people find their way to bringing AI into conversation with religious traditions. Most of what I read are people making fun of engineers and enthusiasts who understand their work building AI models in religious terms. It is quite weird that they think of AI in terms of what any student of religion will recognize as millenarianism. But weird religion was what started the whole English-speaking settlement of North America, for good and ill.
I'd rather have those folks reading Josh Brake and seeing some connections to humanistic traditions of Christianity than off on their own island, building traditions and rituals out of Silicon Valley air.
Picking back over your articles I was yet to read this UK Bank Holiday—enjoyed this a lot. I found myself desperate to understand SWIM and found this wonderful narrative from Eryk over an excerpt of the piece. Only right to backlink it, I thought. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6CXBZ2eAAU