Theological Implications of A.I.

ROBOTS AND THE SACRED IN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE FICTION: THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE by Robert M. Geraci

Abstract. In science-fiction literature and film, human beings simultaneously feel fear and allure in the presence of intelligent machines, an experience that approximates the numinous experience as described in 1917 by Rudolph Otto. Otto believed that two chief elements characterize the numinous experience: the mysterium tremendum and the fascinans. Briefly, the mysterium tremendum is the fear of God’s wholly other nature and the fascinans is the allure of God’s saving grace. Science-fiction representations of robots and artificially intelligent computers follow this logic of threatening otherness and soteriological promise. Science fiction offers empirical support for Anne Foerst’s claim that human beings experience fear and fascination in the presence of advanced robots from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AI Lab. The human reaction to intelligent machines shows that human beings in many respects have elevated those machines to divine status. This machine apotheosis, an interesting cultural event for the history of religions, may—despite Foerst’s rosy interpretation—threaten traditional Christian theologies. Keywords: artificial intelligence; Isaac Asimov; Philip K. Dick; film; Anne Foerst; William Gibson; literature; movies; religion; robotics; science fiction; theology

After spending much of the 1990s as resident theologian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Anne Foerst suggested in a Zygon article (1998a) that human beings experience both fear and fascination when they interact with intelligent machines. Critics immediately decried the way this dynamic echoes Rudolph Otto’s description of the human encounter with the divine (Gerhart and Russell 1998).

Robert M. Geraci is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY 10471; e-mail...