Would God accept A.I. beings as his own?

[Church Key Kid]

Let's pretend that technology (mostly Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology and Nanotechnology) has advanced to the point where humans can develop artificially intelligent, living beings. These beings look, act and especially think just like their human counterparts; with the exception of a natural "soul" (whatever that is), they are entirely human-like, right down to their artificial DNA.

Assume that these beings can think just like humans and have the same morality and mortality issues (ie, "They reproduce, grow old and die.", as well as "It's immoral to murder them.").

Since God would be omniscient, he would know that these beings have been developed, and would know that they are completely human-like, other than the fact that He didn't create them.

Would God accept these beings as his own children? If these beings die, would they be welcomed into Heaven, even though they weren't created in the "natural" way, and don't have a "soul"?

Taking it one step further... pretend there were a realistic simulation, such as those portrayed in "The Thirteenth Floor" or "The Matrix"... and the beings in those simulations were also as human-like as could be (at least within the bounds of their simulation).... if that simulation was turned off, and all the AI beings that were present in the simulation suddenly disappeared, would God allow those beings into Heaven as well?

Obviously he would accept the beings CREATOR as his own, but would he accept the actual beings as his own?

[Lord Ashtar]

For us to want to create life would be the worst sin we could commit. Lucifer didn't get away with trying to be equal to God. Why should we?

[Kinthalis]

This is just guess work isn't it?

How are we to know the designs of some omniscient god? Who are we to even attempt to understand?

Some say we are made in god's image. Well, we've been changing for millenia, and will continue to change as evolution plays jenga with our genes through the passage of time. Who's to say that our eventual evolution, our final contribution to this universe won't be artifical beings created by us? Perhaps they will be our descendants. And just maybe god wasn't talking about us when he said that he created us in his own image, maybe he was talking about our eventual creations. Maybe god is a machine?

Ultimately this is just an exercise in fanciful speculation. specially for an atheist like me

[Church Key Kid]

I forget to mention... pretend that WE are a simulation... and then we get turned off.... assuming there is a god, and that God created our creator... would he accept US as his own?

This could be viewed on an infinite scale, really.... pretend there was one initial God... and he created something, that created something that created something that... (and so on) ....and that something created us.... Would that initial God still accept us as his own?

[Ellis Dee]

Originally posted by Lord Ashtar
For us to want to create life would be the worst sin we could commit. Lucifer didn't get away with trying to be equal to God. Why should we?

I knew those dog breeders were going to hell. Now I know why.

[eburacum45]

These beings look, act and especially think just like their human counterparts; with the exception of a natural "soul" (whatever that is), they are entirely human-like, right down to their artificial DNA.

Well, there are a lot of assumptions there; the artificial DNA for a start; do you mean a living being with designed DNA?

In my opinion such a being would simply be another biological entity;
Assuming (for the sake of argument) that souls exist, there would be no reason that an artificially designed biological human would not have a soul.
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More interesting is the idea of an AI in a computer; such an entity would be very different to a human, but if souls exist, I see no reason why this entity should have a soul.
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I consider these (so-far hypothetical) entities as humanity's mind children;
our natural born children are considered to have souls (by those who believe that souls are real);
God herself must allow these souls to enter into our children at some point.
why should our manufactured children not have souls?

What reason would God have to withold souls from our own mind children?

[eburacum45]

Edit; the idea of an AI in a computer; such an entity would be very different to a human, but if souls exist, I see no reason why this entity should not have a soul.

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Eeeh! not having an edit fuction is ubderstandable, but it can cause problems.
Perhaps I should avoid double negatives;

clearly stated-
of course AI's would have souls, if souls exist.

Why would they not?

[smiling bandit]

More interesting is the idea of an AI in a computer; such an entity would be very different to a human, but if souls exist, I see no reason why this entity should have a soul.

Do you mean "should not"?

I think the Catholic Church has some principle on this.

[Mangetout]

God would be ideally placed to solve the problem of whether the machine intelligence really was 'alive' inside, or whether it was just a convincing fake.

If a machine really was 'alive' on the inside, then I'd say that it would have a natural soul (if humans do have one, that is), having acquired/grown one by the same means that humans do (being 'alive').

[Skammer]

I think that wanting to create new life is a natural result of us being created in God's image in the first place. God is a Creator; thus it is in us to be creative also. In fact it's one of our strongest drives, to create things. I don't buy that wanting to create life is an affront to God -- that's pretty much what we do when whe have babies, isn't it? I think wanting to create life is perfectly natural, because it's a desire that we were created with.

However, our creative abilities pale in comparison with the One who created the universe. I'm skeptical that we would ever really have the ability to develop an AI like the one described in the OP. I think the question would have to be -- does this new being have the capacity to respond to God? Can it experience grace? Can it recognize the existance of God and feel the need to relate to Him? If (a big IF) we can create a being that can do all these things, then I would expect that creature to be accepted by and pleasing to God.

But I don't think we can do it.

[toadspittle]

Would the Replicants in Blade Runner be accepted by God? (The ones that weren't murdering people, that is.) Would Commander Data be accepted by God?

Come to think of it (and this is more of a Cafe Society question), has there been a sci-fi story/novel about a robot that became religious?

[Lord Ashtar]

Originally posted by Ellis Dee
I knew those dog breeders were going to hell. Now I know why.

I wasn't aware that dog breeders were creating life from scratch.

[juan2003]

A "soul" is the eternal essence of a being that persists after death. If souls are created and distributed by God, then a soul is God's seal of approval. Any being endowed with a soul would have the opportunity to enter heaven. If a being is not given an eternal soul, than it will simply cease to exist at some point.

If something there is something inherent to humanity that causes one to have a soul, if we recreate that quality closely enough then our artificial creations will also have souls. Because a soul is eternal, these souls must go somewhere after death, but they wouldn't necessarily be judged in the same manner as normal humans. You'll need to consult your God's instruction book for further details.

[toadspittle]

http://smallwonder.hispeed.com/SWSer...Seriously.html

Some thoughts about God and Robots ... from a "Small Wonder" fan site!

Can a robot sin?
Can a robot believe in God?
Should robots be baptized?
Can a robot pray?
Would robots go to church?
Would robots receive the Holy Eucharist?
Could a robot be ordained to the priesthood?
Could a robot go to hell?

See also:

http://smallwonder.hispeed.com/SWSer...tInChurch.html

Does Vicki's presence in a house of worship mock God?

[jimpatro]

Juan2003, you're assuming a lot about something that we don't even know exists. You can't assign "factual" characteristics to something (the soul) that could just be a mythical construct.

Let's not confuse soul with personality. If say Data of Star Trek is destroyed beyond repair then the personality known as Data is irretrievably gone.
No soul to continue on, no matter how lifelike he seemed.

This is probably what happens when humans die.
The personality ceases but we really have no concrete reason to believe in an eternal soul.

I'm expecting to be pityed for having such a dim outlook of life and so on.
Thus is the root of spirituality.
We spend our lives loving and growing close to those around us.
It's just not fair for everything to stop at death.

[toadspittle]

jimpatro, if you're going to post, you should agree to play along with the OP.

I don't pity you for having such a dim outlook on life (also an atheist/agnostic here, with great doubts about the existence/nature of the soul)--but you should be able to set aside your atheistic convictions in order to participate in this debate. Or else don't participate.

[jimpatro]

I usually apologize for endless rants but overlooked it this time.
Point taken.

[Chronos]

I don't normally get involved in GD, but since I saw a link...

Interestingly, Tolkien addressed a very similar question in his works. The Dwarves were originally created by a lesser being than God (although still what we might call an archangel), because he was tired of waiting for the real people that God had ordained to exist. But when Aule (the being who created the dwarves) repented his pride, God gave the Dwarves souls, and "adopted" them.

Personally, I'm also in the camp that doesn't see why "artificial" beings wouldn't have souls. I already have the ability to create thinking beings (well, with help from a willing partner), and nobody disputes that those beings have souls (at least, nobody who accepts the existance of souls in the first place). I have no idea how it comes to be that a baby has a soul... Does God put the soul in Himself, as a special act? Is it formed somehow from the soul of the parents? Does it develop naturally in the organism, just as nervous activity and the like develops? I don't know. But in any case, why couldn't the same process apply to an AI?

[Dogface]

Originally posted by fatdave
[b]Would God accept these beings as his own children? If these beings die, would they be welcomed into Heaven, even though they weren't created in the "natural" way, and don't have a "soul"?

If they had no souls, then they would simply end when they died. Nothing would exist to go on. Now, this is not to say that God might not extend mercy and give these creatures souls. Would He? It is not my place to judge.

[Donovan]

Come to think of it (and this is more of a Cafe Society question), has there been a sci-fi story/novel about a robot that became religious?

Read a short story like 15-20 years ago about a priest who was on a secret mission to find the tomb of a great catholic theologan (Catholicism had wither been banned in the country or worldwide) whom had supposedly not decayed (a miracle that has supposedly happened to many people who were eventually canonized, or made saints). He found the corpse, which was miraculously perfect, but his robotic donkey saw it for what it was and kicked it, revealing the theologan was a robot. The miracle at this point was that a machine built to perform perfect logical thought processes found, through these thought processes, God. (essentially, the robot became religious, it wasn't in said robots programming)...

Don't remember the name of the story, it was in a S/F collection, probebly aimed at adolescents.

[JamesCarroll]

No, God would not accept them. And here's why....

One of the "laws" of the Universe is entropy, the slow and gradual decay of organized matter/energy. We see this all the time. Dead matter decays. Trees, stars, us.

And yet when it comes to life the reverse is true. Amimo acids become proteins become cells become organs become creatures. Order is created from chaos.

Life.

Just because we can treat molecules like bricks doesn't make us Gods any more than it makes our creations alive.

[eburacum45]

First of all, the laws of thermodynamics apply to life just as much as to all other matter; the apparent decrease in entropy associated with life is more than balanced by the inefficiencies of the system; it takes a lot of energy to build a living being, or a computer, and most of this energy is lost as disorganised heat in both cases.

You can obtain the illusion of creating order, by building an organism, or tidying your room; this organisation itself uses and loses a lot of energy.

No, thee is no difference thermodynamically between life and a computer, or a library; entropy increases in all cases.

Essentially, artificial life would be the same as real life in this respect; if God exists, it seems entirely possible that she intends the creation of such life to be a primary goal of humanity.

[pervert]

Just a couple questions.

Would god accept them as his what?

What might we learn about ourselves by listening to the AI's conception of god? If souls exist, and it was necessary to install one for the AI to achieve its "I". What might we learn by creating an artificial soul?

[Ranchoth]

I think it would all depend on how souls were created, in this universe.

Now, if they could only be created by God, in his workshop or something, and he sends the souls to be joined with living creatures, then the ball is in God's court. He could send the souls to whomever he wished. Maybe he'd only give humans souls. Maybe just animals. Maybe all living organics things. Maybe all life, including technological life.

And you'd think, if he didn't give A.I.'s souls, they really wouldn't be A.I.'s...there'd be something obviously "missing" in them, in the way they behaved.

And, if the Universe is completely predestined, and God is omniscient, then God would have decided already weather anything besides humans would be given souls.

Now, on the other hand, there's the possibility that god doesn't actually create souls himself. They're created by the formation of life, like a magnetic field is generated by putting current through loops of copper wire.

Now, maybe God specifically designed the universe so that souls could exist in the first place. And/Or maybe he created the first life forms with the first souls, and let them generate their own decendants—with their own new souls—through natural organic methods. (Evolution, biological reproduction, etc.)

Now, god might have already designed the universe so that only his own creations could generate souls. Or he might not have. Maybe he wouldn't have known beforehand that his creations could create soul-generating beings on their own. Or maybe he just wouldn't care.

Now, we'd have to figure in God's personality. Maybe he's a jerk, and he'd cast the souls of the artificial beings into limbo, just because their existance wounded his pride.

Or maybe he'd have a good-natured chuckle, say "clever little rascals, those humans...I sure didn't see that one coming!" and let the artificial souls into heaven out of kindness and fairness.

Or maybe he wouldn't care at all. A soul's a soul, wherever it comes from. All are welcome in paradise, depending on their merits.

Hell, maybe he'd just think that it was cool that humans could create artificial beings that could gain souls...maybe he'd even feel pride that his own creations—his children, in a way—were able to gain powers rivaling his own. Maybe that's what he'd been hoping we'd do all along.

[Kempis]

Is this assuming that an AI's thought processes would be based on our neuron-based meat computers?

Seems like we'd be making humans, albeit made with different materials and processes.

My view of artificial intelligence is from experience... it was one of my specialties for my computer science degree. If you work with advanced ones long enough, you realize these things are very different from people.... you can't relate to them in the same way, though they are capable of interesting surprises just like people are. If they become self-aware someday and God gives them souls... heaven would be a very interesting place.

-k