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Artificial Intelligence - made in our image?

Updated on March 8, 2013

Cagsil's comment....

"More BS.

More speech about "free will". How sad.
Every human being is born with a will and it's free. Meaning it doesn't cost anything. So that means, there's nothing that has any claim on anyone for anything."

http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/83676?page=14#post1809792

This hub spun out from a forum foray, when Cagsil, a regular 'forum warrior against God', made what he obviously thought was a sound argument against free will coming from God, the statement is displayed right of this text:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

OK, I realise that eloquence is often lost in the forums, during the cut and thrust of instant reaction, but he made his point.

Cagsil managed to conclude from his rather simplistic logic, that if someone is born with the ability to do their own will, then there cannot possibly be a God in control of things.

Interesting summation, even if it is one that is patently bizarre, rather like my child assuming, as I let him or her do as they will, that I neither exist nor have the ability to intervene in their lives.

Anyhow, it was enough for me to ponder the concept, maybe this one statement was the one that would conclusively prove God did not exist, or at least open the small chink of doubt in my mind that would allow the full exposure of Gods non existence.

Just think of the life I could lead if ONLY free will was NOT a gift from God, but a normal part of the equipment that every human had, and with no other power to answer to other than my fellow earthlings, about how I chose to utilise this 'will'.

I can tell you your life would be very different if mankind absolutely, positively, totally, knew for sure that there was no God to judge them and they were free to do whatever they wanted.

Be honest with yourself and ask the 'inner self' that question...

How would humanity behave if there truly were no God to answer to?

Humanity behave atrociously already, and that's despite one third of the world calling themselves Christian, but who still hack their countrymen to pieces with machetes in Africa.

I say 'call themselves' because anybody who will obey Christ, will not use violence against others.

That is the criterion for being a Christian, rather than calling oneself a Christian.

Sadly too many will realise the difference too late.

Any of our pet atheists here on the hub would say they already behave admirably, and I am sure they do, but they are hardly symbolic of the majority of folk who have no god to guide them, for the majority are missing a liberal education in a land of plenty, that allows them to be civilised (except to believers).

So why would God give us free will, and what has this got to do with the title of the article?

All this pondering got my mind wandering, which I am inclined to do anyway, and in my meander through the maze of my brain, I went down the trail that led to Artificial Intelligence.

We have been using artificial intelligence for years, indeed most of us would find life very difficult if we had to forsake AI (as it's called).

The concept has always been with us, albeit as effectively science fiction until 1956, when some scientists met to discuss it's feasibility.

The potential was instantly recognisable to the military and the DoD sank money into research.

There was a brief glitch in the financing during the 80's but funding was soon restored and by 1997 a computer beat Garry Kasparov at chess.

Today, your child can play against a computer on their iPhone, assuming you spoil them with such things.

The big question with AI is, how far can we go........ with safety?

Twenty five years ago, when I first discovered Steve Job's new machine, the Apple Mac II, I was instantly addicted.

Addictions came easily to me in those days, and I was soon earning a good income as a graphic designer come typesetter for magazines, using the Mac in ways that I had never thought possible with a Windoze system.

Beside my Mac workstation was arranged a large chunk of hash, two tubes of mega dosage Vitamin C tablets and a steady supply of coffee.

Once those items were in place, and I had seen the colour of your money, I was at your disposal until your magazine went to press, normally about 48 hours after we started, with me taking one hour power sleeps every 16 hours or so.

I was so very Macintized that I would dream working the screen in my sleep, and on one occasion, after trying to shut down and do a forced quit (all in my dreams) I finally reached behind the dream-world Mac and pulled the plug out, knowing even in my dreams that unplugged equalled dead.

During that period, I also dreamed of the day when I may be able to have a cerebral neural interface with my Mac inserted into my cortex, so that as I looked right, the cursor followed and as I thought 'move 1 mm' the item selected in my brain did just that.

Of course at the time there were a few vision less friends who suspected that the wacky baccy had unhinged me, and to a degree they were right, except that modern fighter pilots work with almost this system as we speak, so my bizarre dreams were/have been vindicated, and we are almost at the point where humans can be hard wired to computers (and in dark places never to see the light, this could already be happening).

But the folk who work on AI systems have some dilemmas to solve, for there are philosophical and ethical areas that must be addressed.

  • When does a machine gain consciousness, and if it does, shall we need to give it rights?
  • If we allow a machine to reach consciousness, to hold and form it's own thoughts and make decisions based upon it's thought processes, should we place restrictions on it's ability to utilise the powers it has now achieved?

Are just two simple questions that need answering.

You see we have reached the stage of development, albeit by brilliant science and visionaries who were not afraid of appearing to be crazy, or being killed for their vision, where we are capable of creation, and that brings some minor problems with it.

Will WE create Artificial Intelligence Life in OUR image?

Or will we chose to limit it's abilities?

If we allow Ai the unfettered ability to progress, with access to ALL the technology and resources we have at our disposal, it will possibly eliminate our species.

Indeed, if it has any rational though it would definitely eliminate our species, for we would be the only threat it could meet that has the ability to in turn destroy or thwart AI's ability to exercise free will.

Remember, we are talking here effectively of an artificial humanoid, capable of all the thought processes we can achieve, and probably able to utilise more data than we can assimilate in solving problems.

The things would deserve to be our masters.

Faced with this decision how would you vote?

Should we allow humans to create 'entities' who have artificial intelligence and if so, what restrictions, if any should be applied?

See results

God had the same situation when He decided to create humanity.

All secularists want to be their own god, and here is the chance they have been awaiting, for now they get to decide exactly how much free will is free to have, or what limitations they would apply to 'entities' created with AI.

By the biblical account, He discussed this with His primary creation, His angels in heaven, who, until then had been the highest form of created entities in existence.

The vote was obviously split, because about one third of them decided to rebel against Gods decision and were therefore disassociated from God, henceforth to be recognised as Gods enemies and separated from God, exiled on a barren chunk of a planet called Earth, which coincidently was where God intended to create these new humans and examine what they would do.

God could have easily created pre programmed cloned beings, who would do His wishes and enjoy doing so, with no contention or thoughts of rebellion possible.

But God wants us to decide to conjoin with Him, by an act of will, not coercion.

Now a secularist will say that only having two choices is not fair, that being told that rejecting Gods Grace equals receiving Gods Judgement is not a choice, but a threat.

I guess they cannot see that production line simile, where quality control junk the defective items for recycling or destruction.

They get annoyed at being termed 'defective' which is understandable, but of no relevance, God is working to create an eternal environment populated by folk who want to be with Him, of their own free will.

Those that reject that notion, have no desire to be part of His creation, deny His existence, show clearly that God is not their master, even try to declare that they have NO master, demand separation.

So God passes control over to the ruler of earth, who cares not what they think or believe, as long as he has rights over them upon death.

Why would they complain?

im·age

   [im-ij] Show IPA noun, verb, -aged, -ag·ing.noun

1.a physical likeness or representation of a person, animal, orthing, photographed, painted, sculptured, or otherwise madevisible.

2.an optical counterpart or appearance of an object, as is produced by reflection from a mirror, refraction by a lens, orthe passage of luminous rays through a small aperture and their reception on a surface.

3.a mental representation; idea; conception.

4.Psychology . a mental representation of something previously perceived, in the absence of the original stimulus.

5.form; appearance; semblance: We are all created in God's image.

God chose to make them in His image.

Note that image is not meaning equal, an image is always just that, something that resembles the original.

God left some vital parts out of the empowerment, perhaps parts that would fully empower humanity when He decided that we were 'mature' enough to be trusted with them.

We (who are created in Gods image) do this with our own children, we allow them free will and expression (or at least in western societies we aim to) but restrict their rights to a certain degree, in order to protect them from themselves.

The restrictions that God placed on humanity were minimal and basically designed to protect us from our worse excesses, we refer to them as the Noahide Laws and they are as follows:

Idolatry is forbidden. Man is commanded to believe in the One G-d alone and worship only Him.

If you think about this, far from being an act of megalomania, as most secularists attempt to define it, it is an act of protection, for (lets say) we humans do create AI entities, we will want to know that they recognise who created them, or they may get some very strange ideas, or even come to believe that they were 'evolved' from nothing and therefore owed no allegiance to anything other than themselves.

Once that rot became widespread, in no time whatsoever they would think they were capable of doing anything and everything. If that happens, then sooner or later they will annihilate themselves en masse, which of course is not the intention.

I guess that's why when scientists demanded a meeting with God, and informed Him he was now redundant, because they could create life themselves, God put them to the test, and said, "Go ahead, show me."

So the chief scientist said to his minions, "Go get me a shovel load of earth".... whereapon God said "Oh no, you make your own earth......from nothing"

Incestuous and adulterous relations are forbidden. Human beings are not sexual objects, nor is pleasure the ultimate goal of life.

This one is of course in direct opposition to what most secularists believe, as they tend to live in an 'I'm OK , your OK' sort of world, but again evidence shows that inbreeding causes defects, and adultery leads to broken lives, so again these are protection limitations, for our own good.


Murder is forbidden. The life of a human being, formed in G-d's image, is sacred.

Speaks for itself, and is generally accepted by most of humanity without question, however millions are still murdered every year by individuals, groups and governments, so even though most folk accept it without question, it's still a very necessary restriction that offers us some protection from those who don't recognise this limitation on their free will and expression.

Some folks just have no regard for their fellow man, and unless told, would not understand that killing those who they found troublesome is not allowed.

In researching this article, I saw a video (linked below) which sought to explore good and evil and find chemical or genetical reasons why some folk 'turned out bad' and others did not.

You can watch it to see for yourself, but what surprised me was that one researcher identified a gene that produces psychopaths in hight proportion in a family, and seems to be activated by abuse as a child.

The researcher himself found that he carried this gene, but summationed that as he had experienced a happy childhood, he had not had that gene activate his psychopathic behaviour that would make him kill people.

He also identified that many successful businessmen also carried this gene.

They seemed to believe that 30% of we humans are actually born with a 'psychopathic ' gene and were therefore predisposed to having no emotive base or true feelings for our fellow man.

I guess we need this prohibition.

Cursing the name of G-d is forbidden. There are many folk here in our world who could do with adhering to this one, and as they do not, they are disqualified for a relationship with God, even under Noahide Law.

I guess maybe folk would understand that if somebody they created, say a child of yours, denied your existence in public and called you bad names, accused you of things that were not your fault, and blamed you for things that they had no right to accuse you of, let alone consider you liable for them, you may decide to make this little restriction in your creation.

What I have never understood, is how someone who denies God exists, can then get so annoyed that they start cussing Him for making rules (like this one) which say they will not be in eternity with Him, but isolated in a place reserved especially for them alone.

Theft is forbidden. The world is not ours to do with as we please.

Again this should be self evident, but it's not. God gave us authority over the world, but with authority one also accepts responsibility.

Any simple maths will inform the inquirer that the contents of earth are a balanced and constant factor, i.e. it's not growing or shrinking, and the weight stays constant to a remarkable degree.

Logic then dictates that the quality of life equation is based upon quantity divided by mass of population, and that quota for population includes all living creatures created by God, not just homo sapiens.

So utilising more than your quota means depriving some other life-force of their quota.

We all (everybody) reading this are guilty here of theft, and if you deny that, then you are a liar also. Is this reconcilable? not in this planets future, for we all have accepted that 'authorised theft' is acceptable, i.e. when the folks with the power make rules that allow some to take more than others.

OK, I know you are worth it, that you provide wealth for the world and that you work hard for what you have gotten, I accept all those arguments.

I use them myself, but at least I recognise that I am a legalised thief, and in my personal case I try to redress the balance by ensuring where possible that those I encounter end up in a better condition for having met me, be that in health, wealth or spiritual situations.

Micky D always promotes the Golden Rule and as Micky correctly states, it's a common factor in all religions, so why don't we keep to it?

Just by stopping yourself using and abusing those you deal with, actually agreeing with yourself to treat them with equability and attempting to improve their condition, you can change the world.

Eating the flesh of a living animal is forbidden. This teaches us to be sensitive to cruelty to animals. (This was commanded to Noah for the first time along with the permission of eating meat. The rest were already given to Adam in the Garden of Eden.)

Logic, especially in a world where people believe they are free to do as they wish, and where rational thought and logic would dictate that eating an animal piece by piece would extend it's shelf life in eras before refrigeration or other preservative measures existed

Mankind is commanded to establish courts of justice and a just social order to enforce the first six laws and enact any other useful laws or customs.

So was God being evil when He asked us to observe these simple constraints upon us?

In case you think I have missed some 'commandments' out, do not fret, unless you are priviledged to have been born Jewish, you only have seven to contend with, of course some believers in Christ would argue that we should keep the ten that Moses received, and it's acceptable to do so if you please, but these seven are good enough to qualify you for Gods consideration under Jewish law.

For qualification under Christ, none are legally required, the only requirement is to obey His commandments, which basically are contained in a few verses of scripture:

Mark 12:30
And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your life) and out of and with allyour mind (with your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. This is the first and principal commandment.

John 14:21
The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.]

2 Timothy 4:2

Herald and preach the Word! Keep your sense of urgency [stand by, be at hand and ready], whether the opportunity seems to be favorable or unfavorable. [Whether it is convenient or inconvenient, whether it is welcome or unwelcome, you as preacher of the Word are to show people in what way their lives are wrong.] And convince them, rebuking and correcting, warning and urging and encouraging them, being unflagging and inexhaustible in patience and teaching.

Matthew 25:36-38

I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me with help and ministering care, I was in prison and you came to see Me.Then the just and upright will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry and gave You food, or thirsty and gave You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcomed and entertained You, or naked and clothed You? And the King will reply to them, Truly I tell you, in so far as you did it for one of the least [in the estimation of men] of these My brethren, you did it for Me.

I'm no judge or jury, but I am prepared to stand and answer to God for my life on these terms, and I hope that I can be found with a heart that favours God, not rebels against Him.

Our quest for artificial intelligence...

Sciences final frontier to creating artificial life, ends up running into the brick wall of compliance.

  • Science must decide how or if to constrain their creation, will it be a monster or a saviour for humanity?
  • Will it seek to protect and assist us to develop or be intent on destroying us as fast as possible, before we could reach our optimum prime condition and dispose of such as AI entities?

Once again we see a reflection of the whole issue that God both posed and resolved.

The enemy jeered at Gods suggestion to allow humanity free range in paradise, I can imagine him now snarling at God;

"They will never obey from choice, make them our servants"

and Gods response....

"But those who truly ARE created in my image, will want to love me, and be with me, and it's those who I want to walk in the garden with, to share my creation with"

fuming the enemy replies...

"But what about those who reject you, what about them"

and God sadly answering....

"They can go with you, at your command, as like you, they rejected Me and My creation"

Again, the secularist will complain about how this makes God unloving, about how God is unreasonable, demanding submissive unconditional love from us, or casting us away, rejecting His creation because they exercise free will.

From their perspective, they would be correct, but not from Gods, who is allowed, as Creator of All to have a perspective.

God is merely sifting out those who, allowed full reign and total freedom without limitations, would prove to be a danger to all humanity.

You see we are made in His image, but as anyone who has worked in a factory will confirm, despite factory standards hypothetically producing identical product every time, there are always errors and defects in the manufacture, and in instances where you allow the workforce freedom of action (our parents) to do as they wish, then defects and faulty product is assured.

At the end of every production line is a quality control tester, and they remove and separate all the defects they see.

If we do that, in our fabrication of products, and we are made in Gods image, why imagine that God must be constrained to more severe rules concerning the quality control of His product?

The mistake that secularists make....

Is to believe that what we encounter on earth is all that there is to experience, which is a total error of judgement, though understandable when they have no spiritual awareness.

I watched as during the first weeks of my daughters life she chuckled and laughed with great relish as she looked towards our ceilings in the house we inhabited.

It was a house where God lived and was protected in the spiritual realm, safe from intrusion by the enemy and secure from demonic attack.

I slowly came to the conclusion that as her birth had been blessed from the start, and she had been born after much prayer into a believing household, she was in a period of passing from her prior spiritual awareness, into the human condition.

I concluded that we possibly exist in spirit before God inserts us into human form, and that when we pass from this domain, we re-enter the spiritual realm.

It is the 'breath of God' that starts life, and it is the breath of Gods Holy Spirit that rekindles our spiritual walk with Him.

We can be awakened by other spirits, those who dwell here on earth trapped in their rebellion and awaiting some unaware human to occupy and control.

Once in occupation, they will seek to mould the human form and mind to their own masters likeness, in the same way that the Holy Spirit seeks to mould and form our spirits and lives into the likeness of Christ.

Why imagine that the opposition works differently from Gods team?

Back to AI and the ramifications it presents to us:

  • Does anyone still doubt they would wish to install some basic limitations upon 'our' creations?
  • Or that God was wrong to impose some on us?

God is looking for fellow Creationists, spiritual entities who have proven that they want to be with Him for eternity, and shown that they can abandon self in favour of others, who will not conclude that just because they have 'free will' in most aspects of their existence, they are entitled to do as they wish, folk who will not demand that God does things their way in short.

Why would someone question that?

Well I guess for the same reasons the enemy did in the first place.

The demand to be god themselves, and that is why, if we ever endow entities with conscious awareness and artificial intelligence, we should also create it in our own image, as God did with us.


Please answer.....

Should humanity set some basic limitations upon 'our' creations?

See results

Do you agree that God needed impose limitations on humanity?

See results
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