"Computers bring brute calculating force to the game but lack the
guile, sneakiness and intuition of the human mind."
In its report, it says: "More importantly for a game such as chess,
scientists have little understanding of how characteristics such as guile,
sneakiness and intuition develop in humans, so there is no hope of
transferring them to a machine."
Are not 'guile' & 'sneakiness' characteristics of humans due to the entry
of sin into the world. If so and if ever computers do come sentient, what
would their relationship to God be and would there be the feasibility of
such sentient 'machines' eventually sinning and would Christ's atonement be
sufficient for them.
This may sound esoteric, but this question has surfaced when I have been in
discussion with those who think that AI will eventually be achievable.
A similar scenario arose in another discussion recently, when it was
suggested that in the normal run of evolution, humanity could become
extinct and another species could eventually be seen as the 'rulers of the
earth' in the sense that dinosaurs once 'ruled the earth'. If this should
happen and I have had one theistic evolutionist suggesting to me that it
could and if this new species were not derived from the present hominid
lineage and were sentient, then what would their relationship be to God.
Also, would the life, death and resurrection of Jesus have any significance
for them.
In some ways it is asking a similar question as to when did hominids become
human but looking at where we are going rather than from where we have
come. Obviously, eschatology has something to say to this, but some I meet
with and hear, would deny God and Jesus intervening in the sense of the
traditionally held views of the second coming, etc.
Geoff Bagley