President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday creating America.gov, an AI-powered government portal that can enable users to access public services and search federal databases. He then gathered with top administration officials and AI executives at a lunch meeting in the White House, where they signed a voluntary accord including internal and external AI reviews. The president also directed government agencies to use the term “super intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence” when referring to the technology.
In related news, OpenAI says it is scrapping the release of its next-generation AI model over safety concerns raised by researchers during internal testing. And when the AI developer Anthropic becomes a publicly traded company in a few weeks, it plans to caution potential investors that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” including attempts to “resist shutdown,” “conceal or manipulate information,” and exhibit behavior “resembling blackmail.”
Apparently, some AI “doomers” (those warning of the technology’s risk to humanity) are taking such threats personally. They are considering buying remote islands on which to live, stockpiling iodine pills, moving to electromagnetically shielded bunkers in the desert, or buying land in remote regions of the country.
So far, this article is probably not helping you very much. You may disagree that AI poses such existential threats to you and the rest of us. You may believe that the US government, world leaders, and/or AI companies will find ways to mitigate the threat before it goes too far. And whatever you think about such danger, you likely don’t have the means to buy a remote island.
You may also be facing challenges that are more present-tense and real than such perceived future threats, wishing I would help you face them. I’m in the same camp this morning.
In response, I’d like to offer us both hope from a surprising source.
Swinging on the pendulum of life
In The World as Will and Representation, German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) claims that the world we believe to exist is just a mental projection of this belief. We think the physical universe exists, so it exists for us. What is really behind what we think we see is the “Will,” an irrational, blind, and unceasing urge that drives all things. It powers gravity, animal instincts, plant growth, and human desires.
Because the Will is both blind and insatiable, we can never permanently satisfy it. Getting what we want leads only to temporary relief, which is followed by boredom and the quest for something new. We therefore swing back and forth on a pendulum between the pain of unmet desire and the boredom of having what we want.
Now aren’t you glad you’re reading today’s article?
Because I believe Genesis 1:1, I don’t agree with Schopenhauer that the physical universe is merely the projection of my personal experience. But I do agree that I too often live in the tension between the pain of what I want and the boredom of what I have.
And I agree with Schopenhauer’s “solution,” which is to find something to occupy my mind that does not lead either to idleness or to unsatisfiable desires. However, the atheistic philosopher would very much disagree with my solution to his solution.
Following a map we drew ourselves
Science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin claimed, “It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
At first, I agreed with her. I know that the Christian faith is a journey, a “race” to keep (2 Timothy 4:7) and to “run with endurance” (Hebrews 12:1). But then I realized: Without the proper end, how do we know what journey to take?
If I’m a Daoist like Le Guin, someone who focuses on the present world without the need for a supreme deity, I would agree that “it is the journey that matters” because, in my view, that’s all there is. But all journeys are not the same.
Osama bin Laden’s journey was driven by his belief that the West has been attacking Islam since the Crusades and that attacking the West would unify the Muslim world and establish a global caliphate. Adolf Hitler’s journey in building the Third Reich led to the murder of six million Jews, a fourth of them children. Vladimir Putin’s journey in Ukraine seeks a world in which Ukraine has no journey of its own.
Seeking to live without purpose is its own purpose. And choosing our purpose without seeking the wisdom of an authority beyond ourselves is pure subjectivism. It’s like following a map we drew ourselves with no reference to true north or objective fact.
“The race that is set before us”
By contrast, Hebrews 12 exhorts us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (v. 1). The syntax indicates that this is not a race we choose but one that is chosen for us.
How do we find it?
The writer continues: “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (v. 2). “Looking” could be translated as “continually focusing as a daily lifestyle.” Our focus is to be on Jesus himself, the living Lord who is with us always (Matthew 28:20) and who abides in us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). The more we seek him in prayer, Scripture, and worship, the more he leads us in the way that is best for us (John 10:10).
In Alice in Wonderland, Alice says to the Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” The Cat replies, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” Alice answers, “I don’t much care where,” to which the Cat responds, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
Do you care “which way you go” today?
Quote for the day:
“Success demands singleness of purpose.” —Vince Lombardi
Our latest website resources:
Denison Forum
