AI: A Theological Response
Misgivings of a Recovering Technologist
The early nineteenth-century English Luddites were so angered by the threat posed by the indiscriminate proliferation of novel, job-destroying technologies that they took sledgehammers to the machines that were replacing them. Their zeal was perhaps tempered by a pragmatism that enabled them to operate these same machines as long as they could still earn a decent wage.
I am a technologist by profession. Having worked with modern enterprise technologies for over a quarter-century, I consider myself a sort of modern pragmatic Luddite (sans sledgehammers and violence), always wary of the potentially harmful impacts of digital systems that sit at the core of modern society. These technologies have nonetheless allowed me to adequately feed and house my family. I am also an Eastern Orthodox priest by vocation, answering to the name of Father Peter—the clerical Jekyll to my professional Hyde.
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Bernard Peter Robichau , a priest by vocation and a technologist by profession, writes at the intersection of technology, philosophy, and theology. He resides in upstate South Carolina and is a clergyman of the Orthodox Church in America, Diocese of the South. He can be found online at thirdcity.substack.com.
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31.5—September/October 2018
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