Technology is good, but...
Last week was quite a long blog. Thanks for enduring it. This week I'll try to keep it short.
There is a lot of talk about AI -- is it bad or is it good?; does it serve humankind or will we eventually serve it?; will it make our lives easier so we can enjoy life to its fullest or will it render human labor obsolete and plunge Western societies into a division of extremely rich technocrats and have nots?; will it render many diseases and human issues obsolete by its power or will it take over the world and make us into batteries like in The Matrix?
Good questions. But this blog is not about AI. It is about technology in general. It is an observation, mainly, maybe a bit of a warning. I'll let you decide.
My point about technology is that it is not neutral and it is dangerous for us to see it that way. It changes the world we live in, our reality, and thus it changes us.
Martin Heidegger, the great 20th Century philosopher used the illustration of the Rhine River in his native Germany to make the point. I'll try to summarize his opaque prose as best I can.
He contrasts two approaches to the river. One is more traditional craft -- you build a bridge over the river in order to cross it. The other is reflective of our modern technology -- you build a hydroelectric dam in order to harvest large amounts of energy from it.
What is the difference between the two approaches?
If you build a bridge you allow the river to be what it is. You respect the river as a river and in building the bridge you are not changing its essence. You connect the banks of the river, but the river is still the river, and by building the bridge you allow people to see the river as itself. In sum, the river and the person maintain a kind of equilibrium -- no one is conquered and each are allowed to be itself. (cf "Building Dwelling Thinking")
But, if you build a hydroelectric dam you have now, in Heidegger's words, "set upon" the river in the name of Enframing it. The river is no longer a river; it cannot be itself any longer with the dam stretching across it. You have forced the river to become something it was not. The river is now reduced to a standing pool of water with power generating potential, not a beautiful landscape to be enjoyed. You have transformed the river into something else. (cf "The Question Concerning Technology")
What's his point?
Heidegger is not saying that technology is bad and we should all become Luddites (a group during the Industrial Revolution in England who protested technological advancement in manufacturing by smashing stuff in textile factories). His point is that every technological advancement changes how we view the world around us, and, I would argue, thereby changes how we view ourselves. In Heidegger's words, "It is technology itself that makes the demand on us to think in another way what is usually understood by “essence.”"
The more we "set upon" the world the more we will view the world and ourselves, as merely stuff, as material to be molded, as a commodity to be used, or as a problem to be solved. We will lose a sense of the wonder of creation and, even worse, we will lose the wonder of being created selves, made in the image of God, designed for worship, and made for eternity.
So what should be our approach to AI and whatever other technologies come along? I'll let you decide. But never think that technology is neutral, that it simply let's us do things faster or more efficiently. It enframes the world, and us.
Soli Deo Gloria
