Life was very obvious in the day of St. Francis; what needed explanation was death. Even the celestial bodies were thought to be alive, and St. Francis could speak of them as Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Modern science has turned things around: The cosmos is full of lifeless matter, and we wonder what it means to be alive in the midst of it. What is life, and what does it reveal that matter does not? This is my question, and it bears directly on how to use technology.
Life has become an enigma to biologists. They understand how cells replicate by growth and division, and they identify the physical principles. These are the same that have governed the entire cosmos since the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. This past is not even past. A quirk of relativistic physics allows us to look back in time and see most of it. And the same physics predicts an end in the future, far out and beyond our imagination, but an end nevertheless.
It’s all very impressive. For the person of faith, cosmology evokes majesty, and there is awe and wonder at the power of God who created it all. We recognize in the cosmos form, limit, and perfection, the marks of a great work of art. It is divine art, and our understanding can delve ever deeper into it. And we seem rather puny in the midst of it all.
But we are alive, and the cosmos is not! This makes us more than stars and galaxies. I know perfectly well that molecular biology foretells my body’s corruption and death, but in the meantime, I have the time of my life and choices to make. We are meant to be creative. We see God’s grand creation all around us, of which we are part and in which we are creative. True creativity is the mark of the spirit, but it is already prefigured in life by the unfolding of its diversity through evolution. Being alive is meant to be creative. Being spiritually alive means bringing this creativity into harmony with what God created.
Now think again about technology. It, too, is God’s good gift, as understanding of God’s creation leads us to technology. When do we use it well? In a nutshell, the answer is whether it makes us more or less creative. When machines let us get things done more quickly, what do we do with the time thus made available?
When I ride my bicycle instead of driving a car, protecting the environment is a bonus but not the reason. I enjoy riding my bike. It engages my mind in good ways, and I arrive in a better frame of mind to do whatever I am supposed to do. Or maybe I just get tired, but tired in a good way, the kind that leads to refreshing sleep and true creativity when I wake up.
AI is also a gift, born of growing insights from the natural sciences. The measure of its goodness is simple: Does it enlarge our creativity, or dull it? Many now use it to write dull prose and uninspired entertainment, but we are made for much more. We are meant to be creative and to express ourselves, in the context of what God has already given us. In this way, we give Glory to God and become part of it in a small way. When AI helps me do this, it is not just good but very good.