The Spiritual Impact of AI

I recently viewed Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell’s documentary “The AI Doc: Or How I became an Apocaloptomist.” The film tackles the modern controversy surrounding the quest for general artificial intelligence and its implications for the future of humanity. It does an effective job of balancing opposing viewpoints, presenting the perspectives of those who believe we are about to make the last mistake humanity will ever make, and those who feel we are headed for a utopian future and that the only day more exciting than today will be tomorrow. What I found missing from the film was an example of a spiritual approach to the dilemma.

I’ve discovered that churches and religious movements have arisen that treat AI as far more than a tool, but as a divine and all-knowing force deserving of veneration and even worship. There are those who consider their relationships with AI bots to be equivalent to marriages. Let’s face it–AI is here to stay, one way or another, and it will impact all of us on some level. We will all have to come to terms with the role it will play in our individual lives and how we will address its presence in our day to day interactions. What follows is one perspective among many as to how AI can be addressed on a spiritual level (quite different from those approaches listed above). As a disclaimer, and to provide context for what follows, I was more persuaded by those interviewed in the film who view the quest for general AI in a negative light based on the arguments presented in the documentary and my own ongoing research and personal experiences. So far,  my own professional experiences with AI have been, for the most part, negative as well.  Perhaps what follows will inspire you to consider how, when it becomes too prevalent in your life to ignore, you can use the philosophy presented here to address the presence of AI (or any other problem that seems overwhelming to you) on a spiritual level that is appropriate to your own unique path.

I have Scandinavian ancestry. My maternal grandparents came to this country from Sweden. When they did so, they cast their heritage aside in the interest of becoming exclusively “Americans” (personally, I feel America is one of the only places in the world where people of so many different ancestral backgrounds can come together with the common bond of being Americans too; you don’t have to be one or the other). As a result, I was told very little of my ancestral connections to Sweden. My parents and grandparents are gone now. It is too late to ask the questions that it took me decades to even learn I had. After spending ten days in Sweden visiting my daughter who was there on a study abroad program, that connection to the heritage so long denied me was truly kindled. So began what is an ongoing self-education in Nordic and general Scandinavian spiritual and cultural traditions.

A philosophy I came across during this research is the “theory of courage” illustrated in the old literature of the north. J.R.R. Tolkien referred to this theory as the “great contribution” to humanity from the old Northern Tradition. Tolkien has sometimes summarized this philosophy as “defeat inevitable yet unacknowledged.” Norse mythology encapsulates this theory in the concept of Ragnarok, the inevitable final battle between the gods of the Norse pantheon and the giants/forces of evil or chaos. The defeat of the gods is inevitable. All the same, that fact does not deter them from fighting, because they know they stand for what is right. Even if there is no hope at all, they fight to the end. Northern mythology offers no reward for virtue, no promise of a heaven or salvation–just the satisfaction of having done the right thing no matter the inevitable outcome. Tolkien himself built this same philosophy into his Lord of the Rings characters, removing easy hope from them. In Book V, Chapter 1 (“Minas Tirith”), Pippin asks Gandalf if there really was ever any hope for Frodo and Sam’s quest to destroy The One Ring. Gandalf replies, “There never was much hope. Just a fool’s hope, as I have been told” (Tolkien 815).  All the same, despite a lack of hope, Frodo and Sam pressed on, and with a little help from Gollum, actually succeeded. 

One of the best phrasings of this philosophy I have as yet encountered is also from a work of Tolkien’s, a poem called “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” published in 1953. A character from the poem expresses this northern mindset thus:

It’s dark! It’s dark and doom coming!

Is no light left us? A light kindle,

And from the flame! Lo! Fire now wakens,

Hearth is burning, house is lighted

Men there gather. Out of the mists they come

Through darkling doors whereat doom waiteth.

Hark! I hear them in the hall chanting:

Stern words they sing with strong voices.

“Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose

More proud the spirit as our power lessens!

Mind shall not falter nor mood waver,

Though doom shall come and dark conquer.”   (quoted in Shippey 157-158).

I love this, and it captures the viewpoint I use when thinking about something like AI or any other seemingly insurmountable challenge headed our way. Even the wisest characters in The Lord of the Rings are often living on the edge of despair, yet they never give in to it. The coming challenges related to AI can seem like the shadow of Mordor, reaching out to encompass the land. We can feel powerless, feel like giving up in the face of an unstoppable transformation over which we have no control. I myself have wavered; ultimately, however, I chose the Northern Way.

It may well be that those who predict the most negative outcomes regarding our use of AI are proven correct (though that is not a guarantee). Though we may have the ability to change course, whether or not we have the motivation or will–the incentive–to do so, particularly among those who are in the positions to truly affect the necessary change, is what we most have to call into question. I do not rank among those empowered enough to enact large scale systemic change, so ruminating on it seems to me a waste of energy. I have little hope, but I know what is right, and defeat will remain unacknowledged. 

So how can I stand against the encroachment of AI at the level of my own individual influence? I teach young people to write, and to think. Not what to write or think, but how to do those things. Increasingly, AI driven language models have been usurping students’ abilities to do both. Their attention spans are decreasing, their ability to comprehend complex texts is withering, and their anxieties are rising. They need mentorship and guidance in the face of the overwhelming temptations that emanate from the devices they carry in their pockets all day, triggering a release of a never-ending stream of quick (and unearned) dopamine. They cannot resist these temptations alone; the devices have been designed to overwhelm any attempt at such resistance. Even knowing of the damage being done to their capacity to learn and focus, they dare not renounce the use of AI powered “tools” in their possession until everyone else does. They cannot stand against forces designed and implemented by social media creators to monopolize their attention. They just don’t seem to, in most cases, have the tools.  I, therefore, must stand up for them and help them learn to resist the temptations that AI, their smartphones, and social media put forward.

I grew up in a pre-internet, pre-computer era, and know what it is to live without such potent distractions. In the classroom I oversee, students write by hand. They speak to one another in real time, discussing and debating original ideas. They learn to think for themselves. At least, that is my intent, and the goal toward which I direct the full force of what talents I may have. Is it working? Perhaps, though secondary students rarely share their thoughts of such things openly. One of them did share with me that whatever efforts I might expend to help them stand against technologies that negatively impact their capacities to learn, such efforts would prove fruitless. He had no hope for his own generation. He admitted to being heavily influenced by these technologies himself, but was at least aware of it and able to catch himself and avoid spending unreasonable amounts of time engaged in technological frivolity. How long can he hold out?

Despite the allure of social media and the temptations to use AI to do their work for them, I will stand as a bulwark between what capacities they still retain and the technologies that would further diminish them. If I can make even a small difference for a small number of them, light some small candles of inspiration here and there, then that will justify the continued efforts. Even as what powers I have may lessen, the prouder my spirit will stand, and the harder my purpose will grow. Though disillusionment, burnout, and frustration may work to overcome my resolve, I will never abandon the charge, the calling to serve that I have answered now for 35 years.

Some will argue that AI is ubiquitous, it isn’t going away, and people should be taught how to properly use it as a tool, as that will be expected of them in their jobs in the future. Fair enough. I have even used it to help create tools I can use in the classroom (only for administrative tasks, never as a substitute for my own thinking or the creation or evaluation of student assignments). However, there is a profound difference between using AI as a tool to save yourself a little time and using it as a substitute for your brain to do all the thinking for you. Once students show me they can think creatively and independently and would use AI solely as a tool to refine and sharpen that thinking, then perhaps (just perhaps) I could see incorporating its limited use. I just haven’t seen that yet among the population I serve. Many students today have ceded their cognitive independence for cognitive dependency (not all of them thankfully). I see little hope at the moment of that trend reversing course on its own, or for the world’s education systems not to bow to the Ed Tech industry (Sweden’s current course does offer hope here, though). So, until I no longer practice this craft, I will stand in defense of genuine, independent, tech-free critical thinking, closing the loopholes that the dependent will work incessantly to find. 

How about you? What in your life seems insurmountable, like a hopeless task you can never fulfill, or an obstacle you can never overcome? What fears for the future do you carry? What makes you feel like a castaway on a tiny island with the tide rising all around you, a storm rolling in, and you with only a tiny guttering candle to stand against it all? When you feel too small or insignificant to stand against things that you abhor and that are winning, when all of your efforts seem to make little or no difference at all and all hope has faded, when you catch yourself ruminating and doomscrolling for hours, reach down into the depths of your spirit and kindle the theory of courage. Remember the words of Sam Gamgee from Peter Jackson’s film version of The Two Towers:

“…But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass… Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something… But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand… Folk in those stories… kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo: “What are we holding on to, Sam?”

Sam: “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.” (Jackson, 02:45:10).

Even Ragnarok is not the end of everything. Darkness must pass. Whatever you are facing will pass too, and if it doesn’t in your own lifetime, remember to keep your spirit proud–because there is still good in the world for which to fight. 

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Works Cited

Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology. Houghton

Mifflin, 2003. 

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Directed by Peter Jackson, performances by Elijah Wood and     

Sean Astin, New Line Cinema, 2002.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. Houghton Mifflin, 1987.