Righteous AI: The Christian voice in the Ethical AI conversation

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2022Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) is a priority for tech companies today. Considering its perceived value and power, people are paying attention to both the promise and the peril of AI. On the promise side, the main concern is what AI can do. On the peril side, the main concern is what AI ought to do. This has prompted a conversation, and an emerging body of literature, around Ethical AI principles. While religious traditions provide a wealth of wisdom concerning human moral behavior, secular ethical frameworks have become the acceptable rhetorical scaffolding for articulating guiding ethical principles, especially in Western technical circles. Religious perspectives have been marginalized and ethics has been framed in humanistic rather than transcendent terms. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how Christian teaching, texts, and traditions might make a valuable contribution to the discussion of Ethical AI. The objective was not to displace or silence other voices but to add a missing perspective and bring viewpoint diversity to the conversation and the literature. Framework: As a framework for the research, I proposed that humanistic ethical principles, even if codified into laws and regulations, are necessary but insufficient to ensure robust and beneficial AI. I further proposed that acknowledgment of divine intelligence, along with an ordinate (or rightly ordered) understanding of human intelligence, is foundational to the development and use of artificial intelligence and therefore, religious voices should have a say in framing the ethical scaffolding around it. Research Design: This basic qualitative study explored the Christian voice in AI ethics and focused on three main research questions: 1) How does worldview affect our approach to artificial intelligence? 2) Does a Christian worldview have anything unique to contribute to the discussion around Ethical AI? and 3) How might AI ethics be more robust and beneficial if we brought Christian teachings, texts, and traditions explicitly into the conversation? Using a semi-structured question protocol as the primary data-collection instrument and a constant comparison method of data analysis during both collection and analysis phases, I conducted online interviews with a purposeful sample of AI/tech/ethics professionals who were also professing Christians to identify key themes that differentiate the Christian ethical worldview from the materialist worldview that currently animates the conversation around Ethical AI. Findings/Significance: My findings suggest that worldview (both implicit and explicit) informs every aspect of our approach to Ethical AI. While materialist thought seeks to compel humans to be good without transcendent reason or power, the Christian faith speaks clearly about the role of God as originator, motivator, and sustainer of human moral behavior. Christianity compels us to look beyond a humanistic idea of ethics and toward a creative notion of goodness that cannot be accomplished by our own will and power. This study adds critical insights to the field of AI ethics by deepening awareness of how faith in and fear of God could influence how artificial intelligence is designed and implemented. When Christian wisdom is included in every phase of AI development, we begin to think beyond a minimum-standard culture of Ethical AI and move toward a robust culture of Righteous AI