Video: John Lennox | 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity | Talks at Google (7/3/21, https://youtu.be/Z8UwMvbfoI4)
"We are made in the image of God. That gives us dignity and value. Some aspects of surveillance seem to infringe on that. They seem to be invasions of privacy, the space that God has given us to function. Certainly, when it comes to controlling people and getting them not to act out of their consciences but to do what the state requires, that can be a very dangerous path. We’re seeing that already, as I have mentioned. But, of course, once we begin to talk about artificial general intelligence, there are two strands again. The first one is to bioengineer existing humans and turn them into gods. The Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari has written a book called Homo Deus, which means “the man who is God.” He very straight forwardly says that there are two major agenda items for the 21st century. One is to solve the problem of death as a physical problem, meaning that medicine will go so far that you don’t need to die. You could die, but you don’t need to. Second is to bioengineer human life to enhance it through technology, drugs, and other things so that we create a superhuman intelligence. That’s where all the dystopian scenarios come from, and that fuels films like The Matrix and so on. They’re scary because we are at the cusp of potentially altering what it means to be human permanently. Human beings, “version 1.0” as created by God, are by nature special. The specialness of human beings is seen in the fact that God became one. The Word became human, became flesh, and dwelt among us. I take that extremely seriously, and therefore any attempt to make “humans 2.0” is going to be a step away from God’s design, not a step toward God." (John Lennox)
