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2084 and the AI Revolution: How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future (2nd Edition)
John Lennox
Zondervan (2024). 359 pp.
2084 and the AI Revolution, by John Lennox, was first published in 2020, just as the world was descending into a global pandemic. By this time, large language models were making surprisingly quick progress in allowing computers, as Marvin Minsky put it when he defined AI in the 1970s, to “do things that would require intelligence if done by men.” The world was nonetheless shocked when, in November 2022, OpenAI made ChatGPT available to the public. Since then, the capacities of AI have grown exponentially. Whereas past technologies threatened to automate manual tasks, AI is dramatically disrupting white collar and creative fields. No surprise, then, that 2024 saw Lennox publish a revised and significantly expanded edition of 2084.
The book very helpfully begins with some basic level-setting to bring readers up to speed with developments in AI. Over the course of the first three chapters, Lennox provides a necessarily brief history of machine learning. Lennox then situates this history in the context of two major questions that he interacts with over the course of the book: Where do we come from? Where are we going? Engaging with science, philosophy, and even works of popular fiction by the likes of Dan Brown, Lennox first treats these questions at a high level to establish a conviction and a concern. The conviction is that, as he has argued throughout his lengthy career as a mathematician and philosopher of science, faith in an intelligent creator is not only rational but makes the best sense of the complexity, order, and beauty of the universe, and particularly of life itself. The concern is that, in the absence of that faith, life can only be understood as mechanism, such that there is really nothing to distinguish us as living, conscious beings from artificial intelligence which may, in the very near future, eclipse our capabilities at manipulating information. For some, this opens the door to the possibility of a future in which humans are replaced by computers as the dominant form of intelligence on the planet.
The main body of Lennox’s book provides a concise but comprehensive survey of the many issues raised by AI. Lennox acknowledges that AI holds out the promise of unambiguous benefits: for instance, its capacity to predict the structure of proteins and other molecules with desirable characteristics, a development which won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2024, has dramatically accelerated the hunt for cures for innumerable diseases. But far more overwhelming is the catalog of potential risks. Questions addressed by Lennox include:
What impact will AI have on the labor market?
What does the advent of AI mean for education and human formation?
How will the world prevent the use of AI for mass surveillance?
In a world already plagued by misinformation, how will we manage an anticipated deluge of AI-generated deception?
How will we prevent the use of AI to exploit the most vulnerable, via pornography, gambling, scams, etc.?
Will we turn to AI to fill relational gaps through AI “companions” like Replika, or even AI avatars of our departed loved ones?
Lennox is an able introductory guide to an initial response to such questions, grounded in biblical and Christian theological insights. Perhaps necessarily, he leaves certain questions untouched—for example, he does not discuss the implications of the vast quantities of energy consumed by AI.
The final section of Lennox’s book is an articulation of the Christian gospel narrative, emphasizing its response to the hopes that humanity is placing on AI. This approach helpfully illuminates the way that technology tells its own “gospel” story. If there is one aspect of this comparison that could have been more fully developed, it concerns the question of what it means to be human. While Lennox never explicitly says that being human is a matter of having or performing certain rational capacities, he frequently criticizes techno-optimists for claiming that AI performs better than humans in manipulating information. This would seem to leave open, however, the possibility that further technological progress will close the gap, and what that would mean. If we base our understanding of consciousness and life on external performance only, will we one day be forced to acknowledge AI as sentient? Here, some investigation of the biblical understanding of the soul, and of what it means to be made in the image of God beyond the possession of capacities and performance of functions, would have been helpful.
Lennox ends with the final chapter of the gospel story—the restoration of all things at the second coming of Christ. Without being overly reductive in the interpretation of notoriously difficult and divisive passages of Scripture, Lennox notes that at the core of biblical apocalyptic literature is worship: worship rightly directed to the triune God, worship misdirected to the diabolical parody of the Trinity—beast, dragon, anti-Christ. Peel back the hopes humanity is placing in AI, Lennox argues, and we find ourselves tempted to worship the work of our own hands, to treat AI as though it were omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, something tantamount to a god of our own making. Readers may differ with the particulars of Lennox’s biblical interpretation at this point, but his warning is well-taken, and his instinct to apply the whole counsel of Scripture to the most urgent problems facing modern society is admirable.
2084 is an excellent starting point for anyone seeking a Christian perspective on the vast array of issues raised by recent developments in AI from one who has been drawing science and faith into fruitful conversation for many decades.
Nathan Barczi (PhD, University of Nottingham; PhD, MIT) is the Associate Pastor of Preaching & Teaching at Christ the King Church in Newton, MA, and the Associate Director & Senior Theologian at The Octet Collaborative in Cambridge, MA. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
