NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

I Kings 3:5-12

Psalm 119:129-136

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Prayer of the Day: Beloved and sovereign God, through the death and resurrection of your Son you bring us into your kingdom of justice and mercy. By your Spirit, give us your wisdom, that we may treasure the life that comes from Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

It is not surprising that Solomon should seek wisdom in his prayer to the God who visits him in his dreams. He describes himself as “but a little child” who has inherited his father’s throne and must now reign over “a great people that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude.” The geopolitical landscape of the ancient near east was no less dangerous and complex than the global landscape of today. Peace and prosperity were maintained by strategic military alliances, trade agreements and treaties governing the use of land passages and waterways. Each nation had its own vital interests and ambitions. Israel’s wellbeing, indeed, its very existence as a nation state, required a leader capable of navigating these dangerous waters, avoiding its reefs and shoals.

The wisdom for which Solomon prays, however, is not the wisdom of politics and statecraft. Instead, he prays for wisdom to discern “between good and evil.”  That is precisely the wisdom God promises Solomon. Significantly, however, God does not simply open up Solomon’s brain and pour wisdom into his head. Instead, God points Solomon to the place where wisdom can be found. You will obtain wisdom, God tells Solomon, if only you “walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments.” That way of wisdom is spelled out more specifically in our Psalm reading for this Sunday, wherein the psalmist declares that the “unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” The psalmist goes on to tell us that “with open mouth I pant, because I long for thy commandments” and pleads with God, “teach me thy statutes.”  The psalmist prays, “keep steady my steps according to thy promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.”

Wisdom is not to be confused with mere knowledge. It is not obtained through the acquisition of information. Knowledge can unlock the secrets of the atom. Wisdom guides us in how we can use that information in life giving ways. Knowledge defines the parameters of what we are capable of doing. Wisdom guides us in determining what we ought to do. Knowledge consists of learning facts that exist independently. The earth orbits the sun whether we are aware of that fact or not. Wisdom, however, does not exist in a vacuum. It is relational. Wisdom is acquired by having one’s character shaped and molded by living faithfully within the community of God’s covenant people. Wisdom is not taught in the classroom, inscribed on the pages of a book or programed into any app. It is not imparted overnight. It is won little by little over a lifetime, one triumph, one tragedy, one love, one heartbreak, one friendship, one betrayal at a time. Wisdom is not commensurable with intellect. A genius can still be a fool, while many persons I have know with severe mental impairments radiate profound wisdom.  

Lately, artificial intelligence (AI) has been very much in the news. It came to my attention recently through an e-mail from a very dear friend who asked me if I had any thoughts about the “meteoric rise of AI.” I had to confess that I had not given AI much thought. Perhaps I have been remiss in this regard. Many scientists, engineers and medical experts have been expressing concerns about AI, its potential effects on education, our health, particularly that of children, the job market and our society generally. How do people of faith evaluate and respond to these concerns? Perhaps our readings for this Sunday can give us a window into that meteoric rise and what it might mean for us.

First off, the issue of delegating human thought is not entirely new. Back in my third grade year, the Pee Chee was a standard requirement. It was a black and yellow folder with images of young people playing football, tennis or basketball. It had two wings, one for holding lined paper and the other for placement of completed homework assignments. Significantly, it also had a multiplication table printed on the inside flap with which you could find the answer to multiplication problems involving integers from one through twelve. My third grade teacher hated that table with a passion comparable to Cotton Mather’s hatred of the devil. She felt that these diabolical tables discouraged memorization that would, in turn, cripple our progress in learning higher mathematics. The first task we were given on the first day of school was to take our scissors, cut the multiplication table out of our Pee Chees and throw it away.

Instead of throwing my multiplication table away, I taped it to the inside of my desk where I could easily consult it. I never felt that I was cheating when using the table. I understood fully well the basic arithmetic functions required for higher level computations. Exercising those functions repeatedly seemed silly when the answer was available right in my desk. Why let memory games take time and energy away from solving complicated equations? The same goes, I suppose, for calculators and other computation devices. They can be said to free our minds from mundane mental tasks so that we can focus on higher levels of thinking and doing. Nothing wrong with that as far as I can see.

The internet took us to new levels. When I first began practicing law, electronic legal databases and the internet platforms making them available were in their infancy. Legal research for small firms like mine was slow and labor intensive. We did legal research by sending first year associates down to the county law library to pour over hundreds of volumes of case law and state statutes. Composing a legal memo on a single issue could take weeks. Within five years following my date of hire, internet libraries like Westlaw and Lexis became widely available at a reasonable subscription fee. They made it possible to research an issue under the law of all fifty states and the federal government with a few keystrokes. In twenty minutes you could have a list of links to all the court decisions published from the formation of the country to the last twenty-four hours. That was a significant development, doing much to level the playing field between small firms like mine and the big city firms with their own large, expansive and fully staffed law libraries.

Of course, the internet has been a mixed bag. Though it has put more information at our fingertips than any generation before us, it has also been a vector for dangerous misinformation, conspiracy theories and violent ideologies. The internet has built bridges of knowledge and understanding between diverse communities and people who would otherwise never have crossed paths. It has also allowed racist groups throughout the world to find one another and unite in their violent and hateful acts. The internet opened new frontiers of knowledge and exciting media for sharing it with school age children, thereby enriching their educations. At the same time, social media has proven toxic to our children, exposing them to cyber bullying, stalking by online predators and radicalization by extremist groups. As with all human knowledge and achievement, wisdom is required to ensure that the internet is experienced as blessing rather than curse.

In the last year it seems that AI has taken a quantum leap. Not only are computers able to accumulate, organize and analyze data faster and more efficiently than humans. They are now capable of using their data to compose music, teleplays, fairy tales, student essays and answers to test questions. Computers have, without human direction and on their own initiative, undertaken the learning of languages and assimilation of information deemed helpful to their tasks. To say that they have minds of their own probably overstates the case. Still, their emerging management capabilities are beginning to transform the work place by, among other things, eliminating jobs. These effects are being felt throughout our workforce and not only by administrative assistants, librarians, accountants and others who manage information or crunch numbers. One of the concerns raised in the current Hollywood writer’s strike is the potential use of AI to replace script writers for performers and actors. I hasten to add here that the same has been true for every technological advance. The printing press ended the scrivener’s guild. The industrial revolution displaced numerous crafts. Makers of buggy whips, fountain pens and typewriters can testify to the pain that comes with technological advances.

Still, there is something different about the most recent developments in AI. It is one thing for machines to take over menial tasks that free us up to be more productive in other ways. It is one thing to rely on computers for collecting and organizing data for our analysis. We can even live with computers conducting rudimentary analysis of data for us. But it is a little unnerving to have them writing our speeches, producing paintings in the style of Van Gogh and composing music on par with Mozart. One cannot help but wonder, will the day come when humans have nothing to do but oil the machines and watch them work? Or will the machines learn to service themselves and decide that we humans are an unnecessary nuisance? This is truly the stuff of science fiction along the lines of the Matrix and Terminator movies.   

I am not convinced that computers are even close to achieving anything like human consciousness. Nor do I think they are malevolent in and of themselves. I don’t lose much sleep worrying that they will take over the world. However advanced they may be, computers do only what they have been programed to do. Even where they discover new and more efficient ways to do what they are programed to do, they still are doing what they are programed by us to do. That is what worries me. Our culture is rife with systemic inequality, racism and injustice. The last thing we need is technology to run our discriminatory justice system, our inequitable banking systems and our deeply racist law enforcement systems more efficiently.  

Allow me to illustrate. An AI program designed to manage our nation’s healthcare system-such that it is-could prove to be a nightmare. That is not because the computer might get it wrong, but because it would probably get it right. Currently, our healthcare system consists of doctors for whom medicine is a marketable and profitable commodity. It is run by insurance companies which make money by charging as much premium as the law will allow and providing as little coverage as they can get away with. It is under the sway of pharmacology companies that make money by selling their wares for as much as they can. The people the system is supposed to serve are, in reality, serving the system-assuming they have health insurance or lots of money. An AI program managing such a system would naturally do what our system is already doing now, namely, providing as little healthcare as possible for the highest price while seeking to deny as many claims as possible in order to maximize profit. The only difference is that AI would do the job with greater ruthless efficiency.  

Of course, a different kind of healthcare system with priorities different than the corporate bottom line could also benefit from AI. Computers could assist us in identifying communities underserved by doctors and hospitals and suggest ways to improve access to high quality care for these communities. AI can enable doctors, nurses and social workers to interface virtually with persons for whom traveling to appointments is difficult. Computers can respond initially to an individual’s health inquiries and point that person to nearby providers who might be of assistance in diagnosing and treating them. For a healthcare system in which the health and welfare of all people is paramount, AI has huge potential for improving medical care and treatment.     

In the end, AI will only be as good for us as we are wise. From the day the first human picked up a stone and recognized that it could as easily grind his corn as smash his neighbor’s skull, we have been faced with the same urgent need for wisdom, which alone can protect us from ourselves and our inventions. The monsters we see in AI are only a reflection of the ones lurking in our souls. Like Solomon, we find ourselves in possession of something bigger than ourselves, something that offers tremendous promise and potential for good, but also something that could hurt us badly if we fail to manage it properly. Let us hope that we find the humility of Solomon to pray for the wisdom that AI might become for us a blessing.

Here is a poem/song by Denny Zager and Rick Evans. It paints a grim picture of human destiny, our dependence on our technology and our relationship with the planet. It might very well prove prophetic. Yet the way of wisdom offers us an alternative.

In the Year 2525

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find

In the year 3535
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
Ain’t gonna need your teeth, won’t need your eyes
You won’t find a thing to chew
Nobody’s gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got nothing to do
Some machine’s doing that for you

In the year 6565
Ain’t gonna need no husband, won’t need no wife
You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube, whoa, whoa

In the year 7510
If God’s a-comin’ he ought to make it by then
Maybe he’ll look around himself and say
Guess it’s time for the Judgement day

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head
He’ll either say I’m pleased where man has been
Or tear it down and start again, whoa, whoa

In the year 9595
I’m kinda wondering if man is gonna be alive
He’s taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain’t put back nothing, whoa, whoa

Now it’s been 10, 000 years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew
Now man’s reign is through

But through eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it’s only yesterday

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may thrive

In the year 3535
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth…

Source: Musixmatch (for non-commercial use only). Denny Zager and Rick Evans were partners in an American rock-pop duo. They were active during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Zager was born in February of 1944 in Wymore, Nebraska. Evans was born in January of 1943 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Evans died in February of 2018. Zager now lives in Lincoln, Nebraska where he builds custom guitars. Zager and Evans are best known for the above hit song premiering in 1969. The song became a number one hit single, the only one the group ever had. You can hear a recording of the song at this link.