A loose connection and the theology of AI

I wonder if we’re about to get kicked out of Eden all over again.

“Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil…’” Genesis 3:22

The Kia finally started.

The little green car was running like a top – until it quit. Right there in the rectory driveway. Now the location of its demise and revivification could well serve as springboard to a lively discussion of the power of prayer, but no need to go there. The cause and rectification were unequivocally of this world – obscured temporarily by works of human ingenuity

I’m one of a generation who grew up messing around with cars. Understanding the basic workings of a gas powered American automobile was as essential to a fellow’s standing as a man among men as an expressed affinity for a professional baseball franchise and an attitude of unmitigated envy toward Hugh Hefner. Guys were expected not only to own wrenches, but know how to use them. Hoods were opened with confidence; closed with satisfaction.

Now, unless a guy had aspirations to make brake adjustin’, engine tinkerin’, tire changin’, and muffler replacement a career, there was no formal curriculum involved in attaining basic automotive repair and maintenance skills. It was learning by doing, learning by desperation, and learning by observation. Half a dozen teenage boys clustered around a broken down Chevy was as good as a graduate level seminar on carburetor adjustment. I attended enough of these seminars to give me a reasonably adequate layman’s diagnostic understanding of the mid-twentieth century automobile and the ability to do basic maintenance and repairs on the same.

Unfortunately, we are no longer dealing with mid-twentieth century automobiles. When a malfunction occurs, the cars we now drive are not at all “user friendly.”

Sure, when what’s supposed to happen doesn’t, when go turns to stop, when lights flash, bells chime, buzzers buzz, and the digital tach inexplicably drops to zero, men still pile out, pop the hood and stare – no longer at an engine, but at an array of plastic covers concealing Toyota-knows-what. Great-great grandpa staring down at his horse lying on the side of the road, had just as much ability to bring Old Dobbin back to life as his descendant slouched against his inert 2024 Mustang.

Or, in my case, a 2014 Kia. A Kia that wouldn’t start.

A half-century’s worth of automotive experience told me what was needed was a jump. What contemporary observation told me was – where’s the battery on this dang thing? Then, how to get cables on it.

Several hours, a couple of owners manuals, several YouTube videos, and a confession’s worth of bad words later I managed to locate and tighten a loose connection, hook up the jumpers and the Korean war was over.

Had it been my ’66 Impala, it’d been running in 15 minutes, aided by two goddamns and a beer for the guy with the other car.

As I aimlessly drove around, charging up the battery, I got to thinking: If we’ve managed to make jump starting the family car all be too complicated for an ordinary mortal to undertake, might we be on the brink of outsmarting ourselves entirely?

Lately I’ve been reading quite a bit about Artificial Intelligence – technology so complex that the folks with extraordinary intelligence who are developing it don’t really understand how it works, much less be able to explain it to folks of ordinary intelligence, like us. What makes me nervous is the fact that the last time an intelligence was introduced to this world, things didn’t work out as the developer planned. In that case, it wasn’t a bug in the system, but a serpent in the Garden. The newly minted organic intelligence did as it darn-well pleased and that’s been causing problems ever since.

I wonder if we’re about to get kicked out of Eden all over again.