POLITICS: Faith isn’t a roadblock to AI innovation

The chatbot will see you now?

A new Stanford study suggests artificial intelligence is outperforming human doctors in diagnosing illnesses and making complex medical decisions. Meanwhile, drone warfare and cyborg defense experiments are advancing. Is society on the brink of losing its humanity?

In 2020, when Ross Douthat called society “decadent,” our scariest threats were drag-queen story hour, corporate virtue signaling and a medieval plague. We were late Rome before its fall.

Five years later, the world is anything but stagnant. Acceleration has replaced decadence, leaving some to wonder if humanity is at risk of obsolescence. In this brave new world, faith isn’t just a relic or consolation — it’s an urgent framework for confronting deeper questions about intelligence, morality and purpose.

Enter “Believe,” Douthat’s latest book, which argues that religious faith is intellectually superior to its alternatives — and not a moment too soon.

If an algorithm can mimic creativity, interact, generate art, and compose music, what does that say about the human soul? Or about God?

Douthat reminds us that people had similar fears about Darwinism. When Charles Darwin upended traditional beliefs about creation, it sparked a crisis of faith, suggesting a world driven by accident, not divine design. It made it “possible at last to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist,” as Richard Dawkins gloated. Yet faith persisted. Why?

Because the deeper science dove, the more it found structure and order — a universe too fine-tuned to be random. Darwinism didn’t kill faith; it sharpened it.

AI could follow the same path. Some argue it’s a new kind of god — an intelligence so vast it makes human reasoning look primitive. AI researcher Dan Fagella calls advanced models a “sand god,” an evolutionary force pushing beyond human supremacy.

But here’s the thing: AI isn’t conscious. It processes and synthesizes but doesn’t understand. It lacks the human spark. In fact, it proves how unique human consciousness actually is. We think beyond programming. We smell oranges. We taste wine. We search for meaning — something no algorithm does.

To say AI makes humanity obsolete isn’t just premature; it’s intellectually dishonest. If God is real, then human beings aren’t accidents of evolution or mere stepping stones for machine intelligence. We are created — deliberately, uniquely, with purpose. That truth, if acknowledged, should reframe the AI conversation.

Douthat’s “Believe” argues that “New Atheism” is erroneous. His case is simple: the universe has order, and human consciousness fits that order like a key to a lock, suggesting we’re not just biological accidents.

If God is real — and humans are created for a purpose — that should change how we think about AI and a so-called “post-human” future.

That doesn’t mean rejecting technology. The Catholic church once condemned Galileo for scientific advancement — a mistake that cast Christianity as anti-science for decades.

That’s not the road forward. Progress itself isn’t evil. But blind progress for progress’ sake is dangerous. This is where religion can step in. Faith isn’t a roadblock to innovation. It’s a moral compass. Without it, technological advancement becomes an end in itself, leading anywhere (maybe nowhere good).

AI entrepreneur Palmer Luckey warns the real threat isn’t AI itself but who controls it. “You think the moral high ground is to wash your hands of it and let people who don’t care about those things work on it?” he has asked. “There’s no moral high ground in ensuring that less competent, less principled people work on these problems.”

He’s right. The future isn’t just about what machines can do, it’s about what humans should do. Some in Silicon Valley see AI as the next step in evolution, a force that will leave humanity behind. But if human consciousness is unique — if we’re not just stepping stones in some cosmic expansion — then pursuing AI as an end in itself isn’t just misguided. It’s dangerous.

AI forces people to grapple with spiritual questions, and that’s a good thing. But let’s be clear about the real stakes. The world doesn’t need new gods. It needs old truths. It needs faith, not as a shield against change but as a guide through it.

Technology marches forward. But progress without wisdom is chaos. If we don’t ask the right questions — if we don’t ground innovation in something higher — we may not be at the beginning of something great, but at the end of something irreplaceable.

Adapted from City Journal.