A Perfect Conglomeration

The Soullessness of AI

AI will always only ever be a perfect conglomeration. Large language models, as the name implies, are large, pulling from near infinite sources; as a result, it will never be able to achieve the individuality that makes humans, human. Even models that are trained on, for instance, a single person’s corpus of work will still only be masquerading and be nothing more than a paper-thin (silicon-thin?) version of that person. It captures the entirety of their work all at once but not who they were at any given time. It puts it all into a mixer and spits out something which sounds authentic enough but will never achieve what the imago Dei do so well: create.

For starters, it cannot create out of nothing—ex nihilo—as God creates, since some like to make it out to be a god of sorts, but to be fair, neither can we. And I don’t mean to say that it cannot create anything. In fact, with the right prompt, it can create a poem, a fairly decent one even, that’s never before been written. By “create” I mean truly create, that is to say, not mechanically in a way that’s meant to merely mimic creation, but with emotion, purpose, and intention, reflecting the way God Himself and we, the bearers of His image, create. For humans are not computers made of meat as the materialists would lead us to believe; rather, we are embodied souls. The world is not just stuff, and neither are we.

Joel Berry provided an excellent insight on this: “AI can only imitate human nature. It will never be anything more than a mirror reflecting our own depravity back to us.” Just as God’s creations reflect Him, so ours reflect us, AI being no exception.

As impressive as it is (and it most certainly is), it’s not as new under the sun as we might think. In a sense it’s simple, and in truth it’s soulless.