Column

Comment

15 December 2023

4 min read

There’s more than one way to lose our humanity

How we treat immigrants and how AI might treat humans weighs on the mind of George Pitcher.

George Pitcher

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

A grey multi-story accommodation barge floats beside a dock.

The Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge in Portland Harbour.

shley Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

“The greatness of humanity,” said Mahatma Gandhi, “is not in being human, but in being humane.” At first glance, this is something of a truism. But actually Gandhi neatly elides the two meanings of humanity in this tight little phrase.

Humanity means both the created order that we know as the human race and its capacity for self-sacrificial love and compassion. In the Christian tradition, we celebrate at Christmas what we call the incarnation – the divine sharing of the human experience in the birth of the Christ child.

Our God shares our humanity and in doing so, shows his humanity in the form of a universal and unconditional love for his people. So, it’s an act both for humanity and of humanity.

This Christmas, there are two very public issues in which humanity has gone missing in both senses. And it’s as well to acknowledge them as we approach the feast. That’s in part a confessional act; where we identify a loss of humanity, in both its definitions, we can resolve to do something about it. Christmas is a good time to do that.

The first is our loss of humanity in the framing of legislation to end illegal immigration to the UK. The second is the absence of humanity in the development of artificial intelligence. The former is about political acts that are inhumane and the latter goes to the nature of what it is to be human.

We have literally lost a human to our inhumanity, hanged in a floating communal bathroom. It’s enough to make us look away from the crib, shamed rather than affirmed in our humanity.

There is a cynical political line that the principal intention of the government’s Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, voted through the House of Commons this week, is humane, in that it’s aimed at stopping the loss of life among migrants exploited by criminal gangs. But it commodifies human beings, turning them into cargo to be exported elsewhere. That may not be a crime – the law has yet to be tested – but it is at least an offence against humanity.

Where humanity, meaning what it is to be human, is sapped, hope withers into despair. When a human being is treated as so much freight, its value not only diminishes objectively but so does its self-worth. The suicide of an asylum seeker on the detention barge Bibby Stockholm in Portland Harbour is a consequence of depreciated humanity. Not that we can expect to hear any official contrition for that.

To paraphrase Gandhi, when we cease to be humane we lose our humanity. And we have literally lost a human to our inhumanity, hanged in a floating communal bathroom. It’s enough to make us look away from the crib, shamed rather than affirmed in our humanity.

That’s inhumanity in the sense of being inhumane. Turning now to humanity in the sense of what it means to be human, we’re faced with the prospect of artificial intelligence which not only replicates but replaces human thought and function.

To be truly God-like, AI would need to allow itself to suffer and to die on humanity’s part.

The rumoured cause of the ousting of CEO Sam Altman last month from OpenAI (before his hasty reinstatement just five days later) was his involvement in a shadowy project called Q-star, GPT-5 technology that is said to push dangerously into the territory of human intelligence.

But AI’s central liability is that it lacks humanity. It is literally inhuman, rather than inhumane. We should take no comfort in that because that’s exactly where its peril lies. Consciousness is a defining factor of humanity. AI doesn’t have it and that’s what makes it so dangerous.

To “think” infinitely quicker across unlimited data and imitate the best of human creativity, all without knowing that it’s doing so, is a daunting technology. It begins to look like a future in which humanity becomes subservient to its technology – and that’s indeed dystopian.

But we risk missing a point when our technology meets our theology. It’s often said that AI has the potential to take on God-like qualities. This relates to the prospect of its supposed omniscience. Another way of putting that is that it has the potential to be all-powerful.

The trouble with that argument is that it takes no account of the divine quality of being all-loving too, which in its inhumanity AI cannot hope to replicate. In the Christmastide incarnation, God (as Emmanuel, or “God with us”) comes to serve, not to be served. If you’ll excuse the pun, you won’t find that mission on a computer server.

Furthermore, to be truly God-like, AI would need to allow itself to suffer and to die on humanity’s part, albeit to defeat its death in a salvific way. Sorry, but that isn’t going to happen. We must be careful with AI precisely because it’s inhuman, not because it’s too human.

Part of what we celebrate at Christmas is our humanity and, in doing so, we may re-locate it. We need to do that if we are to treat refugees with humanity and to re-affirm that humanity’s intelligence is anything but artificial. Merry Christmas.

Explainer

Comment

Economics

Hinduism

Monastic life

16 May 2024

6 min read

The Merc, the monks, and the pursuit of excellence

Exploring the roots of the work ethic.

Rahil Patel

Rahil is a former Hindu monk, and author of Found By Love. He is a Tutor and Speaker at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

A large sculpture of the Mercedes Benz three-point star stands in front of a large, low glass fronted showroom.

Mercedes Benz visitor centre, Sindelfingen.

I visited the Mercedes Benz factory in Sindelfingen, Germany, back in 1999. It’s an event that etched a profound impression on my mind. I would even go as far as to say one of the most overpowering “Godly moments” of my life. Hold on! Before you shun me as a “materialist” or silently mutter “of course you love a Mercedes…you’re Indian!” Let me crawl out of your assumptions and rescue myself with an explanation.

Entering the grounds of the Benz factory that cold October afternoon, my guide said that the car park alone was eight square miles of brand-new Benz’. “A robot takes each car from the factory to the car park” I was proudly told. “Germans usually don’t like any mileage on their new cars before they come to collect them, so we’ve made this arrangement to suit their needs.”

“Of course you have,” I muttered cheekily whilst fumbling to hide my astonishment. “Is that a railway station?” I sounded like an eight-year-old who had just entered Disney World.

“Yes, the cars are placed on the train by robots too! We send 1,860 cars via train to the river port city of Hamburg every day. From there they are then shipped to the rest of the world.”

“Ah…,” I nodded pretentiously, as if this was something I frequently witnessed. I was in my late 20s and so trying to hide my feverish temperament was failing as each minute ticked by.

Inside the factory the technology (even in those days) was out of a sci-fi film. A human-like robot calmly held the windscreen of an E-Class Mercedes whilst another robot released a gluey paste around the edges with precision and fluidity. It was like watching a heart surgeon operate on a human but only smoother.

“The dashboard you see arriving on the belt above will be fitted into the main body here below within 30 seconds.”

For a moment I thought my guide was joking with me, as back then I was a monk, dressed in orange robes and looking as if I might be resident in a cave somewhere in the Himalayas. But then I saw the robot in front of me pick up the dashboard at hand and fit it into the mainframe in 20 odd seconds! It was like a quiet day of strawberry picking on a farm for these machines.

After being guided around the gargantuan and astounding array of technology, efficiency and elegance my guide introduced me to the General Manager. I shared my impressions with him with a tad of excitement after which he said, “thank you, yes…we tend to gather together every day for 30 minutes or so, after we close, to see where we can improve on all of this!” After that calm and casual response, I wasn’t sure whether I ought to be impressed with the staggering sophistication surrounding me…or his statement!

Something significant happens in you when you are in the presence of excellence and those who are insistent to pursue it.

There’s something annoyingly attractive about those who are persistent in their pursuit for excellence. It’s as if they are resiliently refining something at hand in the hope of fulfilling another deeper search in the human heart. For these enthusiasts for excellence, a beautiful Mercedes Benz is but a by-product. I’d like to say that it's the outworking of a deeper search.

We are drawn to the beauty of detail. This impalpable gravitation can be attributed to the Divine, as many around the world do. With the precision and detail of that world around them making it possible.

I once heard that a Book of wisdom in the Bible called Proverbs could be categorised into three parts: integrity, creativity and excellence. Although I wasn’t a follower of Jesus back in 1999, I can go back to that factory experience and call it a ‘Godly’ moment because something significant happens in you when you are in the presence of excellence and those who are insistent to pursue it.

Luther’s understanding of the Bible and its implications on work ethic should not be underestimated.

Nearly 350 miles north of the Mercedes factory lies the university city of Wittenberg. The home of another monk, Martin Luther, and Katherine Vona Bora, his wife – and an unexpected champion of excellence.

After running away from her nunnery Katherine married Martin Luther and changed the work style and living standards of their lives almost immediately. Katherine had learned how to grow fruits and vegetables in the nunnery and applied this skill to the small piece of land surrounding their residence and turned it into a profit-making farm. The local Prince in Wittenberg witnessed her innovative skills and gave a small monastery for Luther and his wife to live in. Katherine used the profits of the first investment to invest in another farmland and produced profits once again- and this continued. By 1542 the Luther’s owned more land in Wittenberg than any other citizen! She had initiated such a change that sociologist Max Weber discussed it in his classic, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

When Luther published Table Talks (based around the discussions in their home when students came to stay or visit), scholars understood clearly how his Biblical exposition (and the indirect defence of his wife’s economic model) created Europe’s spirit of free enterprise.

Katherine’s work ethic was influenced by St. Benedict’s monastic biblical tradition which St Paul had also taught (whoever does not work, shall not eat). A bit like the General Manager at Mercedes Benz who felt that there was still room for improvement in work.

Luther’s understanding of the Bible and its implications on work ethic should not be underestimated. He states that a skilled mechanic “steals' ' when he underperforms at his work for which he is being paid! Not giving your best at something is also called “stealing.” Luther also writes that those who are lazy at work or unfaithful with their work are “worse than sneak- thieves.”

One can argue that Katherine and Luther’s understanding of work ethics from the Bible gave rise to the enthusiasm for excellence across many spheres of western culture and industry.

For me, it’s still a chuckling moment to see the often but obvious impression upon the face of a fellow Indian when they read a label marked, ‘Made in Germany.' It says something… let me just say, with all due respect that it doesn't say the same as “Made in India.” At this point in world history my fellow friends in India would agree.

I have known many Indians who would buy a Mercedes Benz however old or broken down it may be. On the other hand, in 2023 the German manufacturer broke all its sales records in India, growing 10 per cent year on year. (Mind you, some Benz models in India are twice the cost as those in the USA or UK)!

So, is it just status? Or Class? No. There may be an element of wealth display, but the deeper desire is the association with excellence, hard work and efficiency. All of which Luther drew from his own Biblical comprehension as well as his creative wife Katherine Von Bora.

Hindu Monks are not drawn into a far-off corner of Germany to see a luxury car being made. They are drawn (unknowingly) by those of us who are pursuing excellence, elegance and efficiency all of which are tied richly in the wisdom of the Bible.

Yes, I know what you might be thinking and yes, I have visited other luxury car factories. Aston Martin is a case in point. But on returning to my fellow folk thereafter in 1999 I was surrounded by monks whose faces were struck with awe and wonder and they asked,” did you really go? How was it?” That’s the exclusive magic of Mercedes Benz. Or should I say, Martin Luther and Katherine. And how they understood the Bible.