Today's Scripture Reading (August 10, 2026): Ezekiel 17
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) was a physicist and best-selling author of "A
Brief History of Time" (not to mention the intellectual idol and sometime
antagonist of Sheldon Cooper on the television comedy "The Big Bang Theory").
Hawking admitted that the idea of artificial intelligence scared him. With so
many advances in the field of artificial intelligence, as well as the number of
companies and the amount of money that is being spent to chase after the
elusive dream, the science fiction plot device might not be all that far off.
In fact, we are already seeing forms of artificial intelligence in our daily lives,
including self-driving cars and digital personal assistants like Google Now.
Even my phone insists on telling me driving times to places without being
asked, simply because it knows that I have been there before. More than once,
my phone has interrupted my teaching because it thinks it is a much better
teacher than I am. I am reading more and more articles that include a
disclaimer stating that they were "written by humans, assisted by AI."
Artificial intelligence is creating fake photos and videos that are almost indistinguishable
from the real thing. If your politician says something stupid, just blame it on
AI.
For Hawking, the problem of artificial intelligence comes down to who is
controlling the intelligence. In the wrong hands, artificial intelligence could
be a weapon unlike any we have seen before. For Hawking, the larger problem is
whether an independent artificial intelligence could be controlled at all. And
if it can't be controlled, what would happen then? Hawking didn't know the
answer to that question, and he was pretty sure that no one else did, either.
His solution is to pause the development of artificial intelligence while the
scientific community ponders the appropriate questions and holes in our
knowledge. While Hawking believes we might be technologically ready to make the
leap toward artificial intelligence, he is also sure that in every other area
of our existence, we are simply not mature enough to take that leap.
Ezekiel tells a parable about two eagles and a vine. The eagles
represented the two major powers in Israel's circle of influence. The eagles
represented the Empires of Babylon and Egypt. The vine itself represents
Israel. And according to the story, the vine is threatened by the one eagle,
and so it creeps toward the other. But in the end, the second eagle cannot help
the vine, and so the vine is uprooted. The reality for the people of the time was
that the two eagles seemed unstoppable. The vine would not just be uprooted; it
looked as if it would be permanently destroyed.
But this is when God steps in. He, too, has a shoot of the vine; one
that he had taken from the top of a cedar. And he, too, decides to plant the
vine. Only God doesn't plant it in the lush valley. He plants it on the top of
the mountain, not the most advantageous place to plant a vine. But according to
the story, while the vine in the valley would be destroyed, the remnant God
would plant on the mountain would survive. The identification of that remnant
from the mountain is evident in the Israel that was born after most of the
nation had been exiled. This Israel remained in Canaan, living in constant
danger and without the support of a nation. This Israel was one that ultimately
mirrored the coming of a Messiah who would not be born in a palace but in a
manger. It almost seems like a fiction dreamed up by Artificial Intelligence, but
it is a truth that we don't confront often enough. No matter the challenges, it
is the remnant that would survive because God had decreed it.
Tomorrow's
Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 18
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