AI, historical materialism and revealed theology

[Hugh Williams]

Dear Listers,

This is a note from an exchange on an 'academia discussion group'

where AI has been cited as a theological concern that would radically shift the focus

from the theological spectrum I set up in terms of the Crossan historical-materialist pole and the N.T. Wright revealed theology pole ...

because AI has featured in some exchanges of late some may find this of interest

and the link cited is worth sharing again ...

Hugh 

OK Allan, after some pondering … I’ve now got some better grip on what you are trying to say here …

Yes, I agree that the Crossan-Wright spectrum is somewhat inadequate for capturing the full scope of Christian theological concerns today. And yet, if we depersonalize this spectrum from reference to ‘Crossan’ and ‘Wright’ and generalize towards a lower ‘historical materialist perspective’ in one direction, and then towards a higher ‘revealed theology’ perspective in the other, perhaps we have more room for the very brief argument I’m going to make with respect to AI and theological concern.

In sum, I find myself as I too close in on eighty years (76 yrs) in a position where I require the historical materialist perspective … and one reason I do so is epistemological. I have come to believe that ‘high’ religion is not always helpful in aiding people to take their actual reality seriously, and this, again in my view, is taking on a particular acuteness as we speak ...

I would be very concerned then if we were to somehow dispense with concern for our actual history and our actual material history in particular. This is because, in this instance of AI, an historical materialist approach would seem to me to be crucial for understanding our actual situation. There has been considerable good and important work done on the material history of science, the algorithmization of society, along with the ongoing antagonism between capital and labor in what, in my view, is rightly called our Anthropocene age. I know that the technocentric aspirations of green and digital transitions looms large in certain areas of our culture. However, we do have to recognize how the neo-liberal preoccupation with so-called entrepreneurial opportunities for the expansion of capital markets does, and so can, neglect fundamental human transitions that are focused and centered on social and ecological justice. Preoccupations with AI within an alienated political-economic logic or imperative is not for the ‘good’ and requires a trenchant ideological critique from ‘below’ … so to speak … (see Pietro Daniel Omodeo ‘s article on “The Social Dialectics of AI” in Monthly Review, November 2024, or try this link - https://monthlyreview.org/articles/mr-050-11-1999-04_0/)