Religion and Social Communication 20, no. 1 (2022): 1-8.
Every age has its own rhythms. These rhythms are influenced, even determined, by the social, scientific, economic, and technological developments that take place as humanity searches for ways to realize its fullest intellectual capability. Since ancient times, the discovery of fire changed the way our human ancestors consumed food and spent their time in the evening after the sun went down. Before writing was invented and literacy became widespread, storytelling around a common fire was likely one of the most popular evening activities, especially among preliterate and nonliterate societies. It was how people transmitted to each other, especially to the younger generation, age old cultural and spiritual wisdom that could only come about as a result of hundreds, even thousands of years of confronting and collectively reflecting on the trials and tribulations of life by peoples and nations in their respective parts of the world.
Once the printing press was invented in the 1400s, reading was more widely incorporated into the lives of many people who were literate and could get access to books and printed materials. This one single invention which arguably ushered human civilization into the modern age was as revolutionary to the human intellectual culture as the discovery of the fire was life changing to our physiology. Knowledge is power, and the dissemination of knowledge through mass production of print materials meant that information production became a means of amassing power by influencing the thoughts and actions of potentially countless individuals and successive generations. Reading was not just a relaxing past-time activity done by the fire, which now was “domesticated” enough that it could be brought into one’s own parlor room, but a way to be empowered and inspired to transform oneself, to become agents of social change, and even to carry out great social and political revolutions.
The rhythms of human life have continued to change and evolve over the ages with each new discovery, invention, and insight into the way the natural world and the human mind work. In the modern age, human beings have continued to develop new “rhythms” in the way we act, perceive ourselves, and interact with the people and things around us – biotic and abiotic. A great part of our daily life nowadays is influenced by digital technology, particularly computer algorithms. Algorithms are employed in a mathematical process to solve a problem using a finite number of steps. In the world of computers, an algorithm is the set of instructions that define not just what needs to be done but how to do it. For example, algorithms are being developed by engineers for self-driving cars and, ironically, all the ethical “decisions” involved in this important activity. In the case that an unavoidable accident would occur, the car’s algorithms would be expected to decide whether to let the accident take place, effectively killing its owner; or swerve to the right, which would kill a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk; or crash into a teenager riding a motorbike on the left, which might also cause the young woman to die a tragic death.
While self-driving cars are still mostly in the experimental stage at the present, most of us encounter algorithms in our own use of the internet, especially the various social media platforms that have become a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. Algorithms written by software engineers determine what posts are delivered to us when we log in to our account. They decide the advertisements that we will see when we go online. They choose what videos to suggest to us when we access YouTube, what merchandise to introduce to us when we go on Amazon, and what movies we might want to watch when we open Netflix. These actions taken by algorithms are results of information about users that are harvested whenever we access the internet to send email, to post photos and statuses on our social media account, to buy things online, to comment on a friend’s or a stranger’s post, etc. They are also the result of information collected from other people who apparently share our tastes. Therefore, when suggestions are provided to us based on a combination of our own personal habits as well as those of people similar to us, we are more likely to select new products just because others like ourselves have chosen them. In many ways, our modern life and our everyday choices are increasingly being influenced and nudged by the computer algorithms which have permeated our digital culture. Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, however, caution that “surprise and serendipity can be fun for people, and good for them too, and it may not be entirely wonderful if our primary source of information is about what people like us like. Sometimes, it’s good to learn what people unlike us like – and to see whether we might even like that” (Thaler and Sunstein 2021).
With ever increasing prevalence of digital technology in human life with developmental trends towards transhumanism, futurist Gerd Leonhard (2016) has responded to this prospect by introducing the neologism “androrithms” to call attention to the uniqueness and value of being human with our own peculiar ways and idiosyncrasies. “What makes us human,” says Leonhard, “is not mathematical or even just chemical or biological. It involves those things that are largely unnoticed, unsaid, subconscious, ephemeral, and unobjectifable.” According to Leonhard, a super-computer might excel at a chess game or an extraordinarily complicated game like GO (a famous Chinese game), but it currently cannot communicate with a two-year-old infant. Sometimes it takes us only a few seconds seeing someone to have some basic understanding about them, not even having to speak to them. With a computer, however, despite the hundreds of millions of data points that it collects from us over the years, there is no guarantee that it really understands our values and feelings.
For Leonhard, androrithms include human traits such as empathy, compassion, creativity, storytelling, mystery, serendipity, mistakes and secrets. He asserts that “we should not attempt to mend, fix, upgrade, or even eradicate what makes us human” even if some of these traits may seem inefficient and clumsy compared to computer systems. Thus, “We need to insert balances that ensure a truly human development process, tempering every exponential progress step of technology with human concerns, throwing a human monkey wrench between the 0s and 1s that are starting to dominate our lives.”
Even though algorithms are threatening to “eat the world,” in the words of Marc Andreessen (2011) – and perhaps they have already finished the task – it is important that technological development not ignore the uniqueness of being human and make human flourishing its primary objective. To this end, the value of unique human qualities must be respected, preserved, and promoted. Indeed, humans are built for a wide range of existential states and functions, unlike the one-dimensional nature of machines. The Dalai Lama, at a conference on compassion and technology in the Netherlands, observed:
Machines are very important, but they are controlled by human beings. We human beings are not only physical entities; we also have minds. When we are motivated by positive emotions our physical actions will be constructive. Modern psychology knows about sensory consciousnesses, but doesn’t distinguish them clearly from mental consciousness, which involves emotions like anger.(The Dalai Lama 2018)
Decades ago, Picasso sarcastically remarked of computers, “Computers are useless – they only provide answers.” Even though computers have evolved a long way since the 1960s, they remain basically tools to seek answers but cannot raise questions. It seems that asking questions is a characteristically human activity to express our discontent with the status quo and to satisfy our deepest longings to understand ourselves, the universe and the transcendent.
Indeed, in the face of the world being increasingly under the control of the technocratic paradigm, which according to Pope Francis, perceives the human person as a mind-body machine (Laudato Si 2015), the call for resisting this tendency and retaining our human “idiosyncrasies” is worth paying heed to – if we wish to retain our humanity, as imperfect, finite, and inconsistent as it is. Otherwise, submitting to this paradigm means placing all of humanity under the control of formulas and methods devised by science and technology, and enabling the transformation of human beings into machine-like creatures operating and living our lives in accordance with scientific efficiency and precision. Unsurprisingly, Pope Francis argues that "there needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational program, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm."
The sentiments of Leonhard and Pope Francis in challenging present trends of technological development and calling for greater caution not to eradicate human qualities for the sake of efficiency are prophetic and completely sensible – not what some might deem to be unnecessary alarmism. Only when we make the conscientious effort to preserve our own humanity can we be distinguished from robots and other computer systems. Pope Francis asserts, “We can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral.”
To do what Leonhard and Pope Francis are advocating, however, as people of religious faith, it is important to remember that in addition to the human “rhythms” that we need to preserve and promote, there are also the “rhythms” of God. Let’s call these divine rhythms “Deorithms” (to coin my own neologism) – the eternal and profound ways of God, which are not created, changing, or ever mistaken. “Deorithms” are the “processes” of God, whose presence and inspiration are found in the Divine Spirit in our midst. We are called to be keenly aware of the “Deorithms” as we go about critically reflecting on various matters in our lives and discerning the individual and communal choices, both big and small, that we make each day. Deorithms cannot be found in mathematical formulas (algorithms) or in human neurological proccesses (androrithms). Rather, Deorithm is found in the creative breath of the Divine Spirit that imbues an otherwise inert world with amazing life, animating the human body and soul as well as the entire creation. This Divine Spirit lies at what Henri Nouwen (1998) calls the “heart of existence,” which for this spiritual master means “the center of our being, that place where we are most ourselves, where we are most human, where we are most real.” However, being truly human does not imply an isolated, non-relational existence independent of divine presence and untouched by the unceasing prodding and whispering of the animating Spirit deep within.
Deorithm is also found in the unquenchable fire of the Divine Spirit that impels each person to live out and advocate for the ideals of justice, peace, and harmony in the world. In one of the Catholic Church’s most important documents, Gaudium et Spes, published by the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the council fathers wrote:
Peace is not merely the absence of war; nor can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies; nor is it brought about by dictatorship. Instead, it is rightly and appropriately called an enterprise of justice. Peace results from that order structured into human society by its divine Founder, and actualized by men as they thirst after ever greater justice. The common good of humanity finds its ultimate meaning in the eternal law. But since the concrete demands of this common good are constantly changing as time goes on, peace is never attained once and for all, but must be built up ceaselessly. Moreover, since the human will is unsteady and wounded by sin, the achievement of peace requires a constant mastering of passions and the vigilance of lawful authority. (No. 78)
Thus, Deorithm is the Divine Spirit reminding us that love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness must be spread to all corners of the world, to every nook and cranny, and to every recess where the transformative wind of that Divine Spirit might blow. Deorithm is also the profound wisdom of the Divine Spirit that guides us towards words and actions that promote integral human development, mutual respect, dialogue, the common good, solidarity and unity. Oftentimes, the working of deorithm serves as the only plausible explanation to the human idiosyncrasies that betray mathematical and scientific logic which tells us that things should be done otherwise. In other words, the quest for peace, justice and other noble human values involves a conscientious effort at controlling and eliminating the negative “androrithms” as well as mastering the proper use of “algorithms” so that the human social structure is built and operated in accordance with the Deorithms (the eternal law).
As we approach the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, we understand that algorithms may help us to predict where the next cluster or even the next pandemic will take place, but it cannot force people to put on masks or take jabs. In fact, depending on which algorithms exerting their influence on us, they may even cause us to do the opposite. As we witness the independent country of Ukraine being brutally ravaged by a power-hungry authoritarian regime of a neighboring country, we realize that androrithms can turn a comedian into a wartime hero just as much as a once respected national leader into a war criminal. There is not any absolute certainty in technological advances. And there is no assurance of ethical behavior in the ways of human beings – no matter how much money, power, education, or technological assistance we may have access to. While we try to develop more intricate and effective computer algorithms, and reform human thoughts and actions (androrithms), we must make the humble admission that these “rithms” cannot truly improve without being directed by the “Deorithms”, which serve as the governing principle for all human activities and against which any progress brought about by them is to be measured and evaluated.
Indeed, we are increasingly witnessing the merging of machines and human both physically and mentally – each impacting the other in an endless cycle which no one is certain how and where this will eventually take us. Amid this uncertainty of venturing into unchartered territories, we must try our best to set (or reset) our finite algorithms and androrithms in harmony with the eternal Deorithms (the ways/processes of God), so that we are able to sustain and flourish in our trifold relationships with God, with fellow human beings and with creation in our Common Home. Only when we develop our ever-expanding concentric circles of relationship from the self to the world and the cosmos, and beyond to the transcendent, can we say that we are being truly human. If we opt for employing technology to turn ourselves into a different creature, we are effectively committing a self-imposed extinction of the human race, a form of self-initiated genocide. And that, in our religious understanding, constitutes an immoral and evil act that cannot be ignored, condoned, or gone unchallenged.
References
Andreessen, Marc.
“Why Software Is Eating the World.” The Wall Street Journal (August 20, 2011), https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.
“Compassion & Technology and the
Life of the Buddha at the Nieuwe Kerk,” The Dalai Lama (September 15,
2018), https://www.dalailama.com/news/2018/compassion-technology-and-the-life-of-the-buddha-at-the-nieuwe-kirk.
Leonhard, Gerd. Technology
vs. Humanity: The Coming Clash between Man and Machine. Zurich,
Switzerland, The Futures Agency: 2016.
Nouwen, Henri. Letters
to Marc about Jesus: Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World. New York,
NY: Harper Collins, 1998.
Pope Francis. Laudato
Si. 2015.
Thaler, Richard H.
and Sunstein, Cass R. Nudge: The Final Edition. New York, NY: Penguin
Books, 2021.
Vatican Council
II. Gaudium et Spes. 1965.
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