The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic Age

by Noreen Herzfeld; Ted Peters

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 2023

Overview

AI is becoming ubiquitous. Whatever its arrival portends for our future, whether riches or ruin, it cannot be avoided. The Artifice of Intelligence explores two questions at the heart of a theological response to AI. Is it possible for human beings to have authentic relationships with an AI? How does the increasing presence of AI change the way humans relate to one another? In pursuing answers to these questions, Herzfeld explores what it means to be created in the image of God and to create AI in our own image. It utilizes and expands Karl Barth’s relational understanding of the imago Dei to examine humanity’s relationship both with AI and, through it, with one another.

Barth’s injunctions--look the other in the eye (embodiment), speak to and hear the other (communication), aid the other (agency), and do it gladly (emotion)--provide the basis for the main chapters, each of which concludes with a case study of a current AI application that exemplifies the difficulties AI introduces into human relationality. The Artifice of Intelligence concludes with an examination of the incarnation, one that points toward the centrality of embodiment for full relationality.

Product Details

• Title: The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic Age
• Authors: Noreen Herzfeld, Ted Peters
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Print Publication Date: 2023
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Pages: 208
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781506486918, 1506486916
• Resource ID: LLS:9781506486918
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T18:14:58Z

About the Authors

Noreen L. Herzfeld is Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John's University and senior research associate with ZRS Koper. A theologian and computer scientist, she is the author of several books, including In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit.