Secular theology and artificial intelligence?

A single thread runs through the narrative as the various plots unfold; the intentional basis of human action. Both Charlie and Adam fall in love with Miranda, and this transforms them. Charlie sees a future in marriage to Miranda and Adam writes love poetry to her. They both find meaning and purpose in their love.

In the meantime, we find that the other Adams and Eves (12 and 13 respectively) are not flourishing. They suicide or disorganise their "brains" to such an extent that they lose all sense of self. This is the pivot of the novel. If robots do become conscious, then they will suffer from the same Kierkegaardian dread that humans do. They will ask about meaning and purpose, and if that is not satisfactorily answered, then suicide becomes a real possibility.

Consciousness carries with it the questions of existence.

Charlie and Adam share the answer to the existential question in their love for Miranda. Charlie contemplates marriage and the adoption of a troubled child and Adam, though a troubled soul (he has no personal history) is sustained by his love and saved from the mental breakdown of the other human/machines. Both characters, the human and the human/robot find the answer to their lives outside of themselves in other selves. This is a realisation that lies at the centre of Christianity. It is expressed in the legend of the incarnation, of God becoming man so entirely that he lives our lives and dies our deaths. He is the man for others.

I have recently become aware of various TV dramas how often the question is asked about whether someone is good. The existential question is moralised. This is not the Christian view, rather, we are defined not by how good we are, how morally pure we are, but by our love for God and others. Goodness does not come from morality, it comes from love. It is vital for us to get the sequence correct. To place goodness at the heart of human Being is to re-establish the law as being decisive. It reasserts the captivity of the Church to morality and subverts the gospel of grace.

Adam is "good" in that he obeys the law in all its meticulous detail. But he does so without understanding that justice has to be graced if it is not to become inhuman. His makers may have produced a machine that is conscious of itself and others around him, but something is lacking. As our society becomes more and more prescriptive of what the "good" person can and cannot do or say, it becomes more like Adam in lacking that essential element that humanises us all: grace.

While I tend to agree with David Bentley Hart that artificial intelligence is an impossibility because robots could never become intentional, the novel is an interesting thought experiment. The engineers may have produced an intelligent machine that mimics most human characteristics and surpasses them in many, but they have not created a human being.

Adam is simply dropped into the world; he has no personal history. He has not experienced the unconditional love of parents that is so essential to human thriving and is necessary for grace. Nor does he carry the mental scars that are accumulated on life's journey. He has not experienced deep disappointment or rejection in love. Personality cannot be produced by selecting specific parameters, it comes about through years of experience that must be reconciled with a "self". It is this lack that, in the end, undoes him.

McEwan's novel stands as a warning to those who get excited by, so-called, artificial intelligence. The human intelligence that counts can only come from humans, it cannot be conjured up by circuits and programming. Our hope of owning machine/human partners is hopeless, we need to find our lives in mortal, vulnerable and faulty flesh and blood.