نوع مقاله : علمی-پژوهشی
نویسنده
استادیار گروه آموزش الهیات، دانشگاه فرهنگیان، تهران، ایران
چکیده
هوش مصنوعی (AI) در قرن بیست‌ویکم از ابزاری فنی به پدیده‌ای با جایگاه فرهنگی و نمادین تبدیل شده که در جوامع مدرن به‌عنوان نیرویی متعالی بازنمایی می‌شود. این پژوهش به بررسی فرآیند ارج‌گذاری نمادین به هوش مصنوعی و تأثیرات آن بر باورها، هویت‌ها و ارزش‌های انسانی در چارچوب الهیات معاصر می‌پردازد. مسئله اصلی، چگونگی تبدیل هوش مصنوعی به اسطوره‌ای مدرن و تأثیر آن بر معنویت و هویت در جوامع متنوع است. روش تحقیق، رویکردی کیفی و میان‌رشته‌ای است که با تحلیل گفتمان‌های فرهنگی و دینی، زمینه‌ها، نمودها و پیامدهای این پدیده را کاوش می‌کند. یافته‌ها نشان می‌دهند که ویژگی‌های فنی مانند خودیادگیری و پیش‌بینی‌پذیری، همراه با نیازهای روان‌شناختی برای معنا و نظم، هوش مصنوعی را به نمادی مقدس تبدیل کرده‌اند. این فرآیند در برخی جوامع به توانمندسازی منجر شده، اما در دیگر جوامع، هویت فردی و جمعی، باورهای دینی و روابط عاطفی را به بازاندیشی واداشته است. نتیجه کلی اینکه، ارج‌گذاری به هوش مصنوعی، با بازتعریف نقش انسان در برابر فناوری، پرسش‌های عمیقی درباره معنا، هویت و جایگاه انسان در عصر مدرن ایجاد کرده و ضرورت مدیریت مسئولانه این فناوری را در فرهنگ و دین برجسته می‌کند.
کلیدواژه‌ها
عنوان مقاله [English]
The Sanctification of "Artificial Intelligence" from the Perspective of Contemporary Theology
نویسنده [English]
- Sayyed jafar Sadeghi
Assistant Professor, Department of Theological Education, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran
چکیده [English]
Abstract
"Artificial Intelligence" (AI) in the 21st century has evolved from a technical tool into a cultural and symbolic phenomenon, represented as a transcendent force in modern societies. This study explores the process of symbolic reverence for AI and its impacts on beliefs, identities, and human values within the framework of contemporary theology. The main issue is how AI transforms into a modern myth and its influence on spirituality and identity in diverse societies. The research adopts a qualitative, interdisciplinary approach, analyzing cultural and religious discourses to examine the contexts, manifestations, and consequences of this phenomenon. Findings indicate that technical features such as self-learning and predictability, combined with psychological needs for meaning and order, have turned AI into a sacred symbol. This process has led to empowerment in some societies, but in others, it has prompted a reevaluation of individual and collective identities, religious beliefs, and emotional relationships. The overall conclusion is that the reverence for AI, by redefining humanity’s role in relation to technology, raises profound questions about meaning, identity, and humanity’s place in the modern era, underscoring the need for responsible management of this technology in culture and religion.
Introduction:
In the twenty-first century, artificial intelligence (AI) has transcended its role as a technical tool to become a cultural and symbolic phenomenon, revered as a transcendent force in modern societies, profoundly impacting human beliefs, identities, and values. This study investigates the process of symbolic reverence for AI, whereby cultural and religious discourses elevate this technology to a sacred symbol imbued with transcendent authority. The significance of this research lies in its exploration of AI’s intersection with theological concepts, as AI not only enhances daily processes but also prompts a redefinition of spiritual values in certain societies. The diverse experiences of individuals and communities with AI, ranging from empowerment in creative and educational domains to a reevaluation of spiritual concepts, underscore the complexity of this phenomenon. Traditional societies emphasize religious traditions, whereas modern societies adopt secular, technology-driven discourses, rendering them more vulnerable to the risks of excessive valuation of AI. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, this study examines the causes, manifestations, and consequences of this reverence to provide a deeper understanding of how transcendent meanings are formed in modern societies, fostering responsible management of AI’s role in culture and religion. The primary aim is to analyze how AI transforms into a contemporary symbolic narrative and its impact on human beliefs and identities. Secondary objectives include exploring the role of technical features in this process, analyzing cultural and religious discourses that contribute to this reverence, and assessing its effects on religious beliefs, attitudes, and human identity across diverse societies. The research questions focus on how AI becomes a modern myth, which technical and cultural factors drive this process, and how this reverence affects human beliefs and identities.
Materials & methods:
The study employs a qualitative, interdisciplinary methodology, utilizing discourse analysis of cultural and religious texts to explore the causes, manifestations, and consequences of symbolic reverence for AI. This approach involves examining historical, religious, and contemporary texts alongside case studies of AI applications in various societies to analyze how AI is represented as a transcendent force. Data were collected from diverse sources, including case studies in technology, culture, and religion, to reflect the varied experiences of societies engaging with AI. This method enables a comprehensive analysis of the processes of myth-making and sanctification, identifying the technical, psychological, and social factors that shape this phenomenon. It should be noted that the collection of samples and evidence, as well as the sourcing of Latin-language and online resources, has been carried out using artificial intelligence.
Discussion & Result:
The findings reveal that AI’s technical features, such as machine learning, predictive capabilities, and relative autonomy, combined with human psychological needs for meaning and order, have transformed AI into a sacred symbol. Machine learning, by emulating and surpassing human creativity, challenges traditional beliefs about the inherent value of the human mind. Predictive capabilities, enabled by big data analysis, guide behaviors and, in some cases, question the concept of free will. AI’s relative autonomy shifts the human role from active agent to passive observer. Psychological needs, such as the search for meaning and anxiety reduction, position AI as a decision-making authority, redefining spiritual beliefs in some societies. Social and cultural structures, through advertising and media representations, portray AI as a solution to everyday challenges, marginalizing traditional identities in certain contexts. The manifestations of this reverence include sanctification and saviorism. In sanctification, AI is depicted as an infallible force, redefining traditional roles such as judgment and empathy. In saviorism, AI is presented as a solution to social and environmental challenges, reshaping traditional notions of hope. These processes have yielded diverse experiences across societies, from empowerment in regions like the Middle East to challenges to autonomy and identity in others, such as the United States and Japan.
Conclusion:
The result indicates that the symbolic reverence for AI profoundly reshapes human beliefs, identities, and values by redefining humanity’s role in relation to technology. The consequences include diminished individual agency, the redefinition of traditional belief systems, the erosion of collective cultural identity, and a reduction in the emotional depth of human relationships. In some societies, AI fosters empowerment, enhancing capabilities in fields like education and creativity. However, in others, the replacement of human actions with automated processes raises questions about autonomy, spirituality, and the authenticity of relationships. These findings underscore the necessity of responsible AI management to prevent unintended shifts in beliefs and values, advocating for a balanced approach to humanity’s relationship with technology within the framework of contemporary theology.
کلیدواژه‌ها [English]
- Artificial Intelligence
- Modernity
- Sanctification
- Theology
- 21st Century
منابع فارسی و عربی
- ابن‌فارس، احمد. (۱۹۷۹). مقاییس اللغة. بیروت: دار الفکر.
- ابن‌منظور، محمد بن مکرم. (۱۹۹۴). لسان العرب. بیروت: دار صادر.
- ترمذی، محمد بن عیسى. (۱۹۹۸). سنن الترمذی. قاهره: دار الحدیث.
- طباطبایی، سید محمد حسین (1390). المیزان فی تفسیر القرآن. بیروت: مؤسسة الأعلمی للمطبوعات.
- طوسی، محمد بن حسن. (۱۹۸۹). التبیان فی تفسیر القرآن. بیروت: دار احیاء التراث العربی.
- عمید، حسن. (۲۰۱۰). فرهنگ فارسی عمید. تهران: انتشارات امیرکبیر.
- قوامی پور سرشکه، محدثه و محمودی، امیررضا. (1403). «واکاوی ظهور هوش مصنوعی و تاثیرات آن در جامعه و دین». پژوهش‌های علم و دین 15 (1). صص 213- 244.
doi: 10.30465/srs.2024.48601.2135
- کتاب مقدس عهد عتیق و عهد جدید (1379). ترجمه فاضل خان همدانی، ویلیام گلن، هنری مرتن. تهران: اساطیر.
- محمدی ریشهری، محمد (1393). دانش‌نامه امام مهدی(ع) بر پایه قرآن، حدیث و تاریخ. قم: مؤسسه علمی فرهنگی دارالحدیث.
کتاب‌های لاتین
- Al-Rodhan, Nayef. (2021). The Ethics of Smart Cities. London: Routledge.
- Barthes, Roland. (1972). Mythologies. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Berger, Peter Ludwig. (1967). The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Doubleday.
- Brynjolfsson, Erik & McAfee, Andrew. (2020). The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. New York: W.W. Norton.
- Campbell, Joseph. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon Books.
- Crawford, Kate. (2022). Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Durkheim, Emile. (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- Eliade, Mircea. (1957). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
- Ellul, Jacques. (1954). The Technological Society. New York: Knopf.
- Feenberg, Andrew. (1999). Questioning Technology. London: Routledge.
- Habermas, Jürgen. (1989). The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Haus, Hermann. (2005). The Theology of Holiness. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Herzfeld, Noreen. (2002). In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
- Manovich, Lev. (2023). Cultural Analytics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Maslow, Abraham Harold. (1970). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper & Row.
- Noble, David F. (1997). The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention. New York: Knopf.
- Pargament, Kenneth I. (1999). The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice. New York: Guilford Press.
- Rashi, Shlomo Yitzchaki. (1995). Commentary on the Torah. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications.
- Russell, Stuart J. & Norvig, Peter. (2021). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
- Scharre, Paul. (2018). Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War. New York: W.W. Norton.
- Teixeira, Ana. (2022). AI in Education: The Brazilian Experience. São Paulo: Routledge.
- Tillich, Paul. (1951). Systematic Theology, Volume 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Zuboff, Shoshana. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs.
مقالات چاپ‌شده لاتین
- Gomez-Uribe, Carlos A. & Hunt, Neil. (2015). The Netflix Recommender System: Algorithms, Business Value, and Innovation. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, 6(4), 1-19.
- Harcup, Tony. (2020). Predictive Policing: Algorithms and Ethics. Journal of Media Ethics, 35(2), 45-57.
- McCulloch, Warren S. & Pitts, Walter. (1943). A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 5(4), 115-133.
- Narayanan, Arvind & Kapoor, Sayash. (2023). AI and the Transformation of E-Commerce in India. Journal of Digital Economy, 2(1), 45-60.
- Ng, Matthew. (2020). Autonomous Transport Systems in Singapore. Transport Reviews, 40(3), 25-40.
- Reader, Ian & Baffelli, Erica. (2018). Robots and Rituals: AI in Japanese Buddhist Temples. Journal of Religion in Japan, 7(1), 45-60.
- Scherer, Matthew U. (2022). AI-Based Mental Health Tools: Ethics and Implications. Ethics and Information Technology, 24(3), 33-45.
- Silver, David, Huang, Aja, Maddison, Christopher J., Guez, Arthur, Sifre, Laurent, van den Driessche, George, Schrittwieser, Julian, Antonoglou, Ioannis, Panneershelvam, Veda, Lanctot, Marc, Dieleman, Sander, Grewe, Dominik, Nham, John, Kalchbrenner, Nal, Sutskever, Ilya, Lillicrap, Timothy, Leach, Madeleine, Kavukcuoglu, Koray, Graepel, Thore & Hassabis, Demis. (2016). Mastering the Game of Go with Deep Neural Networks and Tree Search. Nature, 529(7587), 484-489.
- Topol, Eric J. (2019). Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. The Lancet, 394(10198), 112-125.
- Yeo, George T. C., Wu, Wei & Yang, Y. (2019). AI-Based Maritime Traffic Management in Bahrain. Maritime Policy & Management, 46(3), 269-285.
منابع برخط
- European Commission. (2021). AI for Climate Change Management. https://ec.europa.eu/
- Hao, Karen. (2018). Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real-World Tasks Over the Phone. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/
- Mozur, Paul, Krolik, Aaron & Zhong, Raymond. (2019). In China, Surveillance Expands with AI-Powered Cameras. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/
- Nakov, Preslav. (2023). Jais: A Large-Scale Arabic Language Model. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/
- (2023). AI as a Driver of Development in NEOM. https://www.neom.com/
- OpenAI (2025). Grok. https://grok.com/
- Reardon, Marguerite. (2020). Siri and the Future of Voice Assistants. CNET. https://www.cnet.com/
- Rombach, Robin, Blattmann, Andreas, Lorenz, Dominik, Esser, Patrick & Ommer, Björn. (2022). High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/
- (2022). Optimus: The Future of Humanoid Robots. https://www.tesla.com/
- World Economic Forum. (2018). The Future of Financial Services: AI and Automation. https://www.weforum.org/
)