Artificial Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence

At a recent gathering of the Gospel study group my mother runs, one of the participants posed an interesting question.  It was a good question and it deserves an answer.

I happened to be on vacation and visiting my mother at the time, so I told him I’d write an article in answer to his question.  He said he looked forward to reading it.

His question was, “We have been hearing a great deal about AI, you know, artificial intelligence. But what about SI? Spiritual intelligence?”

His curiosity touches on an important aspect of AI. Many have wondered if at some point AI could become living or sentient. I firmly believe it cannot.  It is also  abundantly clear that AI could never have a true spiritual intelligence. This stems from the very nature of the spiritual life itself.

What is AI?

While most people have heard of AI, its workings often appear opaque and unclear. If you ask ChatGPT to summarize AI in three sentences (as I did here), it may produce something like this: “AI learns patterns from large amounts of data and uses those patterns to make predictions or generate responses. For example, a language AI learns how words, ideas, and concepts tend to relate to one another and predicts what should come next. It doesn’t think exactly like a human; it performs mathematical calculations that can produce remarkably human-like results.”

IBM is more concise: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy.”

In other words, AI is excellent at analyzing data and recognizing patterns. From these patterns, AI can “recognize” what ideas go together, how words relate, and the like, and from here predict connections and solve problems.

What is SI?

So, what is this spiritual intelligence (SI) of which the Bible study participant spoke? I think it refers to more than simply raw knowledge about the Faith.  Programs like Magisterium AI, which is specifically designed to serve as a sort of Catholic artificial intelligence for questions about Faith, provide knowledge. Indeed, in this regard AI might have far more knowledge than any individual person because it has immediate access to all sorts of documents and teachings.

The Cambridge Dictionary says spiritualty is “the quality that involves deep feelings and beliefs of a religious nature, rather than the physical parts of life.”  So spiritual intelligence must be linked to belief (faith).  In general, it might be defined as a belief in and an understanding of the spiritual.

A true spiritual intelligence is more than just knowledge of data and facts.  Computers and machines have access to data, but they are not, and can never be, holy in the way the saints are.  Spiritual intelligence, then, is more than just knowledge.

The Knowledge of God and Belief

AI can give all sorts of arguments for and against God’s existence, but it will never have faith nor disbelief. The reason is to be found in the very nature of faith itself.

The “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” in “The Characteristics of Faith” says “Faith is a grace.” It explains, “155 In faith, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine grace: ‘Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.’” In other words, when we come to the realm of faith, the intellect and “just knowing” is not enough. The will needs to be involved, because belief is a choice.

Belief is both a grace and a gift, but it is also, and always will be a human act. The Catechism says as much.  “154 Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason.”

Natural Knowledge and Supernatural Knowledge

Yet there is still more. The knowledge that we have by faith is far more certain, though far more obscure, than the knowledge we have from our senses, from experiments, and from all the studies imaginable. Once again, the Catechism at 157 makes the same point: “Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but ‘the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives.’”

SI is something beyond the reach of artificial intelligence.  SI holds to truths that are beyond AI, because many times these truths are beyond reason. For instance, that God is a Trinity cannot be known by reason alone. It can only be known by faith in the God who has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

AI can access to all the writings of the Fathers of the Church, all the studies that been done, all the doctoral dissertations that have been researched, and everything ever written on the Trinity, yet this knowledge remains just knowledge. It will never become belief because AI is stuck in its pattern recognition and analysis. It will never submit itself to this truth that saves.

How Belief Affects our Lives

Perhaps, though, it is an erroneous perspective through which to emphasize the intelligence aspect of  SI.  There is certainly a need to understand the basic truths of the faith, and to have knowledge of the mysteries that we believe. However, that knowledge might not be as essential as we think.

When Saint Francis Xavier wrote to Saint Ignatius upon visiting villages that had accepted Christianity a few years prior and had no priests, he noted the lack of formation.  He wrote, “[The villagers] know only that they are Christians.” The only thing these recent converts knew is that they were believers.  That was the extent of both their knowledge and their spiritual intelligence.

In the same vein, there have been many saints who were known for their simplicity and, in the absence of more delicate terminology, for their lack of intelligence. For instance, Saint John Vianney, Blessed Solanus Casey, Saint Joan of Arc, Saint Faustina, and many others were not intelligent in the meaning that the world gives to that word.

Each of these saints, however, they did have a strong and decided will to follow God. That determination is what it means to really be spiritually intelligent. To know God and to serve Him accordingly is not simply a matter of facts, but of knowing how to place those facts in the proper perspective and to live in accord with that vision.

Conclusion

If we think that AI will one day become sentient or alive, then we have a very poor understanding of what life is. True life is to be found, not simply in knowledge, but rather in the knowledge of life that surpasses all understanding.

The abundant life of which Christ speaks (John 10:10) is to know, love, and serve Him. In this way, artificial intelligence is the opposite of real intelligence, because real intelligence knows, loves, and serves the only real Master.  It reaches the only real goal, towards which all other goals, truths, and realities point.