God in the Machine: What Robots Teach Us About Humanity and God

by Anne Foerst

A provocative look at the theological implications of artificial intelligence from the founder of MIT’s God and Computers Project

Get ready to meet two remarkable characters, Cog and Kismet. They both enjoy working with others, they’re very attentive, have excellent learning skills, and, according to their colleagues, they’re very charming. And they’re both robots.

From Hollywood to the halls of NASA, robots loom large in the popular imagination. But what feelings do these lifelike machines really provoke in us? In God in the Machine, Dr. Anne Foerst draws on her expertise as both a theologian and computer scientist to address the profound questions that robots such as Cog and Kismet raise for us all: How do we define “human” versus “person”? What does it mean to have a soul? And what do robots teach us about our relationship with God?

“A fine book; a straightforward, engaging style, crammed with fascinating insights and written so that both laymen in artificial intelligence and those in theology can understand.”
—Harvey Cox, author of When Jesus Came to Harvard

Genres: Theology, Science, Philosophy, Technology, Nonfiction, Religion

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2004

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book covers interesting theological territory (particularly relating to criteria for personhood), it focuses less on what we can learn from robots and AI than I had hoped.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book that is more that it seems from the cover. Written by a member of the MIT AI lab and theologian educated in Germany, with a penchant for Paul Tillich, Foerst explores not only the science of AI, brains and consciousness, but takes the theological critiques and questions raised by the science seriously. She explores the issues of deep hostility both at Harvard and MIT towards someone who transgresses the supposed (and somewhat artificial) bounds of disciplines. Her frank account of the outright small-minded dogmatism of MIT researchers to her offering a class, most often without reading her syllabus,shows that illiberality is not just a characteristic of the "religious."

On the purely theological front Foerst helps articulate the importance of embodiment in the Christian tradition. She helps give the push against the pseudo-Gnostic dualism that has pervaded the West since Descartes. If for no other reason than this, God in the Machine is worthy of a read by Christians, professional theologians or not.

[Sbate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost finished it. I was writing a story about a guy who was love with an artificial intelegence only he did not know and niether did she know she was an ait he was in love with her and his girlfriend sicks her artificially enhanced dog on him anyway the book was really well done.

Anyway herrr book was more about how people in science especially in MIT are actually anti-religeous and have no clue about how to believe in God so they react against anything that is about God especially if it involves science. other than that she wrote a good book and is really really hot in that German accent ex sexual therapist turned professor way

[Don Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the book and the insights that the author supplied. This is an interesting read and it has given me new insights on human-computer interaction. But, in addition to that Dr. Foerst's book provides a great deal of insight into western and Christian thinking. Her work is very scholarly and I recommend this book to anyone. She is incidentally a professor at St. Bonaventure University.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Levi and Sally's Christmas Present to me.