Joan and I bought a new car recently. It almost makes me obsolete. It will brake if there’s something in front. It will brake if there’s something behind. It will slow down when the car in front slows down. It will stay in its own lane. It will warn me if I’m not paying enough attention.
All these programs run on what’s called an algorithm. Basically, that’s a computer program, a step by step set of coded instructions that’s supposed to take into account all possible circumstances.
An algorithm has no ethical principles. It is utterly amoral. It just does what it’s told to do.
I wonder what it would do with the classic question posed by ethicists. There’s a beautiful maiden strapped to the railway tracks. And a runaway train coming. You can’t stop the train. But you could throw a switch and divert the train onto a different track, where it will wipe out a work crew.
Would you save the maiden and sacrifice the work crew? Or vice versa?
The question can have countless added complications. For instance, you could throw yourself in front of the train to stop it. The siding could lead to a broken bridge, where the train would crash, killing an unknown number of passengers. Or to a crowded station…
And the question ignores personal factors. Do you love the hapless heroine? Is your son among the work crew?
Not so hypothetical
The question is, of course, hypothetical. But the algorithms that run a car aren’t. They may have to deal with a very real similar situation on the road. You’re rolling along a two-lane road, with oncoming traffic in the other lane, beside a busy sidewalk. Suddenly, a child darts out. You can’t stop in time. Do you hit the child? Swerve onto the sidewalk and clobber innocent pedestrians? Swerve into oncoming traffic and risk a head-on crash?
Are the algorithms that run a car capable of dealing with that kind of dilemma?
For that matter, are the algorithms that run me capable of dealing with it?
We humans don’t have lines of code running our reactions. Rather, we have years of experience. And every experience imprints an instinctive response. We’re conditioned by our past. In a crisis, we don’t have time to think; we just react.
After decades of posing these hypothetical questions, ethicists recognize some predictable patterns. Saving a single life typically takes precedence over a group of lives: the maiden trumps the work crew. Also, a known life matters more than an unknown life: a relative in the work crew trumps a nameless wench.
And a child always trumps an adult. Three-year-old Alan Kurdi being carried up a beach, Syrian kids gasping after a nerve-gas attack, will provoke more reaction than millions of adult refugees.
Can computer algorithms capture those nuances? I doubt it.
But our own algorithms can. We can’t change the experiences that have shaped us. But every new experience is like a new line of code added to our conditioning. Each time we deliberately choose to be compassionate, to be thoughtful, to be unselfish, we overwrite a line or two of old coding.
So that when crises occur – as they will – our hidden algorithms will program us to do what we want.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
In commenting on last Wednesday’s column, Tom Watson admitted, “I had not previously thought about Barabbas translated as ‘the son of the father,’ which makes for a fascinating juxtaposition of Barabbas and Jesus.
“Your musing about what he did after being set free raises interesting speculation, in particular the notion that Barabbas ‘grabbed his unexpected freedom and scampered out of Jerusalem, away from the unholy liaison between Temple and Rome…’
“I read many of the biblical stories in a metaphorical way, leading me to wonder how many of the characters and institutions cited are, in some sense at least, archetypal. Is not the modern liaison between some churches and the political power brokers just as unholy as that between the ancient Temple and Rome? Seems to me they form a symbiotic relationship in which each props the other up in order to achieve and maintain their particular goals. Thus, to what extent are those structures any less criminal than Barabbas, simply operating on different planes of activity?”
Dale Perkins wrote, “I'm now engrossed in Stephen Mitchell's book – ‘The Gospel According to Jesus’ -- one of the more challenging books I've read recently. However, the nexus of his idea was that Jesus was a human being, and like every other human being he exhibited all the characteristics of being human at that time and place. Mitchell forced me to acknowledge the shame Jesus must have felt being the illegitimate child of Mary -- a whore according to the good people of that era. And all his references to mother and siblings subsequently sprinkled throughout all the gospel accounts would be totally understood by folks then as originating from his understood status as a bastard. Of course the early church couldn't tolerate those status-reports, so they injected their own take on Jesus' status and nature. And we've simply maintained those later characterizations and enhanced them to absurd levels, until Jesus now bears almost zero qualities he had back then.
“Most of us can't tolerate the real Jesus, so we embrace all the noble qualities the early church said he exhibited and expressed, and subsequently turn Jesus into a manikin of our liking -- but that makes him almost impossible to follow. This idea that Jesus was ‘fully human and fully divine’ needs to be jettisoned, or at least honestly defined if we hope to present Jesus to the vast majority of people living and trying to believe today.”
Steve Roney corrected my aside about nomenclature: “Mac or Mc means ‘son of’ in either Scots or Irish Gaelic. ‘O’ is only Irish, but means ‘descendant of’.”
Judyth Mermelstein responded to a couple of last week’s letters: “Laurna Tallman's comment reminded me of the legend of the Lamedvavniks -- the thirty-six truly just men on Earth at any given time who are (unknowingly) our guarantee that God will not destroy our species.
“As a non-Christian (proudly so now that in English-speaking countries ‘Christian’ means believing in doing the opposite of what Jesus said), I find Steve Roney's phrase ‘we are eternal whether we like it or not’ problematic. To me, *something* is eternal but that something is not our individual body-fixated egos. As far as I'm concerned, the latter are mortal, and that's a good thing. Even without physical resurrection, an eternity with those deluded, selfish creatures would be more Hell than Heaven.”
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PSALM PARAPHRASES
On this Sunday that follows Easter, the lectionary calls for Psalm 16 – presumably because it expresses confidence in God. I think of all the people my age who died during the last year, and were not resurrected. Increasingly, we in the older generations have only God left.
1 Life is short, Lord.
Like a breath in the night, it disappears into silence.
2 Human relationships all pass away;
we cannot depend on them for comfort in old age.
Only you, God, are forever.
Why should I put anything else first in my life?
3 Some people hold you as their closest companion.
They are the saints.
I would like to be like them.
4 Many people claim to put you first,
but they chase riches and popularity, privilege and power.
5 I say that there is nothing in life but God.
God is all anyone needs.
7 In the silence of the night, I listen for the breath of God:
In the bedlam of a business day, I watch for a whisper of wisdom.
8 I keep my mind on God.
God surrounds me like the air I breathe;
God buoys me up like water.
9 Even in a time of loss, I raise my arms to God's embrace;
My heart rests easy.
10 For you are a loving God.
Though our lives end, we do not vanish into the lifeless void.
11 No, you gather us into your warmth;
there we will enjoy the endless sunshine of your smile.
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
• Ralph Milton most recent project, Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal -- consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
• Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
• Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
• Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
• Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca
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