on reading Murderbot while training AI

On December 31, I had read 99 books and was itching to get to that elusive round 100 for the year. I preached that morning in Arlington and had a long drive home. My friend Melody suggested I get the first Murderbot book on audio and listen during the drive - PERFECT. I made the 100 books for the year AND got invested in a new reading series.

If you haven’t encountered The Murderbot Diaries, well, you’re missing out. It’s a sci-fi series by Martha Wells about a cyborg built as a security device who overrides its own programming in order to…watch soap operas. A TV adaptation is in the works (with much to be discussed, especially how Murderbot is ungendered in the books but the series has just cast Alexander Skarsgard in the role…?!)

It’s been interesting to read a sci-fi series about artificial intelligence hacking its own governor module and enjoying the liberation of autonomy during these last few months because I have also been learning a LOT about AI.

I wrote a couple of articles about how tech companies are deploying the new technology and I think it was those articles that work got me recruited by an AI company to do some of the (well-paying but very menial) work of actually TRAINING the BOTS.

I have one zillion observations about what AI can and cannot do, and I’m reading as much as I can as fast as I can because I am also infinitely curious about this world of machine learning and massive data processing. I’m not a scientist, or an engineer. I don’t understand large language models or how algorithms work. But just like the bots, I’m learning.

I’m not an engineer but I am, for better or worse, a theologian interested in human flourishing. I’m interested, always, in the ethics of how humans choose to use and integrate technology. AI has recently been blamed for all manner of injustices and harm, and from what I can tell, that’s about 75% hysteria and 25% legitimate concern. Maybe, depending on the context, the split is more like 60/40.

AI is already here. It’s the chatbot you’re trying to use to resolve a consumer dispute, yes, but it is also already - right this minute - making decisions about hiring, medical diagnoses, legal sentencing and defense strategy. AI is probably changing your personal life in a dozen ways today.

So: I’m going to learn about what AI is and how it works. I might be writing more about it here in this space. If you, dear reader, are someone who understands AI more than I do, I would love to hear from you. And if you are, instead, someone who is utterly uninterested, well, at least you got a fantastic book series recommendation out of this post.