Introduction

This talk is about the theology of robots. We will be concerned with questions like whether it is possible for robots to sin, can robots pray, and whether robots will be ordained to the priesthood. But first it is necessary to give you some background about myself, then once I have explained some of the terms I can go on to give an outline of the talk.

I am a practising Christian and this talk is from the perspective of Christian theology. I make no claims as to the views of Hindu, Jewish or Muslim theologians on robots. A previous version of this talk was published in the Dominican journal "New Blackfriars" and I contributed to a discussion in the letter pages of the Tablet at the end of 1993 following an article by Fraser Watts.

I work in the fields of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. Cognitive Science is concerned with the development of computational models of human mental processes like learning, memory, problem solving and language. Artificial Intelligence is concerned with not only understanding human intelligence but the development of intelligent machines regardless of whether the way they work is the same as humans. To illustrate the difference consider the work in computer chess. Researchers like Herb Simon are interested in how people play chess and has developed a number of models of how people use patterns to choose moves. In contrast, a lot of AI work in chess uses techniques that are not used by humans, like very deep search. Incidentally Deep Blue which beat Kasparov for one chess game, was mostly based on brute force with little AI technology. My own research is in the area of modelling how people learn in fields such as mathematics, games, computer programming and foreign languages.

Most of you know what a robot is from Science fiction, for example the robots of Isaac Asimov, or C3P0 in Star Wars, or Mr. Data in Star Trek. These robots are very different to robots we have today. There are a large number of robots used in car manufacturing, but these robots are not very intelligent, and certainly have little grasp of language. Thus this talk is about the intelligent robots of the future. That is to say a robot which is autonomous, thinks for itself, makes its own decisions, can deliberate about its own thoughts, can learn and adapt to new situations and can communicate with humans through the use of language. In general, these robots will be able to do any intelligent task currently done by people. This thesis that one day a computer will be able to do any intelligent task done by people is known as the "Strong AI Hypothesis".

This talk has two aims. First, to convince you that one day there will be intelligent robots on earth. Second, to argue that the robots will also have a religious life just as people do.

There are five parts to this talk. First, I want to give arguments for strong AI. Second, I want to rebut the arguments against strong AI. Third, I want to look at the sorts of lives that intelligent robots will lead. Fourth, I will consider the religious life of robots. Fifth and last, I will look at some of the moral and social issues surrounding intelligent robots.

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