Abstract

Machine Learning as a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) first began to emerge about 40 years ago, but it has taken off as generative AI in the last 5 years, with Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Gemini having hundreds of millions of users. This talk will explain in general terms how the main features of LLMs combine to give us the human-like chatbots with which we have become familiar.

There is now a race amongst big tech companies to go beyond generative AI and achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or super-intelligence. For many leading AI developers, this drive is only compatible with an atheistic worldview. However, this premise is being challenged by other AI researchers, whose views will be shown to be more compatible with the Christian perspective of the uniqueness of human beings. Ultimately our view of AI is conditioned by our understanding of what it means to be human, and I will argue that a Christian viewpoint is entirely consistent with a commitment to developing AGI .