“Computers with limbs” are coming. Is this a good thing?

Axios is reporting that Google has announced two new Gemini Robotics models as it pairs its Gemini 2.0 AI with robots capable of physical action. In one demo, a robot was able to understand and execute a command to dunk a miniature basketball in a toy hoop, though it had not been trained for this task.

A Google director told reporters, “In order for you to build really useful robots, they need to understand you. They need to understand the world around them, and then they need to be able to take safe action in a way that is general, interactive, and dexterous.”

Other efforts to combine learning models with robotics have thus far been much more limited. When asked about military applications, Google stressed that it was not building for that market but for general-purpose use.

Yes, but . . .

While the company said it is taking a multi-layered approach to safety, the Axios reporter comments: “This is a dangerous inflection point, and giving computers limbs is not a step to be taken lightly. If this were Terminator 2, it would be the moment the heroes go back in time to shut it all down.”

We would “shut it all down,” of course, if (or when) we fear that a “computer with limbs” will see us as a threat to itself and do the same to us.

“Death by firing squad has come back to America”

What is true of robots and humans is also true of humans and humans—we typically see the “other” as a means to our end. With robots, we have few moral constraints on shutting down technology that threatens us. With humans, doing the same is called “war” and “capital punishment.”

Regarding the first, the ceasefire to which Ukraine has agreed is now dependent on Russia’s response. No one thinks Vladimir Putin will agree to its terms out of compassion for Ukrainians (or his own people, for that matter). Each side will obviously do what it believes to be in its own best interest; the hope is that both will align with a step away from violence.

With regard to the second, the Atlantic is reporting that “death by firing squad has come back to America.” Last Friday, South Carolina executed Brad Sigmon by firing squad following his conviction for the 2001 murder of his ex-girlfriend’s parents. This marked the first use of a firing squad in America in the last fifteen years.

Sigmon was strapped into a gray chair in a steel basin. A target was fixed over his chest, and a hood covered his head. Gunmen hidden behind a wall with a cutout for rifle barrels then fired their weapons from fifteen feet away and destroyed the target above Sigmon’s heart. A doctor pronounced Sigmon dead at 6:08 pm.

Both stories illustrate the dilemma of responding to violence without resorting to violence. At times this obviously cannot be done. In such cases, we hope to prosecute war and execute criminals in the most humane manner possible, but the very issue points to the brokenness at the heart of fallen humanity.

There is a simple way out of this dilemma, one that applies to each of us each day of our lives.

How to end wars before they begin

What if we each saw the “other” as created directly by God in his sacred image for his providential purposes? (This is often called the doctrine of imago Dei, the claim that humans are created in the “image of God.”)

Would this not end wars before they begin? We would not have to wrestle with “just war” theory because there would be no belligerents to start conflicts. We would not need to punish criminals because no crime would be committed.

Since seeing each other as created in God’s image is obviously so beneficial to each of us, why don’t we?

As I noted yesterday, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species created a foundational shift in how the West views its origins. Today, neo-Darwinists argue that random genetic mutations produce accidental variations that build new life forms through natural selection.

Some attempt to reconcile creation and evolution with a version of “theistic evolution,” typically the claim that God started the evolutionary process which has proceeded across the eons since on naturalistic grounds. But either version views humans alive today as the product of natural evolution rather than intentional divine creation.

And this changes everything about how we see ourselves and our world.

When we deny the imago Dei

If humans are simply another species of animals produced through natural evolution, it’s hard to argue that we should not treat each other as transactionally as we treat other species.

For example, few would claim that humans should be killed to spare apes and chimpanzees. In fact, animal research has been vital to medical advances on a variety of crucial fronts. Why, then, would we not see a preborn human baby as another “animal” we can abort if we consider this to be in our personal best interest?

Why would we not treat the elderly and infirm in the same way for the same reason? Why would we not view the sexualization of physical bodies through pornography, prostitution, and extra-marital sex in the same way? This is precisely how sex traffickers see their victims—as commodities to be used as the trafficker wishes.

And what about discrimination? If we think it benefits us to mistreat humans of a different race, gender, or religion, what (except fear of repercussions) is there to stop us?

Does the denial of our status as the imago Dei not explain much of the violence, conflict, and heartbreak in our fallen world?

“God’s ultimate purpose” for us

Here’s the good news: God is at work today restoring the imago Dei we lost at the Fall. Theologian Sinclair Ferguson asks:

How can all things be worked together by God for good? The answer is at hand. It is because God’s ultimate purpose is to make us like Christ. His goal is the complete restoration of the image of God in his child! So great a work demands all the resources which God finds throughout the universe, and he ransacks the possibilities of joys and sorrows in order to reproduce in us the character of Jesus.

To join God in this crucial work, let’s take four steps today:

1. See yourself as he sees you: a child of your Father created for a unique and providential purpose in the world.
2. See every person you meet in the same way, asking the Lord to help you love them as he loves you.
3. Approach the next conflict in which you find yourself as you would with a person you love most deeply because this is how God loves them.
4. Pray for our leaders to respond to the crises and opportunities of our day in the same way.

John MacArthur is right:

“No human being is ever conceived outside God’s will or ever conceived apart from God’s image.”

Including you.

And the next person you meet today.