
# What is AI and What are the Implications of Advances in AI for Religion?

AI - Ethical and Religious Perspectives, Jesus College, Cambridge

### What is Machine Learning?

$\text{data} + \text{model} \xrightarrow{\text{compute}} \text{prediction}$

• data : observations, could be actively or passively acquired (meta-data).
• model : assumptions, based on previous experience (other data! transfer learning etc), or beliefs about the regularities of the universe. Inductive bias.
• prediction : an action to be taken or a categorization or a quality score.

### What is Machine Learning?

$\text{data} + \text{model} \xrightarrow{\text{compute}} \text{prediction}$

• To combine data with a model need:
• a prediction function $\mappingFunction (\cdot)$ includes our beliefs about the regularities of the universe
• an objective function $\errorFunction (\cdot)$ defines the cost of misprediction.

### Embodiment Factors

 compute $\approx 100 \text{ gigaflops}$ $\approx 16 \text{ petaflops}$ communicate $1 \text{ gigbit/s}$ $100 \text{ bit/s}$ (compute/communicate) $10^{4}$ $10^{14}$

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### Societal Effects

• This phenomenon has already revolutionised biology.
• Large scale data acquisition and distribution.
• Transcriptomics, genomics, epigenomics, ‘rich phenomics’.
• Great promise for personalized health.

### Societal Effects

• Automated decision making within the computer based only on the data.
• Subjective biases need to be better understood.
• Particularly important where treatments are being prescribed.
• Interventions could be far more subtle.

### Societal Effects

• Shift in dynamic:
• from direct human-data to indirect human-computer-data
• modern data analysis is mediated by the machine
• This change of dynamics gives us the modern and emerging domain of data science

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### References

Lawrence, N.D., 2017. Living together: Mind and machine intelligence. arXiv.