4 Categories Against The Technologically Sneaky

You likely will not hear or read Christians talk to you about the dangers of machines, or the hazards of devices. We have a favoured word to use for our discussions and doctrines of technology. And that word is tool. The internet is a tool. So is A.I. And so is a hammer. And the simple little mind trick played by these Jedi theologians is that you can call something magic which is really just Midichlorian’s and plot armor.

Why does everyone reduce technology down to just tools? Why is it necessary to think of something as vast and as complicated as the world wide web, as a hand held rock on a stick?

Sinfulness, that’s why.

Our default nature and response to dealing with sin is to reduce what happened by our hands in scope and effectiveness. It was not that Adam blatantly ate what he must have taught Eve not to also eat, given when Eve enters the Narrative, but that she gave him fruit and he merely ate it. It was not that Aaron fashioned a golden cow and then lied to say that it came of it’s own will out of the molten gold he lit the fire for. But that he merely made the idol.

Sin has a way of prompting us to reduce our agency to the absurd. Because at its heart, sin is always an absurd thing to do. Especially when you know who God is and what God wants for you.

So, with that in mind, the next time you have some pro A.I. in church type tell you that A.I. is just a tool, Remind him that there are more ways to think about tech, than just absurd abstractions.

Here’s four to start.

Tools:

A tool is something completely under the control of the human using it. It requires use based skill to use effectively for its maximum use. It can not operate on it’s own, and is entirely dependant on human agency for its effects on reality.

Mechanisms:

Are tools that require an additional force or tool to do what the initial tool would do, but in a more effective way in unison. They can not operate on their own but are not operated solely by human agency as the secondary force or tool also affects their effect on reality.

Devices:

Are mechanisms that are set in motion by management forces and mechanism that further add to the operational agency of the device. The human, the management measures, and the mechanism all play into the devices means of effecting reality, in that order both ways. adjustments to any level of that order of operation effects the effects and communicates to the human using the device.

Machines:

A machine is a human made replacement of a humans capacity to do work. It entirely removes the human from the process of the machines effects on reality after the human sets it in motion. It requires no human agency past construction and initializing its functional purpose and does not communicate to the human unless also tasked to do so alongside its functional purpose. Effects on its effects on reality can also be made to be internally managed by the same machine internally. Machines are at their most fundamental level of purpose, replacements for humans at the bidding of humans.

Note how these four things are not the same.

Note how these get more complicated as they progress.

Note how you have never been asked to view a hammer with more complexity than its handle.

Note how you have been being told machines are as simple as tools for a while now.

Note how you’ve never asked why?