My writing today comes from my quiet time when I read the Bible in the morning. I have been sensing the importance of hope in recent days (or weeks) in the light of the troubling times we live in. It’s easy, even as a Christian, to lose hope in these times. I do.
Just a week ago, I had a conversation with my 31-year old about a great leap in technology being pioneered by Microsoft that could increase technological advancement exponentially. (See Microsoft’s NEW Quantum Chip is Mind Blowing!) Glenn Beck speculates, “If they can put that one chip in your phone, it would make your phone as powerful as the best supercomputer with a server farm the size of the planet earth.”
Or conversation focused on his wife’s concern (and mine) that such a technological advancement may exceed our ability to do good with it. Imagine people having that power at their fingertips….
Six months ago, Elon Musk discussed the distinct possibility of fitting 100 million people with Neuralink implants in the future. This device implanted in the brain would allow “superhuman abilities”. It would replace cell phones. We would essentially have computers in our brains.
Musk somewhat presciently said, “The problem will be figuring out what we want….” A person who wants to cause harm could cause greater harm exponentially faster and exponentially more devastating than can be done now with our merely human brains, like going from muskets to a nuclear capabilities.
Lex Friedman commented, with maybe greater prescience, “I think it’s exciting and scary for people because … it changes the human experience in ways that are very hard to imagine.” Interestingly, Musk agreed, “We would be something different.”
This uncertainty suggests we should be cautious with technology that may fundamentally change the human brain. The specter of the availability to change the human brain to make us different in ways we can’t even predict raises similar ethical questions as the ability to clone humans.
Not only should we be circumspect and careful with these things; we need to be cautious about trusting such powerful technology to people with varying worldviews. Do we want a materialist driven people who believe there is no God, nor objective morality, nor any no purpose in life other than what we want it to be to be in control of such technology. What about an Islamic world? Or a Trump and Musk world that is driven by the almighty dollar?
Pick your suspect worldview. I wonder, “Can we handle it?” And, “Are we playing God?” And, “What unintended consequences might we trigger?”
As I write these things, I can hear another voice in my head nagging me to reconsider my cautionary approach. “Wouldn’t it be great to control your world with your mind?!” Imagine how a Neuralink might empower and improve the life of a quadriplegic. It could be used for so much good!
In reality, such technology is likely to be used both for good and to be abused. That is the pattern of humanity. Whether it might be used more for the good than abused is something no one can predict, though it may depend on how slowly, cautiously, and circumspectly we roll it out.
On that score, consider what Elon Musk is doing with the power Trump has given him in the federal government. He has wielded that power with glee like a chain saw massacre. He even boasted about it:
This is the same man who wants to put his technology in your brain.
I might be tempted to think that I am being overly cautious, but recent developments highlight the concerns. Elon Musk has been invited into the inner workings of our government by Donald Trump. He has been given unprecedented access to personal and private information of all people who live in the US. Together they have been freezing funds, firing people, and shutting down programs at an unprecedented rate.
I have likened what they are doing to a corporate Board of Directors for a hospital identifying inefficiencies and wasteful spending and taking a wrecking ball to the hospital with the patients, doctors, and nurses still in it. In weeks, they have have attempted to freeze the expenditure of billions of dollars already committed to operating programs in this country and around the world, and they are gutting and shutting down those programs.
The rashness and imprudence of doing what they are doing is almost unimaginable, and they are doing it because they have the power to do it. Right now, there is no check or balance in the way. They are moving faster than the other branches of government can respond.
We don’t know, yet, what the fallout will be. We are seeing only anecdotal results right now – jobs lost, summary deportations, 50 year contracts terminated with veteran agencies, etc. – in less than two months. Trump and Musk have enthusiastically wielded the power they now have with no apparent thought or care to the lives they have disrupted and the people they have hurt in the name of efficiency because they can.
We have a tendency to run further and faster with technology than our ethical bandwidth can keep up. The industrial revolution led to abuses like child labor and competition among nations that presaged the two great World Wars. Those technological advances made those wars more deadly than ever before – with tanks, guns, planes, toxins, and bombs (conventional and nuclear) – that were more devastating than the weaponry available in prior wars.
The kinds of technological advances Microsoft and Musk are exploring could lead to unimaginable abuses of power. That power will be exponentially greater than what we have now, and it could easily trigger the end of human civilization in the wrong hands.
The technology that fueled the World Wars is nothing like what we have now. The nuclear technology that ended WWII and advancements in technology that exist today could easily end human life on earth in the time it takes to push a button.
In that context, I read my daily Bible reading plan to today that included a quotation from Brazilian theologian, Reuben Alves, that I have included here. So, I turn now to hope, fueled by faith, and informed by love.
The quotation by Alves is superimposed on a photo from the James Webb Telescope capturing a region of space as it was billions of years ago. Only God was present to experience that moment we captured recently as He looked forward to the future – including these times we are experiencing now.
As Christians, we believe the Bible is God’s revelation to humans. Though it has been conveyed to us and preserved for us by humans, we believe that the revelation expressed in the Bible is from our creator. It is this revelation that provides our understanding that God is timeless, that He created the universe out of nothing, and that He populated the earth with living beings – including us – with a grand design in mind.
That faith also allows us to trust that God will redeem all that is wrong in the world and land this rocket ship earth safely. We understand, as Abraham did, that we have not reached the end of this journey – that we have not arrived at “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God”. (Hebrews 11:10)
In the meantime, we understand “that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time,” and we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:22-23) We understand what Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble”; but we take heart, because we “know” by faith that Jesus has overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Yet, not yet. We also understand from the words of Jesus and the Revelation John received from Jesus that many trials and tribulations will come and go.
We take heart in that also, because we know that God is working out His design and His purposes. Just as Jesus entered the world as God incarnate at just the right time, so God will intervene at just the right time to establish a new heaven and earth and take up His dwelling among His people where “[t]here will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
In the meantime, some things simply don’t change. “[T]hese three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13) We know that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8); and that Jesus is “the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15 NLT). So, we take our refuge in Jesus, and we pray to the Father, “Your kingdom come and Your will be done on this earth as it is in heaven.”
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POSTSCIPT:
Google claimed near the end of 2024 that its new Willow Quantum computing chip will revolutionize computing (and access parallel universes). They claim they fed it the most difficult problem in the world to solve, a problem that would take our best existing supercomputer 10 septillion years to solve (exponentially more years than the history of the universe), and Willow solved it in 5 minutes. As aside, Glenn Beck asks, “How do they know this?”) (See Did Google Just PROVE Other Universes Exist?) Yea, how do they test their work?
Leaving that aside for the moment, ten days ago, Glenn Beck spoke about Microsoft’s announcement that it made a quantum computing breakthrough, proving the existence of a new type of matter. They claim they have created a new type of matter, which they unlocked by use of a new class of material: topological conductors. It is claimed to be a “fundamental leap in computing” using a molecule we didn’t know existed until a year ago. It was speculated to exist back in the 1920’s or 30’s (the Majorana molecule).
Microsoft also claims to be able to control this molecule now as a qubit to bypass the limitations of linear computing. Microsoft claims they can put millions of this molecule on a chip that would surpass the computing capabilities of the greatest existing supercomputer equivalent to a cloud of servers (capacity) warehoused in a space the size of the earth. (See Microsoft’s NEW Quantum Chip is Mind Blowing – What Does This Mean?)
I don’t watch Glenn Beck, but the most recent YouTube video caught my attention on a subject that interests me, and I found the older YouTube video on the Google announcement trying to find the more recent one again. It turns out that I should know better than to trust Glenn Beck on the latest technological advancements boasted by multibillion-dollar companies.
Sabine Hossenfelder, an actual quantum physicist, is more skeptical than Glenn Beck. She explains that Microsoft has not discovered a new state of matter, and the announcement, which may look promising, is far from proof that it works. (See Microsoft Reports Quantum Computing Breakthrough) (The none-clickbait headline is probably a clue that it is more reliable and factual, if not a bit less scintillating.)
Navigating by Faith 