Scott’s Column: The AI Metaverse

Last week a handful of Nobel prizes went to people working in the fields of artificial intelligence.  I just so happened to be reading a book on what’s possible in an AI future.  I picked the book up two weekends ago at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Tri-Conference of the United Church of Christ.  The Eden Seminary booksellers had it on offer–Our Next Reality: How the AI-powered Metaverse Will Reshape the World. It wasn’t a book about church or ministry, but I try to keep up a little on the trends that are coming our way and how they will impact church and ministry.

The authors Alvin W. Graylin and Louis Rosenberg, have both worked in the fields of artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality for decades.  And they announce that the next few decades “will likely be the most critical years in human history.”  Meaning, that we can either make good, wise decisions in these years that lead to a time of widespread abundance and prosperity, or we can make wrong decisions, leading to dystopia or even catastrophe.  “What we do as individuals and as a species in the coming decade may very well help determine the ultimate destination of humanity as a whole for the rest of time!” they write.  Yep, that sounds pretty significant and like something we want to better understand.

I offer up this summary paragraph:

As we look to the future, there is one thing we know for sure–the technologies of artificial intelligence and immersive media will fundamentally change our lives, transforming society and altering our reality.  It may happen so gradually that we hardly notice, but the world will become a seamless merger of the real and the virtual, enhancing and embellishing all aspects of our lives.  This new reality will be interactive and adaptive in magical ways and will be populated with AI-powered characters, both human and fanciful, that guide us and assist us at every turn.  And it will be a hyperconnected world, allowing us to interact across nations, cultures and languages in ways we have never imagined.

The book covers the possible impacts in various disciplines–medicine, education, culture, geo-politics, etc.  Alvin is more optimistic about how everything will turn out, while Louis is more cautious.  But both treat these radical changes as an inevitable future.  One that we need to get right with good policies, laws, and practices even now.

Alvin believes the next decade will be spent learning how to use AI and the metaverse as tools.  Computing will move away from flat screens we look at into spatial platforms in which we are immersed (with good evidence that our brains are better wired to work in spatial environments than staring at flat screens).  In the decades after that, he predicts that the augmented reality of the metaverse will become a common feature of our lives.  On the one hand, more and more of our work will be taken over by AI and we’ll have to develop alternative policies, such as universal basic income, to support people and more equitably share the new abundance.  At the same time that our creativity will be unleashed in vibrant new ways.  He writes, “Our immersive future will eliminate the physical and spatial boundaries in which artists work, enabling wild new playgrounds for artwork that target our senses in exciting new ways.”  He also seems aware that these transitions won’t go as smoothly as he wishes.

There’s plenty in the book that seemed alarming to me or overblown.  I kept wanting to query some of the premises.  But I do feel much better informed about the possibilities.

So, I began to ponder impacts on church and ministry.  For one, church will be a place to engage in conversation and understanding about changes in technology, a place to find support, and we’ll provide pastoral care for people’s anxieties.  Church will also continue to be a place for learning life skills and the humane values that we must then use to navigate any changes technology and culture brings our way.  Having ministered through the many technological changes of the last thirty years, I know there’s also a lot of having to be all things for all people–connecting with those who adopt none of the new ways while connecting with those who expect you to keep up with the latest ways of doing things.

Church, worship in particular, will likely remain a place of authentic experience and connection.  Maybe a sabbath from the technologies we end up using in our professional and personal lives.  Churches have been “archives of awe,” as I’ve mentioned in this fall’s sermon series.  Our grandest buildings are immersive environments filled with beautiful art and music.  If people can experience innovative art and storytelling in the immersive environments of the metaverse, surely there will be impacts on worship services.

Some congregations might decide to be largely free of new technologies, though I also know that new technologies usually find a way in in the long run.  Plus there will be some religious movements that fully adopt the new technologies and probably experience growth and vitality because of it (Protestants did with the printing press in the 16th century and American Evangelicals did it with television in the 20th).

For the last couple of years I’ve been contemplating (and then writing and speaking to you all) about the challenges and opportunities facing congregations in the years ahead.  Here are yet more to consider as we listen to the call of the Holy Spirit to be the church she needs us to be now and in the future.