Ilia Delio's 2020 book integrates Teilhard de Chardin, feminist critical post-humanism, and Donna Haraway's work on cyborgs to show how artificial intelligence (AI) and religion indicate the direction of humanity's evolution toward God. The book describes our evolutionary trajectory of emergence in terms familiar to ecotheology, anticipating a new phase of our journey toward this convergence with God.
The work presents a moral argument. It convincingly describes how humanity ought to evolve through incorporation of cyberneticism. Remarkably, this argument does not capitulate even a tiny bit to the “technological paradigm” against which we have been warned (rightly) in Laudato si’. This success lies in a thorough differentiation between trans-humanism (which would lead us to oblivion) and critical feminist post-humanism (which is the hero of the tale).
Most of the book presents the development and meaning of AI and cybernetics. Cybernetics here is a science that examines the information flow in dynamic systems, particularly through feedback loops. Feedback loops occur in ecosystems and in technology. They are the means through which environments and agents are changed. The book focuses not on humans becoming cyborgs but on the meaning revealed by this emergent possibility. Here lies the thrust of the book's prescriptive argument: The way we coevolve with cybernetics matters. Religion correctly orients AI.
The book's indispensable introduction defines terms and establishes the argument's necessary assumptions. The first chapter adds a careful explanation of relational holism, parsing distinct positions on the phenomenon of consciousness (among other concepts). Chapters 2 through 4 give the history of humanity's religious and cybernetic engagement. Trans-humanism, the antagonist of the book's story, appears in chapter 4. Chapters 5 and 6 introduce the hero—critical feminist post-humanism—and integrates this view with Haraway's work on cyborgs to recommend the emerging anthropology that could, and should result, if religion is involved in this progression. Chapter 7 introduces Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere. Teilhard is presented here as a second axial age thinker whose theological vision fits smoothly with the anthropology of feminist critical post-humanism. Chapters 8 through 10 address religion, spirituality, and ecclesiology, accordingly.
The most troublesome shortfall is that the book's survey of philosophy and sociological movements does not employ any specific understanding of power. Social power influences technology, and it therefore also influences all evolution. This is unquestionably so for such a project, which (rightly) rejects natural/artificial binaries. Social power is an important piece of an anthropology in motion. For example, social structures and agents (like patriarchy and the magisterium) reinforce certain religious orthodoxies in ways that impede the trajectory Delio recommends. The book acknowledges this. Of course, evolution (again, including technology and culture) is driven by feedback loops, which could make it difficult to include an explicit discussion of social power in the book. On the other hand, without it, feedback loops appear to behave independently of human corporate agency or even of the good itself. If this is the case, what hope do we have in steering our coevolution with creation?
Yet the book successfully attains important and timely aims. It amplifies a reader's awareness of complex systems and skillfully integrates technology, culture, ecosystems, and theology. As such, the book is a unique and necessary addition to efforts to cultivate a theological anthropology for our day. It even successfully presents cybernetics as a sacred gift with which we should cooperate.
The book is also fun to read. It offers a fascinating tour of a land that is unfamiliar to many theologians. For graduate theology courses in theological anthropology, this book can serve as a good primer on trans-humanism and critical feminist post-humanism, on how these differ, and most importantly on why their differences matter.
The book's title implies intersections between AI and religion, and this promise is delivered. But the moral question raised here is more important. As Delio herself asks: “How might we use technology if we actually believed that God is partnering with AI-complexified life to become God…?” (223). In other words: How might we cooperate with God in our development into cybernetics and AI? To what end ought we aspire?
