‬ Can AI deliver absolute Justice ?

Introduction

Where do we begin with this question…

Do we start with the nature of AI and algorithms ?

How they arrive at answers ?

How ethical they are?

Background

First things first, let’s understand the nature of AI and the algorithms behind it.

As I was learning to program, one thing stood out to me.

Computers will do exactly what you tell them to, down to the letter.

Now that showed me the difference between following the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law. What the programmer is intending and what the computer ends up doing.

Context

Behind the slick graphical interfaces, AI is essentially mathematics, code and statistics.

Now, does this phenomenon have a spiritual heart?

Does it have a soul?

Can it have conscience, wisdom and accountability ?

Without a heart, without a soul, can it access the Divine and answer our question about accessing absolute justice, which is an attribute of the Divine?

AI can help us sort out data, calculate at amazing speeds, and help us recognise patterns to save time.

Yet, is justice merely calculation or does it also require moral judgment ?

Deus ex Machina

The Islamic view is that God who ultimately made us stewards on this earth.

To outsource the role of judge, jury, and executioner to algorithmic decision-making would be shirking our responsibility and foregoing our opportunity to access the realm of higher and absolute justice.

Beyond seeing it as a tool, AI ends up embodying the priorities of those who build and deploy it,this often means a world view based on measuring, optimising and predicting. Humans can then be seen as resources to be calculated with and sorted.

To reach absolute justice requires the faculties of the heart—to use our intention, conscience and insight.

Fundamentally, using a probabilistic, sophisticated guessing machine as the authority to make decisions such as hiring and firing, diagnosing and treating, training and guiding others is irresponsible.

Conclusion

Let’s take a step back and recognise the nature of AI, how it works, and remember the faculties needed to access absolute justice.

Fundamentally, AI ends up pushing a certain world-view of numbers, of calculating and analysing.

It is not as neutral as it appears to be.

Having it make the major decisions in civic and corporate life will likely leave us at the mercy of profit and productivity rather than justice and equity.

Without vigilance, it can turn from a useful servant into a master, an authority.

Would we surrender then to the machine ? Or to God, who is the source of absolute justice, mercy and love.

It is incumbent upon us to use all our faculties, and to use our hearts as well as our heads, to reach for all-encompassing justice— to look towards God rather than the machine.