Part 1 – What is AI?
As I mentioned last time, I thought the first newsletter should put us on the same page regarding what many consider to be one of the greatest technology breakthroughs of the century, AI. It didn’t work out to be the first newsletter, but today’s newsletter will be the first in a series of newsletters focused on AI, mixed with newsletters regarding security in addition to tips and tricks for Microsoft 365.
As we think about the idea of AI or “Artificial Intelligence” we need to go further back than most people would have thought.“Artificial Intelligence” was first coined in 1956 by mathematician John McCarthy during the “Dartmouth Conference”. It was during a discussion on how to describe a computer that would simulate human thinking that the name“Artificial Intelligence” was chosen. This concept of AI predates the internet by 17 years, the web by 37 years and social media by 50 years.
Most people are surprised by the fact that AI has been around for so long and I think that is because before OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, AI was mainly the realm of mathematicians and computer scientists and not something that made news. ChatGPT is just a form of AI that is called “Generative AI”. Generative AI are systems that understand human speech (natural language processing) and can generate written content, along with images and increasingly videos with ease.
Even before generative AI was capturing the news, we’ve had Siri, Alexa, music recommendations for Spotify, movie recommendations for Netflix and let’s not forget Amazon recommendations.
As mentioned, we are going to be having a continuous series on AI with a focus on not only what it is, what it can do for you in your day-to-day work, but also how do we approach it as a Christian ministry (Hint: The “Way ofthe Future Church” will not be our example). So, to get us all on the same page let’s define AI:
- AI is a computer technology that can perform tasks that usually require human thinking – like understanding language,recognizing patterns, or making decisions.
- Think of it like a helper, not a person.
- It doesn’t think or feel like we do
- It works by using patterns, not having wisdom.
- Like a hammer helps build a house, AI helps create and organize ideas – but we are the ones guiding it.
Now that we are on the same page, stay tuned for more about using AI in your ministry.
Jonathan Meester – Computers in Ministry