AI Humanity -- Groks Science Show 2026-08-26
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What existential questions do AI and robotics raise about humanity?
I'm Frank Ling.
And I'm Charles Lee.
And you're listening to the Grok Science Show.
That's right, it's a weekly look at the world of science, technology, and effects on our daily lives. Coming up on today's program,
And Forced
will join us to discuss
artificial intelligence. So stay tuned for all this.
Plus the Grokatron 5000.
And our World Famous Question of Week.
Coming right up
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on the Grox Science Show.
Welcome back to the Groxy Science Show. Well, the rapid advances in artificial intelligence have had not only practical but also profound existential questions regarding humanity's place in the world. We will revisit one of our favorite episodes exploring the intersection between artificial intelligence, robotics, and theology with doctor Anne Forst. This episode originally aired december twentieth, two thousand four. Well, robots have fascinated the public for years, appearing in countless films, books, and television shows. The increasingly lifelike capability of robots in the real world has many prominent thinkers wondering how humans and their creations will interact in the future. Will a thinking machine be regarded as a person, differing from humans only in design?
Will even the most human like robots be seen as possessing a soul? Well, joining us today to discuss these issues of robots in our humanity is Professor Ann Forst. Professor Forst is a theologian and research. Scientist and visiting professor of theology and computer science at St. Bonaventure University. Formerly she was a research scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, where she founded and directed the God and Computers Project. She is the author of the new book God and the Machine, What Robots Teach Us About Humanity and God. Professor Force, thank you very much for joining us today on Burke and Grox.
Well, thank you for having me. It's
certainly our pleasure and you've certainly written a uh fascinating and I I guess I would have to say somewhat controversial book.
Thank you.
I I'm curious though, I mean this is an issue that a lot of people would indeed find somewhat controversial, is this relationship between uh robot building and God, which some finds somewhat incompatible, but how can these two be related?
Well, first of all, what I realized is when we try to build humanoid robots in our image We really realize how complex we humans are. When we really try to build something that moves like we and acts like we and is smart like us, our appreciation for nature grows and I would put that in spiritual terms, our admiration for God's creation grows. So basically building humanoid robots in our image is in a way a spiritual enterprise.
I see. And what are sort of the motivations that for humans for actually building these robots then?
I in the literature find two different motivations.
How does Dr. Anne Foerst connect robot building with spiritual practice?
The one motivation is kind of the more hubristic, arrogance, you know, plain God motive. Trying to be like God and trying equal God and so on. The other one is a little bit more modest goal, which is more trying to find out how we work, learning more about who we are, learning more about what actually makes us us. by trying to rebuild us and seeing where the failures are, seeing where we succeed and therefore find some solutions for who we are. And actually it's the second attempt that I appreciate and mostly discuss in my book. I'm not interested in people who are arrogant. We're interested in people who are really seriously interested in who we are and try to find that out and try to join that millennia old quest with building robots.
Indeed. So one of the stories you mentioned early on is the stories of like the Jewish traditions of the Golem stories. Yes. And how you could actually see the two points of views in those stories as well.
The Golem stories are interesting because they really have the explicit motive of prayer, that golem building, construction of artificial humans built from clay is actually a prayer. And the nice thing about the Golem tradition is they go back to the thirteenth century to the mi Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What existential questions do AI and robotics raise about humanity?
0:25–3:18
2
How does Dr. Anne Foerst connect robot building with spiritual practice?
3:18–6:34
3
What are the two main motivations behind creating humanoid robots?
6:34–9:09
4
How do the Golem stories illustrate the link between prayer and artificial life?
9:09–12:09
5
Why does Dr. Foerst argue that storytelling bridges science and theology?
12:09–14:39
6
What lessons did the Cog and Kismet projects teach about embodied intelligence?
14:39–17:08
7
How might future robots become collaborative partners for lonely humans?
17:08–18:49
8
What is the Grokatron 5000 game and how does it explore the robot‑or‑human question?
18:49–20:12