In his 2010 masterpiece, Nicholas Carr wrote about how the Internet changed everything. He envisioned machines becoming human and humans becoming machines. Reflecting upon the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the machines develop human traits, while the astronauts develop robotic traits. Carr stated, “That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”1 Futurists John Smart and Paul Taylor write ”as machine intelligence advances, the first response of humans is to offload their intelligence and motivation to the machines. That’s a dehumanizing, first-generation response. Only the later, third-generation educational systems will correct for this”.2
We may be so caught up in the incredible work of robotics and AI that we may lose how we humanly approach medicine. Are we offloading medical care to the machine? Do we see patients with a singular medical object that needs attention, or do we consider the whole person? Given the many factors that need to be addressed does the medical community have time to address wholeness, never mind the holiness, of the individual? Medical personnel may feel increasingly pressured to meet the ever-increasing needs of patients that they end up depending more on AI. The simple fact that we must even be aware of this issue says much about the future directions of our society.
It is great to involve AI, but do we have boundaries or just ever-increasing expectations and needs? In 2013, Craig Detweiler wrote this great insightful reality stating that, “. . . Comedian Louis (Louis) C. K. jokes about our sense of entitlement regarding technology. He marvels that ‘everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy.’ C.K mocks those who get impatient when they have to wait a few seconds to get a cell phone signal from space!”3
Our love affair with robots and AI will continue to grow. Expensive robots or AI programs do not require pension plans, days off, or medical attention. They rarely complain, but if they do, fixes are applied. We must acknowledge that the use of AI and robotics are changing how we think. We are being re-conditioned. Perhaps we do not need chaplains or spiritual care providers because we can use artificial robotic chaplains. Some experts are already considering the effects of such an agent. For example, if the artificial chaplain touches the patient’s arm, could leverage information on human modeling to know when, where, and with how much pressure to touch the patient.4 Robot chaplains do not become exhausted as humans do, but may lack empathy. Is this a step forward?
With the pressure of a high volume of patients, doctors already depend on algorithms to govern their time. Will AI soon be able to diagnose more effectively than humans? Can AI learn and read X-rays and MRIs better, cheaper, and faster than humans? The simple fact that these questions are posed indicates that we may already be moving more fully in that direction.
In an age of tight budgets, rising secularism, and fear of the extreme religious right, medical institutions may cut back on spiritual care. While “artificial chaplains can touch a patient’s arm,” do they connect with the patient? Patients want doctors and staff to cure their ills, but part of the human essence is that people want to share their stories. Patients want to share their fears, hopes, history, and future with other people. Patients want to relay these to professionals with skills to help them journey inward, to digest, and to contemplate the fullness of what is taking place. Patients want someone who can enter their space and walk with them for a short time, or as Kipling said, “nor lose the common touch.”
Medical staff frequently do not have time to help patients become more emotionally or spiritually alive because of pressing physical issues. While hospital staff have assigned duties, it is the spiritual care provider who has time to listen. These providers are there to hold hands, to hold souls, and to listen deeply. Amidst a variety of pressures, it behooves those in the medical community to pause and self-reflect. Does the Hippocratic Oath imply that doctors should try to be fully human, or alive so they can fully meet the needs of those in their care? Neuroscientist and author Andrew Newberg believes that wholeness is tied to holiness and holiness to wholeness.5
Dr. Remen, author and clinical professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, explains what we need to recapture when she wrote: “Sir William Osler is often misquoted as having said that objectivity is the single most important trait of the true physician. He spoke in Latin and the word which is usually translated as ‘objectivity’ is aequinimitas. Aequinimitas does not mean ‘objectivity,” it means mental stillness or inner peace. Inner peace is an important quality for anyone whose daily work puts them in contact with human suffering. But this is not the outcome of distancing oneself from life, rather it is about knowing life so intimately that one has become able to trust and accept life so intimately that one has become able to trust and accept life whole, embracing its darkness in order to know its grace.”6
While it is necessary to keep pushing for more advances in AI, we need to restore and maintain a balance with the human touch and mental stillness. We need to be fully in touch with ourselves as we strive to meet the needs of the whole patient. To quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic The Little Prince, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”7 We need to hold onto humanism while advocating medical advances with AI.
One positive indicator is an ever-increasing number of medical schools offering students courses in spirituality. Instead of cutting back or eliminating spiritual care or chaplains, we should add to these departments to assist patients, and indeed all medical staff, in becoming deeper in tune with themselves. Patients and medical staff need to give themselves grace and self-healing. We all need to connect with Osler’s cry for mental stillness. Adam Miller writing in 2013 for the Canadian Medical Association Journal also addressed this need. He quoted an email from the internationally renowned psychiatrist, professor, author, and researcher Harold G. Koenig: “Currently, the only physicians who are assessing and addressing spiritual issues in clinical practice are devoutly religious physicians. Thus, addressing spiritual issues is physician-centered. This is the opposite of the way it should be. Health care should be patient-centered, not doctor-centered. Thus, the reason why spiritual issues should be assessed and addressed is because of their importance to patients, effects on medical decisions, and impact on health outcomes.”8
To avoid burnout, exhaustion, and indifference, those in the medical community need to embrace themselves and embrace the future. AI cannot do that for our souls – at least not yet. Introspection is still exclusively human. Everyone needs introspection to retreat into themselves to be renewed. Besides coffee breaks, medical institutions should have an opportunity to step out of chaos to a special place where one can be healed and renewed. Everyone needs to enact on the words attributed to Sir Andrew Barton, “I am hurt but I am not slain. I’ll lay me down and bleed awhile, Then I’ll rise and fight again.” By stepping out of medical and personal chaos and hurts, and into oneself, one can rise and be renewed.
Renewal can take many forms. In our external success-directed consumer-consumption, “me-ism” society, I wonder if we are losing the ability to travel inward. We need to take time to appreciate life’s journey. We need to embrace and heal our shadows, and the dark places inside. By reducing darkness within ourselves, we are open for light and healing to enter. In other words, to be able to heal others, one can also feel content about oneself. AI cannot do that for us. AI may soon be able to do every human task faster and with fewer mistakes. But AI cannot be our soul – at least not yet.
As John of the Cross in the 16th century noted, we must enter “the dark night of the soul,” to come to the light which means good health, and good spirits. As the 4th-century theologian Augustine of Hippo wrote, “Do not go outside yourself, but turn back within; truth dwells in the inner man; and if you find your nature given to frequent change, go beyond yourself. Move on, then, to that source where the light of reason itself receives the light.” While this was intended for Christianity, it is indeed a mantra for anyone in the medical community to follow – go in, be healed, and return to the cause of healing.
No AI was used to write or re-write this article. AI was used to help with grammatical errors. A human artificial intelligence expert, with medical knowledge, greatly added insights and proofreading to this piece.
References
- Carr, N. (2010). The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton. p. 224.
- Taylor, P. (2014). The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown. New York: PublicAffairs. p. 155.
- Detweiler, C. (2013). iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives. Grand Rapids, MI., Brazos Press, Baker Publishing. p. 3
- Graves, Mark. (2024). Modeling morality and spirituality in artificial chaplains. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans. 2. 100051. 10.1016/j.chbah.2024.100051.downloaded to ResearchGate, January 2024.
- Newberg, A. (2010). How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. New York: Ballantine Books.
- Remen, R. N. (1999). Educating for Mission, Meaning and Compassion. In S. Glazer (Ed.), The Heart of Spirituality: Spirituality in Education. (pp. 33-49). New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher. p. 37. [/efn_note]
- de Saint-Exupéry, A. (1943). The Little Prince. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, p. 68.
- Miller, A. (2013). Incorporating theology into medical education. Canadian Medical Association Journal. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.109-4317
Views and opinions expressed by authors and editors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.
