What we can teach ourselves from Machine Learning
Does any of this remind you of something else? Something else that has a near-infinite capacity for doing good and/or evil? Something else that influences lives in significant yet unseen ways? Something else that has consequential actions which echo far beyond the here and now?
I am, of course, thinking of human beings. More specifically, the human mind and heart. I'm sure you have heard the old adage "You can do anything you put your mind to." credited to Benjamin Franklin. It is more than just a nice idea, it is quite true. Or it can be, but only if you put your mind to it... (see what I did there...)
No wonder the Bible has so much to say about what goes on in our minds and thoughts and hearts. It influences everything we do, how we do it, and the consequences of our actions and words. A seemingly unimportant passing comment can have an indirect, significant effect on another life, for better or for worse.
For example: I used to teach in South Africa a long time ago. I remember almost none of the conversations I had with the students during my time there. So you can imagine my surprise when I caught up with an ex-student who became a teacher after school. His reason for going into teaching/training was because of a positive, good conversation he and I had way back when. He wanted to have the same positive, good influence on other young lives as I had on his. To my shame I can't remember what we talked about or what was said. I wish I could, because I would probably say that more!
The impression that conversation made shaped a whole life. What an immense privilege to have the opportunity to influence other lives. It is also an unimaginable -even impossible, unbearable- responsibility. I can't help but wonder how many passing comments or forgotten conversations have influenced people in a significantly negative way...
And that brings me back to the whole idea of Machine Learning/AI and human nature. In the end it all boils down to what you give the machine to learn from. There is a saying in ML: "Garbage in, garbage out." GIGO. It works like this: If you give a machine learning model garbage data to learn on, your predictions and results will be garbage as well. It can only learn from what we give it.
The same applies to our minds and hearts. You will only know and do what you learn from.
Proverbs 4:23 says: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."
You would have heard the saying: "You are what you eat." It has been adapted from the Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who said: "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are." Jesus said: "By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?" (Matthew 7:16), and also: "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luke 6:45).
What we feed our minds and cherish in our hearts affect what we do and how we do it. It affects the people around us in often unseen, indirect ways we cannot predict or even imagine. I cannot control how my words and actions are perceived by others. I cannot contain the reach of and scope of the consequences of what I say and do, for better or for worse (Proverbs 12:18; Proverbs 18:21). And luckily I don't have to. What I can and should control is what I feed my mind and what I keep in my heart.
My prayer for myself and for you is this: That God will put his laws of love in our minds and write them on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10), so that, as forgiven, accepted, loved and cherished people, we will make God's kingdom a reality in everything we do and say.
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
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