Is this unit created in the image of God? : Artificial intelligence and Lutheran anthropology

Abstract: In this study, the potential for artificially intelligent sapient life to be integrated into a Lutheran theological anthropology is investigated. The investigation is done via the means of a reconstruction and reactualisation of Lutheran anthropology, applied to the hypothetical scenario of artificial general intelligences having been created. The study takes its roots in questions of how intelligent life made by human artifice would interact with the Lutheran narrative-relational imago Dei paradigm, and what room there is within the Lutheran framework to integrate such intelligent life. In the study, the analysis will be threefold; with the first chapter dedicated to presenting the basis within Lutheran theology within which the rest of the study is conducted, the second chapter to identifying core points of conflict that may arise were artificial life to be introduced, and the third to finding preliminary solutions to these. Although the study is and must be hypothetical-speculative in nature, the conclusion is reached that there seems to be some manner of room for artificial intelligences to be integrated into a Lutheran way of understanding the imago Dei paradigm, albeit with some lingering issues that can quite hardly be solved entirely until the real dawn of artificial intelligence. Although some reservations remain, it therefore points towards the possibility of future artificial intelligences being Humanity’s theological equals, and leaves it to future studies to reach a more elaborate understanding of what that means and implies in practice, both ethical and dogmatic.