Computers mix with theology in college classroom
This article was found in the November 20, 1997, edition of the Lebanon Daily News
By Diego Ribandeneira
Boston Globe Writer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It seemed a bit odd that Professor Anne Foerst was showing "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to a group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But given that these were engineering and computer science majors, perhpas these science fiction epics were not out of place. what would raise eyebrows, however, was the terminology Foerst then proceeded to throw around -- therms like "messiah," "savior," and "Christian culture."
Here, inside the concrete and glass fortress that houses the college's electrical engineering and computer science department, Foerst is teaching a course titled "God and Computers." It is not the usual high-tech offering.
The course examines the role that Western assumputions about God and religion may play in the development of artificial intelligence, which seeks to build machines that have human-like capabilities.
It is the only such course in an engineering department in the country, educators say. And not surprisingly, it has spurred controversy. When the course was introduced in September there was a torrent of criticism from students and some faculty members who believed religion has no place in an engineering department.
Marvin L. Minsky, an MIT professor widely know as the father of artificial intelligence, called the course an "evangelical enterprise" in an e-mail circulated on campus. In his message, Minsky challenged Foerst's description of the course in her syllabus in which she compared "the dream of building artificial humans" to "imitating God's creative powers."
Minsky wrote: "Will the course assume that building smart machines is a myth -- rather than a goal -- while assuming that (the existance of) God's creative powers is not also a myth?"
Minsky said he believed "God and Computers" was "not a serious discussion" and questioned whether it was a "proper subject for an MIT credit course, rather than a possible ... extracurricular activity."
Other critics denounced the course as an attempt to inject faith into the field of rational scientific analysis. "'God and Computers' is an insult to MIT," sophomore J. Ryan Bender wrote in a compus newspaper during the height of the controversy.
Foerst says she is not attacking artificial intelligence or science generally, just trying to examine the religious beliefs that have given rise to the quest for artificial intelligence. And the irony of such a course being born at MIT, arguable the nation's premier science research institute, is not lost on her or her associates.
"It's not the kind of course you would expect to find in the department," said Paul Penfield, chairman of the university's department of electrical engineering and computer science. "But there is definitely space at MIT for looking at how all our technologies, including computers, relate to other life activities, including religion."
Penfield was part of a faculty committee that approved the "God and Computers" as a course in the engineering department.
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