# Are the Robots Going to Kill Us? *Published 2026-11-15, by Dan Ryland.* > Perhaps the more important question is what we're choosing to build, who benefits from it, and what we're prepared to sacrifice along the way. - Canonical URL: https://danryland.com/blog/are-the-robots-going-to-kill-us/ - Category: Build - Tags: AI, Technology, Faith, Human Dignity, Ethics, Purpose Years ago, I was offered £55,000 to work for Wonga. I was getting engaged, preparing for marriage, and wanted to earn more money. Nothing particularly profound about that. I wanted to provide for my future family. So I started applying for jobs. Lots of them. One of those applications led to an interview with Wonga, the payday lending company. I got the job. They initially offered me £50,000. It was exactly the kind of opportunity I'd been looking for. A better salary, a new role, and a way of improving my financial position before getting married. But when my existing agency found out I was considering leaving, they offered to match the salary. £50,000 to stay. Wonga responded by increasing their offer to £55,000. Another £5,000 to make the move. In the end, I decided to stay with my agency. The recruiter was furious. She told me I should have been upfront if I was only using the job opportunity to negotiate a pay rise. But that was never my intention. I genuinely wanted to earn more money. I'd applied for the job, gone through the interview process, and received an offer I was prepared to accept. I simply hadn't anticipated my existing employer offering me an alternative. At the time, it was a career decision. I wasn't taking a moral stand against payday lending. I wasn't carefully weighing the ethics of the company's business model against the salary it was offering me. I wanted more money. I'd found a way to earn it. And ultimately, I chose the opportunity that allowed me to stay somewhere I already knew. But looking back, I sometimes wonder. **What if my agency hadn't matched the offer?** Would I have gone to Wonga? Probably. And what would I have been helping to build? Wonga later [entered administration in 2018](https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/wonga-enters-administration). The Financial Conduct Authority had already required changes to its [affordability checks](https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/wonga-make-major-changes-affordability-criteria-following-discussions-fca) and compensation for [unfair debt collection practices](https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/wonga-pay-redress-unfair-debt-collection-practices). I couldn't have known everything that would happen. And I don't think accepting a job at a company automatically makes somebody responsible for everything that company does. The nature of the role, the work involved, and what someone knows all matter. But I also can't pretend that the wider consequences of the business were at the forefront of my mind. They weren't. I was thinking about my future. My marriage. My income. My opportunities. All understandable things. And that's what makes the experience interesting to me now. Because **it's possible to pursue something good for ourselves without sufficiently considering whether the means of achieving it are good for others.** I wanted to provide for my family. That's a good thing. But providing for my family doesn't automatically justify every possible way of earning that provision. There's another dimension to this story that I've been thinking about. It reminds me, in a very different context, of Abraham and Isaac. In Genesis 22, Abraham goes up Mount Moriah with Isaac, the son through whom God had promised to fulfil his covenant. It's an extraordinary and difficult passage. Abraham is prepared to obey, but God stops him and provides a ram in Isaac's place. Now, I'm not suggesting my employment decision was anything like Abraham's test of faith. Nor can I confidently claim that God arranged a counteroffer to keep me away from Wonga. But the story makes me think about provision, trust, and the decisions we might have made had an alternative not appeared. Sometimes another provision arrives before we ever have to confront the full cost of a decision. And I wonder what I would have done if it hadn't. Would I have questioned the company I was joining? Would I have considered the lives affected by the products I might help develop? Would I have been prepared to turn down the money if I'd become convinced that the work was causing harm? Or would the salary have been enough to quiet those questions? I don't know. And I think that's the important part. I can't claim I made some great moral sacrifice. I was given another option. **But what happens when another option doesn't appear?** What happens when doing what we believe is right really does mean giving something up? I've been returning to that question recently, particularly as I think about the future of technology and the responsibility of those of us who build it. ## Are the Robots Going to Kill Us? “Are the robots going to kill us?” That was the question Al Gordon put to James Poulter, Dr Amy Orr-Ewing, and Dan Wright at the Renaissance Conference. Quite an opening. And a question worth asking. Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly. Systems that once seemed impossible are becoming ordinary. Machines can generate software, interpret medical images, recreate human voices, and increasingly interact with the physical world. There are extraordinary opportunities ahead of us. There are also serious risks. The panel explored both. Dan Wright spoke about the importance of Christians engaging with AI rather than retreating from it. James Poulter challenged us to use technology to produce better work, not simply more work. He also emphasised our responsibility to help make these systems safe. Amy Orr-Ewing grounded the conversation in the Christian understanding of human dignity, reminding us that people are made in the image of God. She also warned against assuming that systems which imitate human qualities possess consciousness or human moral understanding. And Al raised an uncomfortable question about the technological arms race. If our response to increasingly powerful AI attacks is to build even more powerful defensive AI, where does that race lead? These are important conversations. But as I listened, I found myself returning to another question underneath them. **Had I been on that stage, here's what I would have added.** **What are we actually trying to improve?** And perhaps more importantly: **What happens when improving the lives of others comes at a cost to ourselves?** Because it's relatively easy to say that Christians should build technology for good. It's much harder to decide what that means when doing good conflicts with our profitability, convenience, ambition, or success. And that's not simply a question about artificial intelligence. It's a question about what we value. What we're prepared to build. And what we're willing to sacrifice along the way. ## A Quick Distinction Before going further, it's helpful to separate a few things we often bundle together. **Automation** allows tasks to happen with less human intervention, often by following predefined rules. **AI** involves systems that infer outputs from information, such as predictions, recommendations, generated content, or decisions. **Robotics** brings machines into the physical world. A robot might follow a fixed routine or use AI to respond to its surroundings. **Connectivity** allows devices and systems to exchange information. A connected device doesn't automatically use AI. These can work together, but they aren't interchangeable. Some systems are becoming better at interpreting varied information and responding without somebody specifying every step in advance. Their abilities and levels of autonomy vary. That doesn't establish general intelligence or guarantee good judgement. [The OECD's explanation of AI systems](https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/definition) makes those distinctions clear. And it brings us back to what we want those abilities to accomplish. ## The Problem With Progress We've become remarkably good at measuring what technology can do. Faster. Cheaper. More accurate. More productive. More scalable. We celebrate the machine that produces twice as much, the AI that completes a week's work in minutes, and the company that serves millions of customers with a fraction of the employees. And sometimes we should celebrate. Efficiency can make essential services affordable. Automation can remove dangerous work. Artificial intelligence can make expertise available to people who previously couldn't access it. But there's an assumption hiding inside our enthusiasm. **That an increase in capability necessarily represents an improvement in humanity's condition.** It doesn't. Imagine a company introduces AI that allows it to produce twice as much with half the workforce. Its profits increase. Its shareholders celebrate. Its customers receive cheaper products. By conventional business measurements, it's a success. But what happened to the employees who lost their jobs? What happened to their families? What happened to the community that depended on those wages? And what happened to the employees who remained? Did their working lives improve, or were they simply expected to produce even more? Now, that doesn't automatically mean the company made the wrong decision. Keeping every existing job indefinitely isn't necessarily sustainable or desirable. New technologies can create opportunities that didn't previously exist. But it does mean that the productivity figures don't tell us the whole story. And if we're serious about human flourishing, we need to be willing to look beyond the figures we find easiest to celebrate. **Progress isn't simply what our technology makes possible. It's what becomes better for people because of it.** That's a different measure of success. And it changes the questions we ask. ## What Is Power Actually For? One of the things I find fascinating about the Christian account of creation is that humanity is made in God's image and then given responsibility within creation. Genesis describes human beings as both image-bearers and stewards. We are given extraordinary capacity to shape the world around us. To cultivate. To organise. To invent. To build. But that capacity is not presented as an unlimited licence to do whatever we please. It's a responsibility. And throughout the biblical story, we see the consequences of how people exercise the power they've been given. Power can protect. It can also exploit. It can bring freedom. It can also create dependency. It can serve others. It can also serve itself. Consider the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11, humanity comes together with an extraordinary collective capability. They have the knowledge, materials, and organisational capacity to build something remarkable. But listen to their ambition. They want to make a name for themselves. It's an interesting distinction. The problem isn't simply that people are capable of building something impressive. It's what their ambition has become centred upon. And I wonder whether there's something for us to recognise in that. We live in a world where companies are racing to develop increasingly powerful technologies. We celebrate breakthroughs. We celebrate scale. We celebrate growth. We celebrate the organisations building the biggest, fastest, and most sophisticated systems. And there's nothing inherently wrong with ambition or technological achievement. But it's worth asking what sits underneath that ambition. Are we building to serve? Or are we building to make a name for ourselves? And what happens when those motivations begin to compete? Jesus offers a radically different picture of what power is for. In Mark 10, when the disciples are concerned about status and greatness, Jesus contrasts the rulers who exercise authority over others with the kind of leadership he expects from his followers. Whoever wants to become great must become a servant. And then he points to himself. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. Think about the implications of that for a moment. The Christian example of greatness is not simply the accumulation of power. It's the use of power for the good of others. And ultimately, Jesus demonstrates a love willing to sacrifice rather than simply accumulate. That should unsettle some of our assumptions about success. Because if that conviction means anything, surely it should influence the way we design our companies, build our products, deploy our technologies, and define success. Not simply the things we say about them. **The decisions we actually make.** And those decisions are rarely as straightforward as we'd like them to be. ## What Happens When Good People Build Bad Things? During the Renaissance panel, Dan Wright argued that we need more good people engaging with AI because powerful technologies will inevitably be used by people seeking to cause harm. I agree with the importance of engagement. But I think we need to be careful with the assumption that putting good people into powerful institutions automatically produces good outcomes. History gives us plenty of reasons to question that. Good intentions can exist inside harmful systems. Well-meaning people can contribute to damaging outcomes. And organisations can reward behaviours that contradict the values of the individuals working within them. This is something I've been thinking about through my own interest in defence technology. I've been interested in the industry for some time. At one point, I even applied for a role because I genuinely wanted to contribute. I didn't get the job. But the interest was real. I could see the potential for technology to protect lives, deter aggression, reduce danger, and help people defend themselves against those who would cause harm. I still can. And I don't think being a Christian automatically means refusing to work in defence. There's a serious moral argument that protecting people from violence and aggression is itself an expression of our responsibility to care for others. But I've found myself wondering what would have happened if I'd got the job. What if I helped develop a technology intended to protect people, only for it to be used in ways I fundamentally disagreed with? What if my contribution made a system more accurate, more reliable, or more effective, but somebody else ultimately decided how that system would be deployed? Imagine an AI system designed to improve military targeting. It might help distinguish military targets from civilians more accurately, potentially reducing casualties. That could be a genuine good. But what happens if the same system makes it easier to conduct military operations? What if greater precision creates greater confidence in the use of force, including in situations where the decision to use force is itself questionable? Or what if a system developed for legitimate defence is later used in circumstances its creators never intended? Would my good intentions be enough? Would I have a responsibility to challenge those decisions? And what if challenging them meant losing the opportunity I'd worked so hard to obtain? I don't have a neat answer to those questions. And I think that's important. Because somebody working in these industries is making decisions about these tensions right now. Not in a hypothetical discussion. Not as an interesting topic on a conference panel. But in actual organisations, with actual budgets, deadlines, commercial pressures, and consequences for human lives. And that makes me think about the difference between wanting to do good and being willing to take responsibility for what we help create. There's also an important distinction between building a capability and deciding how that capability is used. A technology might have legitimate applications even if somebody later misuses it. That doesn't automatically make its creator responsible for every decision somebody else makes. But neither does it automatically absolve them of responsibility. We have to consider what harms were foreseeable, what safeguards were possible, how much influence we possessed, and what we chose to do with the knowledge available to us. A Christian engineer might want to build technology that protects people. But what happens when their employer asks them to develop something they believe is dangerous? A Christian designer might believe in human dignity. But what happens when they're asked to create an experience deliberately designed to exploit people's vulnerabilities? A Christian leader might want to treat employees fairly. But what happens when investors demand decisions that conflict with that commitment? It's not enough to say that Christians should be in the room. **We have to ask what difference our presence actually makes.** Do we challenge the decisions being made? Do we change the incentives? Do we protect the people affected? Do we create ways for concerns to be raised and investigated? And are we willing to refuse something when we cannot participate in good conscience? Sometimes faithfulness means staying and working for change. Sometimes it means speaking when remaining silent would be easier. And sometimes it means walking away. There isn't a universal answer to every situation. But there is a responsibility to discern the difference. **Being present is not the same as being faithful.** And influence is not simply having access to powerful people. It's what we do with that access. ## Kingdom Math So how do we begin making these decisions? How do we move beyond saying that we want to create good things and actually examine what our work produces? In my [writing about purpose](https://danryland.com/blog/your-purpose-explained/), I've been exploring an idea I call *Kingdom Math*. Four simple operations. Add. Subtract. Multiply. Divide. It's a way of thinking about how we collaborate with God to help the world flourish. And I think it offers a useful framework for evaluating what we choose to build. Not just whether something is technologically impressive. Not simply whether it makes money. But whether it represents a meaningful contribution to the lives of others. It won't resolve every ethical dilemma. And it certainly won't remove the need for wisdom, evidence, or accountability. But it can help us ask better questions. ### 1. Subtract What Harms **What suffering, danger, or unnecessary burden could we remove?** Consider robotics in a commercial kitchen. There are hot surfaces, sharp equipment, repetitive movements, and physically demanding tasks. Imagine a machine capable of handling one of the most dangerous jobs. We might reduce injuries. We might prevent long-term physical damage. We might make the workplace safer for everyone. That's an extraordinary opportunity. But we also have to examine what happens next. Does the machine introduce new hazards? Are employees trained to work alongside it? Does management use the increased efficiency to improve working conditions, or simply increase production targets? Have we removed a burden, or moved it somewhere else? The same principle applies to autonomous vehicles. Reducing road deaths would be a tremendous achievement. Helping people who cannot drive to travel independently could transform their lives. But those possibilities don't eliminate the need to investigate the safety of particular systems, their limitations, and the livelihoods affected by their introduction. We need evidence, accountability, and a willingness to change course when something isn't working. Because **subtracting harm from one person's life shouldn't mean quietly transferring it to somebody else's.** And that brings us to a difficult reality. Sometimes we cannot eliminate every harm. Sometimes we have to choose between competing outcomes. And sometimes the technologies we develop to protect people can themselves become instruments of harm. That's where values stop being slogans and start becoming decisions. ### 2. Add What Restores **What could we introduce that genuinely improves somebody's life?** One of the most remarkable applications of AI I've encountered involves a woman called Ann Johnson. Following a brainstem stroke, Ann lost her ability to speak. Researchers at [UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/stroke-stole-her-ability-speak-scientists-used-ai-bring-it-back) developed an experimental brain-computer interface that could interpret signals associated with her attempts to speak and translate them into communication. They also used a recording from her wedding to recreate aspects of her pre-stroke voice. This wasn't a complete restoration of natural speech. It was experimental technology, with limitations. But consider what it represents. A woman who had lost the ability to speak could communicate in a way that more closely resembled her own voice. To express herself. To participate. To be heard. The technology didn't give Ann her dignity. She already possessed that. **It gave her another means of exercising the dignity and agency she already had.** Now consider another application of similar technological capabilities. The [US Federal Trade Commission has warned](https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2023/03/scammers-use-ai-enhance-their-family-emergency-schemes) about cloned voices being used to impersonate loved ones in family-emergency scams. A parent hears a familiar voice, believes their child is in danger, and is pressured to send money. The technology that can help restore communication can also be used to exploit the trust on which human relationships depend. And that's the tension. A technological capability is not the same thing as a moral achievement. What matters is how that capability is developed, governed, and used. Who has consented? Who benefits? Who is exposed to harm? Who has control? What safeguards exist? And who is accountable when things go wrong? When I talk about creating more light, this is what I mean. Not simply producing more technology and hoping the good outweighs the bad. But deliberately developing things that protect life, restore agency, and help people flourish. And having the courage to challenge applications that undermine those very things. ### 3. Multiply Human Capability **What could we enable somebody to do that they currently cannot?** This is where AI becomes particularly exciting to me. I'm a product designer and software developer. I spend much of my time building digital products and thinking about how technology can solve problems. And the capabilities becoming available to individuals and small organisations are extraordinary. Tasks that previously required large teams, expensive software, or specialist knowledge can increasingly be attempted by individuals. A charity might develop a service it could never previously afford. A small business might compete in a market previously dominated by larger companies. A person with a disability might gain greater independence. A researcher might investigate possibilities that would previously have taken considerably longer to explore. In healthcare, AI could support diagnosis, medical research, and the search for treatments. Those opportunities still require evidence, clinical judgement, and protection for the people affected. [WHO's guidance](https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240029200) puts ethics and human rights at the centre of that work. Related capabilities could also be directed towards serious harm, including biological misuse. The [International AI Safety Report](https://internationalaisafetyreport.org/publication/international-ai-safety-report-2025) examines that risk and the uncertainties around it. That makes safeguards part of the opportunity we're pursuing. There's something extraordinary about the good we could help make possible. But here's where I think we need to be careful. **Multiplying our capability does not automatically multiply our contribution.** Just because we can produce ten times more doesn't mean the world needs ten times more of what we're producing. James Poulter made a similar point during the panel. Perhaps the goal shouldn't be more presentations, more documents, and more output. Perhaps the goal should be better. And I'd push that further. What if the real opportunity isn't simply to become more productive? What if it's to become more generous with our capacity? Imagine a business uses AI to save its employees ten hours a week. What happens to those hours? Do we immediately fill them with more work? Do we raise everyone's targets? Or do we use some of that capacity to create healthier working patterns, improve the quality of what we produce, invest in people's development, or allow more time for relationships and rest? Those are choices. And they reveal what we actually value. I find myself wrestling with this personally. Because I can use these new capabilities to build more products, take on more work, and potentially increase my income. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But if all this extraordinary technology does is make me more productive and more profitable, while the people around me experience very little improvement in their lives, have I really made the most of the opportunity? Technology can increase our capacity. But it cannot decide what our capacity is ultimately for. That's our responsibility. ### 4. Divide More Fairly **Who receives the benefits, and who carries the costs?** Dan Wright raised an important issue during the panel about the digital divide. Much of the world's advanced computing infrastructure is concentrated in particular regions. And the benefits of AI are not distributed equally. Access depends on electricity, connectivity, affordability, language, skills, and the infrastructure required to use these technologies. Think about connected infrastructure. Monitoring might help a community identify failing equipment or respond to an emergency sooner. It also creates dependencies that need protecting. Can local operators intervene if the network fails? Who funds maintenance and training? Does a smaller or poorer community receive the support needed to benefit? An extraordinary innovation can remain completely irrelevant to somebody who cannot access it. So the question isn't simply whether we can build something. It's whether the people who could benefit from it have a meaningful opportunity to do so. But there's another dimension to this. When technology creates extraordinary wealth, how is that wealth shared? Imagine a company automates a significant proportion of its operations. Its profits rise. Its investors benefit. Its customers might benefit. But its employees face redundancy. What responsibility does the company have to the people whose work helped make that success possible? Perhaps it should provide paid retraining. Perhaps it should share some of the financial gains. Perhaps it should offer reduced working hours. Perhaps it should invest in helping employees transition into genuinely available opportunities, with income security, fair notice, and a meaningful voice in the decisions. The right response will depend on the circumstances. But simply telling displaced workers that they're now free to pursue their creativity is not an adequate response when they have mortgages, children, and bills to pay. And this is where our theology becomes uncomfortable. Because it's easy to say that every human being carries immeasurable worth. It's harder to build an economic system that reflects that conviction when doing so reduces our margins. **If human dignity is central to our theology but peripheral to our business decisions, we have a problem worth confronting.** ## When Doing Good Costs You Something Now imagine you're a Christian founder. You've spent years building a company. You've taken enormous risks. You've employed people. You've created something valuable. And now you have an opportunity to deploy AI across your organisation. It could reduce your operating costs by 40%. It could make your service significantly cheaper. It could help you reach millions more customers. It might even allow you to invest in projects that genuinely improve people's lives. But it would also make a substantial proportion of your workforce redundant. What do you do? There's no simple answer. Refusing to automate might eventually make the business uncompetitive, putting every employee's livelihood at risk. Automating immediately might create substantial hardship for people who have helped build the company. And delaying the decision might carry costs of its own. So what does faithfulness look like? Is it protecting every job? Is it preserving the business? Is it serving the greatest number of customers? Is it sharing the financial gains? Is it accepting lower profits to make the transition less damaging? And here's the question I find particularly challenging. **What if doing the right thing means you personally become less successful?** What if you could increase your profits by 40%, but decide to accept a smaller increase because you've committed part of the gains to protecting and supporting your employees? What if your competitors grow faster because they're willing to make decisions you believe would cause unnecessary harm? What if you lose an opportunity because you refuse to compromise on something you believe matters? Would you still call your business successful? And here's another question I've been asking myself. **How do we know what we truly value if we've never had to pay a price for it?** When I think back to that Wonga opportunity, I didn't have to find out whether I would sacrifice a higher salary for the sake of my convictions. An alternative appeared. But there won't always be an alternative. Sometimes doing the right thing might mean accepting less. Sometimes it might mean challenging a decision that benefits us personally. Sometimes it might mean passing up an opportunity that looks extraordinarily attractive. And sometimes we may discover that our willingness to do good has limits we hadn't previously acknowledged. I don't think the Christian response is automatically to choose the least profitable option. Profit isn't inherently immoral. A healthy business can provide employment, serve customers, and sustain meaningful work. But neither should we assume that the most profitable option is automatically the wisest. Christian ethics asks us to examine more than the immediate financial outcome. And Christian discipleship asks whether we're willing to act on what we discover. That's not a question AI can answer for us. It's a question about what we worship. What we value. What we believe success actually means. And whether our convictions survive contact with the decisions that cost us something. ## Creating More Light I keep coming back to the contrast between Ann Johnson's reconstructed voice and the use of cloned voices to deceive people. Because it captures something fundamental about the world we're building. The same broad family of technological capabilities can be directed towards radically different outcomes. One helps somebody communicate. Another exploits somebody's trust. One restores a measure of independence. Another takes advantage of vulnerability. And those differences don't happen by accident. They emerge from decisions. From what we choose to fund. What we choose to build. What we reward. What we permit. And what we're prepared to challenge. I've often thought about this in terms of light and darkness. When we encounter darkness, one response is to retreat from it. Another is to become so fascinated by it that we spend all our time talking about how dark the world has become. But there's another response. **Create more light.** Not because darkness isn't real. Not because harmful technologies, exploitation, or human selfishness can simply be wished away. But because the presence of darkness shouldn't cause us to abandon our responsibility to bring something better into the world. When people use AI to exploit the vulnerable, we need people developing systems that protect them. When technology threatens to exclude communities, we need people building tools that increase access. When automation produces extraordinary wealth, we need people thinking seriously about how that wealth and capability might benefit more than a handful of shareholders. And when powerful technologies introduce new dangers, we need people who are willing to investigate those dangers, establish safeguards, and challenge their misuse. But creating more light isn't simply about being optimistic. It's about taking responsibility. And responsibility sometimes requires sacrifice. As Christians, I don't think our response to technological change should be retreat. Nor do I think it should be uncritical enthusiasm. We should be among those willing to engage seriously with the opportunities and responsibilities in front of us. But engagement needs direction. And that's where I return to Jesus. He didn't simply demonstrate power. He demonstrated what power was for. He used it to heal. To restore. To serve. To lift up people who had been overlooked. And ultimately, he demonstrated a love willing to sacrifice rather than simply accumulate. That example should unsettle some of our assumptions about success. Because the question is not simply whether we have the power to create something extraordinary. It's whether we're willing to exercise that power in a way that genuinely serves others. Even when it costs us. ## Abide. Engage. Create. Dan Wright closed the Renaissance panel with three words. *Abide. Engage. Create.* I like that. And I think the order matters. Before we engage with powerful technology, we need to be attentive to the kind of people we're becoming. Before we create, we need to consider what is shaping our desires. Because technology amplifies our capabilities, but it can also amplify our priorities. If our priority is simply wealth, we'll find new ways to accumulate it. If our priority is control, we'll find new ways to exercise it. If our priority is attention, we'll find new ways to capture it. But if our priority is genuinely to love our neighbours, then we should be asking how these capabilities might help us do that more faithfully. And I think this requires more than a set of principles we agree with intellectually. It requires examining our actual decisions. I think about the younger version of myself applying for jobs before getting married. I was asking what the opportunity could provide for me. And that's an understandable question. But increasingly, I find myself asking another. **What responsibility comes with accepting the opportunity?** What might my participation make possible? Who might benefit? Who might be harmed? And what would I be prepared to do if the answers challenged my own interests? I don't think I've arrived at perfect answers. I still have ambitions. I still want to build successful things. I still want to provide for my family. I still find myself excited by opportunities to work on powerful and complex technologies. But I want those ambitions to be shaped by something greater than my own advancement. And I want the convictions I profess to make a visible difference to the things I create. Not just in theory. In my designs. My budgets. My hiring decisions. My business models. My safeguards. My willingness to say no. And my willingness to sacrifice. That's what I think it means to move from being inspired by the possibilities of AI to taking responsibility for the future we're helping to create. ## So, Are the Robots Going to Kill Us? It's a serious question. AI and robotics introduce risks we shouldn't minimise. We need researchers investigating those risks, policymakers developing appropriate safeguards, companies accepting accountability, and people willing to challenge dangerous decisions. But I don't want fear to become the defining story of this technological moment. Because there are extraordinary opportunities in front of us too. Opportunities to reduce suffering. To improve healthcare. To restore communication. To expand access to knowledge. To make dangerous work safer. To help people contribute in ways that previously weren't possible. And to create things that genuinely improve the world. But none of those outcomes is guaranteed simply because the technology exists. They require deliberate choices. And those choices are being made by people. People with ambitions. People with mortgages. People preparing for marriage. People trying to provide for their families. People pursuing interesting opportunities. People who want to do good, but who also want to succeed. People like me. And perhaps people like you. That's why I think the most important questions aren't only about what artificial intelligence might do to us. They're also about what we might choose to do with artificial intelligence. What harm are we subtracting? What good are we adding? Whose capabilities are we multiplying? And how fairly are we dividing the benefits and burdens? But let's not stop with those questions. Let's ask what we will actually do differently because of the answers. What will we redesign? What will we challenge? What will we refuse? What will we give away? And what are we prepared to sacrifice? Because the measure of our convictions isn't simply how compelling they sound on a conference stage. It's what happens when we return to our workplaces, open our laptops, sit in our meetings, and make decisions. It's what happens when an opportunity arrives that could change our lives. When the money is attractive. When the work is exciting. When the organisation is influential. And when doing the right thing might mean losing something we genuinely want. I think back to that job offer. £55,000. More money than I was earning. An opportunity to provide for my future family. I never had to find out whether I would turn it down because of my convictions. Another opportunity appeared. But what happens when another opportunity doesn't appear? What happens when doing what we believe is right actually costs us something? Because one day, the decision might be ours. And when that day comes, perhaps the question won't simply be: *Are the robots going to kill us?* Perhaps it will be something much more personal. **What are we building that will help people live?** **And when the moment comes, will we be willing to pay the price?**
Reflection Questions ## Discuss For personal reflection, small groups or Christian Union discussions Use these questions to pause, reflect and respond to what God may be highlighting in your life. - Where does the work you're doing subtract harm, add care, multiply human capability, or share benefits more fairly? Where might it do the opposite? - Who could be affected by something you're helping to build, and whose perspective do you need to hear before making the next decision? - If technology gives you more time or capacity, how could you use some of it to help others flourish? - Is there an opportunity, incentive, or pressure that makes it difficult to act on your convictions? What support would help you respond faithfully? - What is one practical way you could create more light this week, and what might it require you to give, challenge, or change? Take a moment to write something down, pray, or talk with someone you trust. Choose one decision where your convictions can become visible in what you do next. --- - Home: https://danryland.com/ - About: https://danryland.com/about/ - Contact: https://danryland.com/contact/ - Privacy: https://danryland.com/privacy/ - The Forge (weekly note): https://danryland.com/forge/ - Agent overview: https://danryland.com/llms.txt - Sitemap: https://danryland.com/sitemap.xml - RSS: https://danryland.com/rss.xml - Email: dan@ryland.consulting