In one of C.S. Lewis’ most famous essays, “Meditation in a Toolshed,” he outlines the distinction between “looking at,” knowledge gained from analyzing something from the outside, and “looking along,” knowledge gained from experiencing something from the inside.1
Think of this as a meditation on leaving the toolshed that can be created by our adoption of technology, particularly generative artificial intelligence.
New technologies or advancements are sold to us as tools that will make our lives easier. Too often, however, they make our lives more complicated. As AI is portrayed as yet another one of these tools, my fear is that we are the ones who will become more like tools. We prioritize efficiency and production, becoming more machine-like in the process.
Lewis’ general attitude toward technology and society advancement can give us some truths worth pondering as we consider broader AI-adoption.
Is technology just a neutral tool?
Prolific science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke disagreed with C.S. Lewis “somewhat violently,” according to a letter Clarke wrote to Lewis.2 Angry over Lewis’ sci-fi novel, Perelandra, Clarke felt the way Lewis portrayed the character Weston was “an outburst of unreasoning and emotional panic.”
Much of their disagreement stemmed from Lewis’ belief that interplanetary exploration was a bad idea, both theoretically for science fiction writing but also for theological and philosophical reasons.3
In his response to Clarke, Lewis wrote:
I agree technology is per se neutral, but a race devoted to the increase of its own power by technology with a complete indifference to ethics does seem to me a cancer in the universe. Certainly, if he goes on his present course much further, man can not be trusted with knowledge.
Lewis made it clear that he was not opposed to science or science fiction, especially since he’d written a trilogy in the genre. But he was opposed to a perspective common among many scientists and sci-fi writers, the assumption that humanity should pursue every possible means of technological advancement.
What if Productivity Is Not the Goal?
I hear echoes of Clarke’s argument against Lewis when listening to many proponents of artificial intelligence, including Christians. Ethics take a backseat to pragmatism. Advocates point to the numerous possible benefits without ever considering the potential ramifications.
Highlighting a passage from Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, Brad Littlejohn points out the fallacy of continual technological advancement. Lewis wrote:
It is like the famous Irishman who found that a certain kind of stove reduced his fuel bill by half and thence concluded that two stoves of the same kind would enable him to warm his house with no fuel at all.
So much of the AI rhetoric sounds like Lewis’ Irishman. The unstated assumption is that technology will always and only advance for the good of society. It can only make us more and more productive.
In The Pilgrim’s Regress, Lewis notes the results of a technologically advanced but tech-consumed culture. The Guide explains:
Their labor-saving devices multiply drudgery; their aphrodisiacs make them impotent: their amusements bore them: their rapid production of food leaves half of them starving, and their devices for saving time have banished leisure from their country.
Does that not sound like AI arguments today? It will save us time and labor. AI will do all the tedious work and enable you to live a more fulfilling, enjoyable life. Except that’s rarely ever been the case for these types of technology.
Often, technological advances directly contradict the rhetoric that was used to sell them. Like Lewis’ time-saving devices that “banished leisure,” do you feel more or less leisurely because you can be in immediate and constant contact with anyone in the world in your pocket right now?
Who Is the Tool?
Additionally, the rhetoric of AI often reduces humans to merely a means of production. But if we are simply productivity tools designed to accomplish tasks, what happens when a new tool is more productive and efficient? In The Abolition of Man, Lewis argues, “The wresting of powers from Nature is also the surrendering of things to Nature.”
Lewis didn’t oppose technological advancement, but he was a student (and author) of science fiction. He saw the warnings where others merely saw opportunities. Technological advancement can subtly become personal exploitation. We become the tools being used.4
From The Abolition of Man:
[A]s soon as we take the final step of reducing our own species to the level of mere Nature, the whole process is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain and the being who has been sacrificed are one and the same.
In The Pilgrim’s Regress, the Guide states: “Of all the cities that I have seen, these iron cities will break most suddenly.” We should consider leaving the toolshed before it crashes down on us.
Sources:
“Meditation in a Toolshed” from God in the Dock
The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949
The Lamp Post
Other articles from me you have missed
From the archives
I want to highlight this one because a fake Screwtape letter is going viral on social media again. Don’t share fake Lewis quotes when his real words are much more insightful. I’ve taken the paywall down so everyone can read it.
Recent
Elsewhere
9 Glances That Could Save Your Ministry — Lifeway Research
Slim Majority Backs Physician-Assisted Suicide — Lifeway Research
He argued that modern culture prioritized knowledge gained from external examination, assuming it was intrinsically better than knowledge gained from personal experience.
For Lewis, we should look both at and along everything. One perspective may give us a better grasp on the truth, but we can only discover which by not having a prejudice. He concluded that “the period of brow-beating has got to end.”
C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke were friendly correspondents and enjoyed each other’s works. Lewis loved Childhood’s End and wrote to Joy Gresham to discuss it. Clarke told Lewis how much he appreciated The Screwtape Letters.
He also invited Lewis to give a counterpoint lecture on space travel to the British Interplanetary Society. Lewis declined because he felt he had said all he wanted on the subject, though he did exclaim, “Probably the whole thing is only a plan for kidnapping me and marooning me on an asteroid!”
I wrote about this for Christianity Today.
I recognize the irony of communicating this through multiple means that did not exist when Lewis was writing (computers, email, internet, etc.) As such, some may retort that people have made similar claims with each technological adoption. I would say two things. One, who’s to say they were wholly wrong in their worries about the technology. Two, each step is getting us closer to Lewis’ “final step.” Stopping further from the cliff’s edge is better than hurtling over it.
Your article on Lewis' views on space travel was fascinating. Thanks for that. I've said for years that I suspected God had designed the universe to make interstellar travel impossible (my solution to the Fermi paradox -- one coefficient of the Drake equation is 0). It'f fascinating to read Lewis' views on the same subject.
I agree with you, but I think you are shouting into the wind. Too many have bought into the propaganda that AI is the wave of the future and are blindly following their sloth and greed in embracing it, claiming little or no responsibility for its use. It is analogous to the desire for magic, in which most who covet it are blind to or ignore its dark, destructive, inhumanizing side.