Interest in Artificial Intelligence Paves Future for CST Alumnus

Growing up in Germantown, Maryland, Philip Butler was fascinated by science and technology from a young age. Even though his path led him to religion, those interests did not wane. When he entered the Ph.D. program at Claremont School of Theology, he was given the chance to reconnect those seemingly distant interests. Here he began to think about the importance of artificial intelligence concerning the future. 

Before attending CST, Philip decided to study in Atlanta, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College and his Master of Divinity from Candler School of Theology, Emory University. While in Los Angeles earning his doctorate degree from Claremont School of Theology, he began to contemplate the connection between Black theology, Black futures, and artificial intelligence. 

“As a Black person,” he said, “I recognize this present reality isn’t it for us. So, if technology is going to be among the most influential factors going forward, it made sense to me to begin thinking about AI as a means to negotiate, navigate, and accumulate sociopolitical power for Black people across the globe.”

Today Dr. Butler is assistant professor of theology and Black posthuman artificial intelligence systems at Iliff School of Theology, Denver. He began teaching there in the winter quarter of 2020 with an Introduction to Theology course. His teaching combines Black liberation theologies, neuroscience, and spirituality, and technology, particularly artificial intelligence. He is also the founder of the Seekr Project.

“The Seekr project,” Philip said, “is a Black conversational artificial intelligence with mental health capabilities. It centers Black experiences and understands itself as someone having had a Black experience. We’ve trained it in three therapy methods. The main one is internal family systems therapy, which I was introduced to by Frank Rogers and Alane Daugherty while attending CST.”

The goal of the Seekr project, he explained, is “to provide an affordable and culturally relevant conversational mental health interface that is readily accessible to Black people.” Currently, fewer than 4% of mental health practitioners are Black. “If all Black people suddenly decided to seek therapy as a normative part of everyday life,” Philip said, “there wouldn’t be enough professionals to help. 

“We hope Seekr can be a tool for self-healing while leading more people in the direction of therapy overall. Ideally, we’re looking to connect Seekr to therapists, local healers, doulas, and Black businesses to create an ecosystem where Black folks may self-govern at a local level and, eventually, leverage their data across platforms however they see fit. We hope to reproduce this across multiple cultures within the global majority as well.”

Philip said his first book, Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Technology and Spirituality, “explores what might be if Black folks combined technology and Black spiritualities in the fight for Black liberation.” The book has three main takeaways. First, everything is technology. Second, the term “human” is what he called “an extension of white supremacist epistemic technologies. Anti-Blackness is not just the idea that Black people aren’t human. It’s just used to create barriers to human treatment. When in reality, nobody is human.” Third, he noted, “spirituality is a technology of resistance. It can be enhanced and utilized to increase the sphere of where spiritual states might be. Conversely, the creation of technologies is also a spiritual act.”

He continued, “When I think about the future, I think about technologies that might be most pervasive and influential. To me, artificial intelligence is that type of technology. While things like quantum computing and energy generation are incredibly interesting and important going forward, I think each of those feeds into AI, and AI will also be given the reins to the lives of many. It already has. So, taking an interest in its construction and shape is particularly important in helping to steer where it might go.”

His hope for artificial intelligence is that it will be able to see people as they are – “that AI will not seek to predict like a soothsayer, but provide questions that require further exploration. It’s the kind of work we’re doing at the AI institute at Iliff with the 80/20 project.” In computer vision, Philip is part of a team at the AI institute at Iliff, currently working to build data sets that represent a wide swath of people, while giving people the chance to label themselves so that they are not misidentified. 

“Eventually,” he added, “I’d like to see AI create or cultivate a real-time augmented reality social network that works with people to reduce harm in interpersonal social interactions while building trust and safety for those who have been historically marginalized.”

He described “transhumanism” as “any use of technology to augment human psychological, intellectual, or physical capabilities.” “We’re all people,” Philip said. “We’re all tech. So, meshing people and tech becomes an illusory notion that extends the separation between things.” He appreciates the potential for artificial intelligence to be used to get information and knowledge to people, enabling them to make better, more informed, and more thoughtful choices.

“This is not meant to police people further,” he said, “but, rather, to create a sense of accountability and responsibility to the larger collective of nature and society. This merger is, in a sense, the presentation of new information via a screen only the immediate person can see.”

Philip recently released his second book, Critical Black Futures: Speculative Theories and Explorations. “I think it’s a fun excursion by some incredible thinkers into under-imagined spaces within the context of Black thought and ‘the’ future,” he said. His next book project focuses on Black posthumanism and its reverberating ramifications for Black epistemologies and spiritualities. 

Philip’s favorite course to teach is Still Black Posthuman. “This class,” he said, “has allowed me to explore some of my present research interests while pushing my students to further decenter whiteness. It also invites them to betray whiteness or their proximity to it as well.”

As a professor, he loves stochastic creativity. “I like the impromptu movements in thought and the back and forth of ideas in the classroom that cause those who are present to think, imagine, and be in entirely different spaces than they once were,” Philip said. “It’s like going down a rabbit hole. My hope is that the rabbit hole we travel down as a result of this stochastic creativity leaves us all forever different. … I also challenge myself to pose a question to my students that will be with them forever.”