We Know Very Little

An interview with Rosalind Picard
Director, Affective Computing Research Group
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“I was one of those kids who thought the Pledge of Allegiance should not mention God. I frankly didn’t think anybody should need God, including me, so I thought it was kind of a weakness—something unthinking people believed in—and I really had no interest in it.”

RI: How did you come to faith in Christ?

Picard: I started off as somebody who thought she was an atheist, although now that I know more about atheism, I think that’s not a very strong position, so I might say agnostic now. That changed when this wonderful family that I babysat for challenged me to read the Bible myself.

In fact, I was urged to start not in the Gospels as most people are but with Proverbs and to read one a day for a month. I thought, “I can handle that.” That was actually a good place for me to start because I thought I was so smart. There was incredible wisdom in there, and I thought, “Gosh, this isn’t so unthinking and stupid after all!”

I continued reading the Bible and as I was reading it, I believe God worked in my heart. I gradually changed from being completely antagonistic—not only did I start to believe in God, but it dramatically started to affect my world view.

But I still stayed away from church and Christians for the most part because I still had negative impressions there. But gradually I got up the courage to visit churches. During my freshman year in college I remember hearing the pastor explain, “It’s not enough to believe. You have to give your life to Christ.”

That was something that hadn’t jumped out at me from all the reading I had been doing, although I had gotten to where I could acknowledge God and God’s rule in the universe and Christ’s role and Christ’s claims of divinity. I hadn’t quite taken that step to a personal Savior—until that happened. It was over my freshman year that people were brought into my life that I had great admiration and respect for.

So it really was a long gradual process and it did make a huge difference. I went from thinking that I sort of knew everything to realizing just how little I do know. And that continues to this day. It’s funny: I’m in an academic environment where everything is so oriented toward knowledge, innovation, new ways of thinking—where what you create shows how smart and clever you are. There is a great emphasis on things that are associated with arrogance and there’s always tension toward that. I find that knowing Christ really makes a huge difference in keeping one’s perspective closer to what truth is, which of course the truth is that we know very little.

RI: How does your faith express itself in your work?

Picard: Certainly the one truth I confront most—maybe on a daily basis—is just the amazing perspective of knowing the God who knows everything and just how pathetic our knowledge is in comparison to that.

People used to exalt the amount of human knowledge. Now I find people are willing to listen when you remind them of the limited scope of what we know. Nobody counters this. But when you take on the position that there’s a loving God behind it, then it starts to bring on the ridicule and accusations. You know you might as well talk about little green men.

RI: How has your faith been ridiculed?

Picard: Well, it’s more the case that I’m very public about my faith. It’s on my web page. I’ve traveled all over the world giving talks. Sometimes I’ll show up in places and hear people whispering behind me, “Did you know that on the web page she says she’s a Christian?” I heard that in England once and I was sort of chuckling to myself that they were so shocked by this and that they couldn’t mention it to my face. Some do, but a lot of people I think just believe that it’s some strange quirk associated with her and say to themselves, “You know, as long as she does great work, we’ll just look the other way.” It’s a position of reasonable tolerance as long as you’re not too outspoken.

Many people don’t confront deep, difficult questions unless there is a crisis or something that really makes them think about their mortality. They’re well fed, happy and able to buy enough of what they want and have enough relationships that they can distract themselves from these questions.

RI: How do you feel your heartbeat matches God’s heartbeat and how does that play out in your work?

Picard: Haddon Robinson of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, tells of imagining one day being up there talking with God and saying,

“Hey God, were you impressed when I presented that paper at the great theological conference on hermeneutics?"

God says, "No, I don’t attend those meetings."

So Haddon says, “Well God, were you impressed . . .” and on and on down the list.

Then God says, “No, those aren’t the things that impress me. You know what impressed me? What impressed me was that time when a student in your class was having a hard time and you stayed after to help her. That’s when I was impressed.”

And I thought it really is backwards. It’s not the priorities that are all around me that are God’s priorities necessarily. His ways are not our ways. His perspective is something where you just have to stop and listen in prayer and quiet and ask, “What is most important?”

Lots of times I feel like I’m getting an answer that is not what I want to do. And I’m never real happy about that but ultimately when I feel like I’m trying to have my heartbeat aligned with His, then it’s much more deeply satisfying than chasing my own agenda.

Editor's note: Rosalind Picard is featured on CLM's Conversations CD in the section Does Science Preclude Faith? Picard speaks in several video vignettes about her life-changing experience with Christ and how her beliefs inform her world-renowned work in artificial intelligence in the M.I.T. media lab. Click here for more information about Conversations. Picard conducts research in designing computers to recognize, express, and influence emotion in users. Click here for more information about the Affective Computing Research Group.

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