The Inevitability of the AI Revolution and the Christian Response
Introduction (Please read whole article, and post your questions or comments)
Each generation seems to have some kind of revolution. Revolutions vary by type and breadth—some revolutions are local, but most affect the whole world over time in ways that forever change how we live. For example, 250 years ago we had the American Revolution, which, at the time may have only seemed to affect the Native American tribes, the colonists, the British and the French, but today the repercussions of that Revolution have affected the rest of the world through the power of American democracy and influence. What’s more, the Industrial Revolution (which began in Great Britain), during the same time period lead to urbanization and changed the speed and efficiency in which people traveled and how goods were produced.
In the 20th century, we saw a technological revolution in which automobiles were created, people took to the skies in airplanes and jets for the first time, the first computers were developed and used to decipher Nazi radio transmissions, nuclear power was developed and utilized in warfare, and the advent of the telephone changed the way the world communicated with one another forever.
Then, at the end of the 20th century came the Revolution of the Interweb or Internet. Of course, none of the young adults in our ministry at Kenwood Baptist Church (or anyone in their 20s or early 30s) can remember a time when the internet didn’t exist. However, I remember it well. Of course, I was just a teenager when the Internet broke into the public sphere, but it was an exciting and even scary time, as people worried about the Y2K effect, and whether computers would effectively implode at the turn of the century and millennium. Nothing of great magnitude happened (when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000), but what did happen is that the Internet forever changed the way we live. People were no longer communicating as much by phone as they were through email, and all information was readily available through a Google search engine, where the whole world suddenly had the same access to the same knowledge instantaneously. Whereas before you had to go to the library and pick up an actual book, order a magazine or newspaper subscription or rent or buy a VHS tape to learn or acquire info, suddenly the world had undergone an information and knowledge revolution. This had positive and negative consequences—for example, the Bible and its contents could now be accessed by anyone with access to a computer and internet connection, but drug trafficking and pornography spread like wildfire too. Indeed, there are always positive and negative consequences to any revolution, as we live in a world made up of good and evil.
The AI Revolution
Now we are in the midst of the AI revolution. AI (or artificial intelligence) is rapidly changing the world. AI is more than just access to knowledge and information, artificial intelligence recognizes simple and complex patterns and has the ability to rapidly perform tasks that were once only possible through the human workforce. What is AI? Well, if you do a Google search, this is the AI generated response providing a self-identifying description: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science focused on building machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. These tasks include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, understanding language, and making decisions. Instead of relying on a strict set of step-by-step instructions programmed by humans, AI systems analyze massive amounts of data. By identifying patterns and trends in this data, they learn how to predict outcomes or generate new information” (Sourced from Michigan Tech University).
In the book, The Age of AI and Our Human Future, authors Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher detail the amazing prospects and precarious ramifications of AI technology. They detail how early AI models designed to play the game of chess have come up with revolutionary moves in the game never conceived of before by humans. In fact, the AI model, has since proven to be unbeatable by even the most sophisticated human chess masters, as the AI has developed seemingly supernatural strategies which thwart all the human intelligence acquired in the game over the last 1,500 hundred years! How does it do it? Through simulations of thousands of games over time, it learns (yes it actually learns) and processes all subsequent moves by its opponents, recording and remembering all those chess moves over time, thereby developing the best possible move for each and every move made by its opponents. It effectively becomes unbeatable, and it remains unbeaten to this day. No single human can process the amount of information it processes and remembers.
Effectively, we have created an intelligence, albeit as a compilation of human intelligence over the course of centuries, that is smarter than us. “AI’s effects on human knowledge are paradoxical. On the one hand, AI intermediaries can navigate and analyze data vaster than the unaided human mind could have previously contemplated. On the other, this power—the ability to engage with vast bodies of data—may also accentuate forms of manipulation and error. AI is capable of exploiting human passions more effectively than traditional propaganda. Having tailored itself to individual preferences and instinct, AI elicits responses its creator or user desires” (Kissinger, Schmidt and Huttenlocher, 193). Pay attention here. Humans have unabashedly created an intelligence which is both superior in processing and able to manipulate its very own creator—that’s us!
The Bible and AI
As Christians, we know that the Bible says specifically that human beings—that is both male and female—are created in the image of God. And while human beings often behave as IF they are smarter or more capable than God, it doesn’t take a genius to recognize our inferiority to the creator of the universe and his providential plans. After all, while we are made in his image, we are fundamentally finite, and He is existentially infinite! And God forbids the creation and development and worship of any other gods besides Him in the 1st and 2nd commandments in Exodus 20: “You shall have no other gods before me;” and, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above” (verses 3-4). Have we, as a human race, created a super-intelligence carved in our own image that we now perceive as reaching into the Heavens and achieving a god-like perspective? You’ll remember from Genesis 11, when the people had gathered and created an antiquated version of self-worship in the form of the Tower of Babel which was meant to glorify humanity’s achievements and intelligence! The Lord rebuked the people dispersing them all over the Earth, causing their languages to be confused and making communication impossible. Now though thousands of years later, through the instantaneous workings of AI technology, any human language can be translated within seconds. In at least this way, AI has fundamentally reversed the curse of God’s judgment at the Tower of Babel! We don’t even need to work hard to learn the language! AI does everything for us.
And that leads us into the other scary implication of artificial intelligence. It actually has the ability to do everything for us! It can write our research papers for us, drive our cars eventually, diagnose illnesses (even provide eventual cures otherwise unsolved by human doctors), provide companionship, and even replace many of us in our jobs in factories or in the field. As the shortage for trade workers has spread throughout the world, we are not far now from AI plumbers, construction workers and electricians effectively replacing human workers! Could this eventually lead to a lack of work or purpose for many who are effectively replaced by AI robots/machines? And what about the news we receive via internet, television or even in print? AI can produce images and videos that indeed look like actual people, but are in fact just AI renditions of the very people we know and watch! Reality and truth may become more and more suspect as manipulators of the AI technology may use its creative abilities to reproduce political candidates doing and saying things they never said in places they never were! This could be, indeed, just the tip of the iceberg in which AI nefariously alters reality!
With AI distortion, you may even eventually ask the question, how do we know that Pastor Kyle wrote this article and not a form of artificial intelligence? In fact, ChatGPT is more than capable of writing an article such as this one within just a few minutes, and probably a more well-written and scintillating one than I can produce in a few hours! One person in our young adult ministry has even jokingly referred to AI as his AI Pastor who provides robust, timely and accurate Biblical responses in mere seconds, surveying all of Scripture!!! And can I blame him for making such an assertion?
While AI has great potential to effectively make our world more safe, healthier and even revolutionize our own ability to function effectively as a civil society, it also has grave dangers that the Bible warns about.
The Christian response, in my humble opinion, is we must tread carefully. Nothing even close to this kind of supercomputing capability has ever existed! Like all revolutions, it will be used for good and for evil. We must be forewarned by Scripture that any kind of human invention must not be worshipped before God, the author of life—the one who provides for all our needs, apart from AI technology. If, at some point, we deem AI has more necessary than God, we will fall into the same trap that previous generations have fallen for time and time again—that is, worshipping anything created by man before the Creator of man, the Lord Almighty.
When I asked AI, specifically ChatGPT, whether the Bible predicts the arrival/creation of a superintelligence by man, it gave me a fascinating response. It referenced Revelation 13:15, which states, “And it (the Second Beast) was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak.” ChatGPT went on to say, “Some have wondered whether a speaking image could refer to advanced technology such as AI, holograms or robotics.” While ChatGPT concluded that artificial intelligence is of course not specifically cited, it admitted that John’s focus in the Book of Revelation is on idolatry and coerced worship. It concluded by framing humanity’s approach to its own self (that is ChatGPT) with this ethical question: “Will we use these machines to glorify God or exalt ourselves,” referring to 1 Corinthians 10:31, which states, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.” Amen.
The question of whether we will exchange the truth for lies (as is indicated in Romans 1) will come down to whether humanity will use AI to glorify the Lord or itself. As a student of history and a skeptic, the pattern has been that humanity is extremely susceptible to fall into idolatry and self-worship. We live in dangerous times. We must stay grounded in the Word of God and stay close to Jesus Christ, recognizing that AI technology can be used for God-glorifying good or idolatrous, self-worshipping evils!
What are your thoughts and comments? Please respond, and I will reply in a timely manner!
