Engaging Artificial Intelligence & Technology from a Biblical Perspective (Week 1)

Consider both the promises and the pitfalls of AI technologies, and how these tools seek to shape our hearts.

Teacher: Jeff Humphries

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to Pillar and Ground Podcast. I'm Chad Middlebrooks, Pastor of Discipleship at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church. And in the fall of 2025, we began offering six-week adult electives during the Common Sunday School Hour. Many of you expressed a desire to listen to those electives that you couldn't participate in. And so this summer we're releasing full class recordings each Monday morning. We hope you'll enjoy the following recordings from fall 2025 and spring 2026.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

All right. Well, good morning. Welcome to the Happy New Year. Yeah. Happy New Year to you. Welcome to this new space. It looks very different than it did before. So very different. Well, good morning. I've been uh looking forward to this since Chad asked me to do this a few months ago. Um I know many of you, actually, uh, but I don't know all of you, so I thought I'd uh do a brief introduction. My name's Jeff Humphries. Um, and my wife Erin and I are LMP uh LMPC members, and uh together with our two children, we arrived here on the mountain in 2012. Uh as uh I came on as professor of computer science at Covenant College, so that's what I've been doing since we arrived. What, 13 years ago now, I guess. Um before that, I was in the Air Force for 20 years. I was a uh cyberspace operations officer, primarily dealing with computer and network security, uh some software development, and in my graduate work, uh AI as well, artificial intelligence. So uh so why am I here now? Well, Chad asked me to do this, and I guess that came from a series of talks I gave to the faculty at Covenant, uh, also to the Board of Trustees, and word got out as it's uh as it sometimes does here on the mountain, uh, that maybe there's some interesting things that I could say that might be beneficial to all of us, and so Chad asked me to share some of my thoughts with the larger church family here, and so that's the plan. And um I have a lot of slides, but I'm I'm not um wanting just to stick with those. Very interactive questions at any time, uh that kind of thing would be good. So let me uh pray real quick and then I'll show you the kind of the agenda, and then we'll go from there. All right, Father, as we start a new year and uh new classes in the life of our church, um, I ask that you accomplish your purposes here among us. Um wake us to your presence uh to one another. In these few minutes that we're given, I ask for your wisdom and discernment as we consider these things. Uh be at work even now, O Lord. We ask in Jesus' name.

unknown 3:13

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Okay, so here is the six-week plan. Kind of see where we're where we're going. And this is subject to change based on how far uh we get each week. Um I have a um fairly um aggressive plan for today, but I doubt we'll get as far as I would hope. But you can kind of see um where these topics go. And when I talk about technology today, I'm talking about technology in general, then we'll talk about computer technology more specifically, then we'll get to AI at the center of that. All right. So that's kind of where we're going and see how that goes. All right, so let's start with a thought question, something to think about. What if the greatest danger of modern technology is not what it allows us to do, but what it quietly does to us? All right. Something to think about. All right. A second question that reframes this first one uh from a biblical perspective, something we should all consider, would be something like this. How do we know when technology is serving our love for God and neighbor, and when is it quietly reshaping what we love instead? Okay, so this is something I want us to be thinking about as we talk about uh this subject. All right. Now, the view that technology is uh just a neutral tool is called instrumentalism. We see tools as just instruments. All right, and you've all heard this. Here's some things uh you might have heard or said yourself. It's just a tool that can be used for good or evil. Uh technology is essentially amoral, a thing apart from values, it's an instrument that can be used for good or ill. It's not the technology itself, but what you do with it that counts. Okay, those are uh statements you would hear from someone who thinks that technology is neutral. It's just an instrument, that's instrumentalism. I want to push back on that a little bit. Here's a question. What if technology is not neutral but formative? And discipleship requires learning when not to use what we can. Alright. So I want to frame discernment about technology as a spiritual discipline, not as a technical problem. Alright? So I think the best place to start with this is at the beginning, at the very beginning. So Genesis, let's look here. Um this will be very familiar to most of you, I'm sure. So humanity, right, made in God's image, the Imago Dei, reflects his creativity and stewardship through toolmaking and cultivation. So here is Genesis 1, 26-28, familiar to all of us, I think. Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the uh heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Notice the repeated use of imaging God in this passage. We see it multiple times. And also notice the Dominion language that's sprinkled in there as well. Right alongside the um the imaging language. Alright, now why am I talking about this? Because it's important to understand what the image of God means in humanity before we get to what it looks like in technology, and especially when we get to AI. This is where things get confusing. Okay? So, what does it mean to be made in the image of God? All right. Well, volumes and volumes have been written on this, obviously, but basically we can look at two perspectives that I want to talk about very briefly. One is the ontological or likeness perspective. I think you're all familiar with this. Bearing God's image means that humans reflect certain divine-like qualities. For example, our ability to reason, uh, exercise moral knowledge, love, etc., allows us to imitate God in ways that the rest of creation does not and cannot. Alright, you're probably all familiar with this perspective. And another perspective is the functional representative perspective, where that understands the image of God mainly by role or responsibility. That is a calling or vocation. Humans act as God's representatives, commission to exercise authority and care over creation on his behalf. Alright, so what's the right answer? Which one of these two, if you were to pick one? Right? This sort of said, yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, exactly. Yes. Uh they're actually uh not mutually exclusive. Uh in fact, uh I looked up the Westminster Confession because I want to, I was curious to see what it said about this, section 4.2. Uh, this is what it says after God uh had made all other creatures, he created man, uh male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his image and had dominion over the creatures. Some points uh that you can get from reading the larger part of that is that the image of God includes several things. For example, rationality, the ability to reason, knowledge, the ability to know things, moral awareness, righteousness and holiness. Of course, the fall has something to do with that a little bit later, and the spiritual capacity for communion with God. These are all important things that the image of God includes in humanity. All right. The confession also goes on to point out in the Reformed tradition at large that we can't just reduce the image merely to human faculties, uh, like the intellect. So the image of God doesn't uh mean purely these things, okay? We don't reduce uh humanity to that, because uh being human uh also means being rightly ordered toward God. This will be important here in a minute when we talk about AI. And then finally, the confession uh brings up this last point, having dominion over the creatures. So after describing the moral and spiritual nature of the image, it adds this last part here, which we talked about a little bit earlier. The point is dominion flows from the image, it's not, it doesn't replace it. So, in other words, the functional role of dominion is grounded in the ontological reality of being created in God's image. Said another way, um the representative task, that's exerting dominion, is a consequence of being in God's image, not the definition of the image itself. That's kind of what I was getting at. Humanity is called to rule and steward creation as God's vice regent, but the confession rejects any attempt to define the image exclusively as function or role. Dominion does not create the image, it expresses it. Okay? This will be important when we get to AI again in a minute. There's a lot more that can be said about uh the image of God in humanity and dominion. Um Brian did two podcasts on this a while back, about 15 minutes each, so I commend those to you if you want more detail on those. You can find those online. Um or your favorite podcast streaming service. All right, I think they're on well, I I have it on uh Apple Podcasts, and I assume you can get it elsewhere as well. Okay, so this uh idea of uh humans being called to fill and subdue the earth, often called the cultural mandate, um we're called to develop creation's potential for his glory in our neighbor's good. Psalm 8 talks about this, where uh it says, You've been given or you have given him dominion over the works of your hands, you have put all things under his feet. Speaking of uh humanity's role in um developing the creation, uh that's obviously a messianic psalm as well, which is ultimately fulfilled in Christ. But what I want to point out are some questions we need to think about in terms of the cultural mandate. How does a cultural mandate relate to us being created in God's image? How can we responsibly exercise dominion today? How does sin affect human dominion, and how does Christ's dominion relate to ours? Actually, maybe I should say, how does our dominion relate to Christ? Okay. Well, this gets us to technology. Alright, so here's our first talk about technology. So technology as a common grace, we can think of this as a means of fulfilling the cultural mandate. That is how we exert dominion. One way we can do that is by developing tools. Okay, so that's that's what we're getting at. And of course, God's common grace, we see that all over the place. James 17 talks about every good perfect gift comes down from uh heaven above. Acts 14, 17 talks about God giving uh rain, fruitful seasons, things like that. So every good invention or insight reflects God's kindness and the outworking of his providence in terms of us being able to fulfill the cultural mandate and exert dominion over creation. Alright. Okay, so how do we define technology then? Okay, so this is kind of important because I I want to make sure we don't think of technology as things, artifacts, okay? Solely as those. Now, how do we define technology? Now, this first uh this is I'm gonna build this quote. This is a three-part quote from Douglas Adams. Uh he I think he was raised in a Christian family. He left uh Christianity as an adult, so I'm not commending his worldview or anything like that, but he was very much into technology, and if you read books on technology, you'll see quotes from him. And he does have some common grace insights into what technology is or what it does. Alright, so this is meant to be humorous, but he does have some good points. All right. So first part of his quote anything that's in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary, and it's just a natural part of the way the world works. Okay? Anything that's invented between when you're 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary, and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things, right? All right. So you kind of see what he's getting at here, right? Uh part part of what he's saying up at the top, right, this top part, is that when you grow up with something, your brain treats it as just natural. It's just something you're you uh that's familiar to you. Electricity, cars, the internet, smartphones, now AI. Uh basically anybody who's born today or even toddler, AI is just gonna be a normal part of what they've always experienced. Um it's interesting, my grandfather died last year at the age of 100. He was born in 1925, and it was always interesting talking to him about like how did you how are you still alive? Like, how did you live before phones and GPS and penicillin or whatever, right? You're just like, wow. Uh and you know, I get some of that now from students. Like, well, how did when you drove across the country, how did you keep track of where you were, or how did your wife text you new things when you were at the grocery store? It's like, well, then you didn't, right? Um so so that's sort of the natural thing. Then this this part in the middle, about 15 to 35, I would probably change those ages somewhat. But what he's getting at there is new technology for some people feels like an opportunity, it's progress, it's the future, uh, something you might want to build your life around, for example. And then 35 plus, again, I would probably raise that age limit there. By the time your worldview has sort of stabilized, whatever age that is, then new technology feels unnecessary or uncomfortable or disruptive, uh, even threatening. And so new technologies feel wrong because they've arrived after after your sense of normal has sort of stabilized. And that's why you hear people in different generations saying things like, well, this new tech is is ruining our society, or people didn't need this in my day, right? Um I've even started saying that myself, which is um and so his point, his larger point is our judgment about technology is not objective. All right. When we encounter it, that's one thing that uh alters uh or shapes how we view it, amongst other things. Um and so why does this matter? Well, it's a warning. Don't confuse this feels strange to me with this is bad for humanity. Right? It may be the case that this feels strange to me and it is bad for humanity, but don't confuse the two. All right? Uh especially when we get to AI, because there are some things that um are really good about AI, actually, and some of you can attest to that, and I'll I'll I may ask you to share a little bit later. But there's some very bad things as well that we need to think about. So um every generation thinks the next one's technology is unnatural, and I'm sure that the same thing about uh AI now, all right? Okay, so how do we how do we define technology? Well, it depends on what we're talking about, okay? So trebuchet, when that was invented, right? Is that technology? Sure. Um snowshoes, screwdrivers, right? How about all the ways we've invented to light up dark rooms? Right? That's all sort of technology. But I don't want to define technology merely as the artifacts that are produced, right? The things, but it's more of the human activity, all right? So here's how I would define this technology is ongoing human activity, okay, not just the artifacts we produce, of shaping and reshaping the world, expressing our created capacity to cultivate, order, and interpret creation based on the cultural mandate. All right? So it's a process, not just the things we produce, although that's included. Now, as Christians, I would tweak this a little bit and say, as Christians, technology is human participation in God's common grace, uncovering and developing the latent potential of creation for the love of neighbor and the glory of God. Alright? That's what I would call technology. So it's not just the tools, not just the artifact, but it's the activity that's part of technology. All right. Now, this definition highlights that technology is not just neutral stuff, not neutral equipment, but is a pattern of cultural formation flowing from the fact that we are uh image bearers, all right? Humans created because humans uh created are creating because they are created to create and exert dominion. Alright, so technology is a natural outworking of the cultural mandate. Alright, that's what I was trying to get at. Okay, again, I want to frame technology in technological, or I'm sorry, theological rather than functional terms, and that's what I'm getting at here. Alright. Now I've got three quotes from Neil Postman. Many of you probably read from uh read him. Very famous writer, 20 some uh 20 odd plus books on technology. I believe he was Jewish, actually. He has some very good common grace insights into technology. I want to talk about them first, and then I want to apply a particular technology we're all familiar with to these quotes before we get into the AI part. All right? So here's the first quote, Neil Postman. This is from Amusing Ourselves to Death. Technology has uh always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear at the beginning who or what will win and who or what will lose. Okay. Interesting. I'm gonna come back to these in a minute. Next one is from his book Technop uh Technopo uh Techno Technopoli. Sorry. Umbedded in every tool is an ideological bias. A predisposition to construct the world as one thing rather than another, to value one thing over another, to amplify one sense, skill, or attitude more loudly than another. Okay. Last quote, and then I will go back to them. New technologies alter the structure of our interests, the things we think about, they alter the character of our symbols, the things we think with, and they alter the nature of community, the arena in which thoughts develop. Okay. Alright, so I thought the best example we could uh all relate to would be smartphones. Okay? Now we're not here to uh bash them, okay? We'll we'll do the good and the bad. But smartphones, the 20th anniversary of the iPhone is next year. So they've been around for about 20 years, and we've had time now to look Back on them, so to speak, and look at the good and the bad and the unintended consequences and all the rest of smartphones. Alright, so I thought this would be a good one because AI is just now uh you know percolating uh in in society, and we don't have all we haven't had a whole lot of time to think about what's good where that's leading. But smartphones, we have a lot of time, all right? So here's what I thought we would do. Let's go back to the first quote. Unforeseen consequences, and I'll open it up to everybody. What are some unsurprising these could be good or bad, unforeseen consequences that probably were not anticipated when smartphones were first developed, that we now see more clearly 20 years plus on. Alright, open the floor. What do you think?

unknown 22:47

Like laptops, they've made work, certain kinds of work go with you even more instantly, all the time.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Okay, so now you carry your work with you, whether it's a laptop or smartphone or whatever. Okay?

SPEAKER_04 22:59

Dinner tables where nobody talks.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Okay. Um, I'm glad you brought that up. Um does anybody remember this? Um, sorry. Uh Chick fil A had this um campaign several years ago where they had this cell phone coupe where it had instructions turn all your family cell phones to silent, put them in the thing, and enjoy your meal, and then if you did that, you got a free ice cream. Getting at Dr. Dasso's point, right?

unknown 23:38

Never being absent, never being unreachable. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Okay. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

SPEAKER_04 23:50

It depends on which end of the line you're on.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Yeah. That's yeah, that that's true. Okay.

unknown 23:57

Never getting lost.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Never getting lost. Okay. True.

SPEAKER_05 24:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Okay. Okay, good point. Which leads to this quote. What um things do smartphones predispose us to value? Now you've hinted at some of those already. Like what senses or skills or attitudes do smartphones tend to emphasize, and which ones do does it tend to downplay? What do you think? So one is constant connectivity, that's one.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

I would I would say probably connectivity, you just said the word. Yeah. But I would also like to add another thought to use a smartphones and say I wonder what the world was like before the invention of written lightweight. We can compare today's technology and technological smartphones. What the fork button? What did they do? Those who didn't understand what the written language was.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Yeah, there's probably a positive and a negative aspect to that, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Okay, yeah.

unknown 26:23

Okay. Sure, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah, that was what I was thinking.

unknown 26:41

We're not remembering the direction.

SPEAKER_06 26:43

Yeah.

unknown 26:44

We're not remembering other skills.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yeah, there was a calculator in a GPS and a contact list, and so we don't have to remember as much data. Yeah, there's been some articles about that that people have lost their sense of spatial uh directions, like you know, before GPS and all that, people sort of knew north, south, east, west, and they could navigate their way, head in the right direction at least. And a lot of there's been some studies that people have totally lost that. Like if it the if the if the phone stops working, they they they just don't know like how where do I go? Right? At least here in town, if you need to come to the mountain, you can see it, and you just start heading that way, right? Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

It stranges um in me, in like the the parenting style. Um my parents, my children, could like call me or text me if they needed anything. So if like they had an accident on the side of the road, they would call me before they would call the police. Right. As opposed to my parents every day.

SPEAKER_06 27:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yeah, there's been studies, a lot of studies on that. In fact, I'll talk about this in a minute. That's one of the things she said um it's caused l loneliness and isolation. Because a lot of um teenagers especially um spend an inordinate amount of time on their phone, primarily on social media or gaming, um, to the extent that here I have a slide on this, um governments have started to notice this. Last month, Australia became the first country to block uh kids under 16 from social media, smartphones. Now, I don't I mean, I uh the sentiment might be good. I don't think this is gonna work. I mean, young kids know how to get around this stuff, right? But you can see um China uh bans gaming. You can uh game for one hour, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays, three hours a week for people under 18. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. I I totally, yeah, I agree with that. Uh United States, Virginia, uh four days ago, three days ago, this just took effect. Now, I don't think this is gonna work either, but they have uh limited users under 16 to one hour per day on social media in the state of Virginia. Again, I don't I don't think this is gonna work, but I you can see that governments are starting to take notice of this stuff. So we're gonna create a generation of very good hackers.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yeah, these kids are gonna figure it out and they're already.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Yeah. Um yeah, exactly. So um here's some things I and you've mentioned a lot of these. Smartphones tend to help us value or tend to force us to value things like speed, immediacy, constant connectivity, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Again, it depends, right? Um again, I had uh I was talking to somebody and they're like, well, but when you traveled to grandma's five hours away before cell phones, like how did you tell them when you were arriving or if you had ran if you had a flat tire? I said, Well, you just didn't. I mean, you just I guess there were um what do you call them? Phone boost, yeah. Yeah. Remember, yeah, you can put a coin in and call, right, or something. Uh but yeah, it's just it wasn't a it wasn't a thing. Um uh smartphones tend to amplify rapid communication, multitasking, image capture. Someone mentioned that they're integrated with with uh pictures now. Now we get all kinds of uh firsthand accounts. When something happens, uh there's a disaster or a plane crash or whatever, we see, because people have cell phones and cameras and they film it right away, right? And you see that kind of stuff uh immediately. Uh smartphones tend to mute things like sustained attention, face-to-face interaction, hence the Chick-fil-A campaign. And smartphones tend to value the quick over the deliberate, the fragmented over the continuous, and the personalized feed over the shaped kind of public narrative. All right. Um things like shifting our attention to streams of short form content. All right. Things are notifying you all the time. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Not just people, but news and social media feeds and things like that. So we're we're distracted by things that are pushed to us rather than things that we're actually seeking out. Uh communication is increasingly through images and emojis and short text bursts rather than extended written discourse. Meaning becomes compressed, more visual, and more rapid. And concepts that once required paragraphs are now conveyed or oversimplified, that's probably true, through an image or a single phrase. And you can talk to most teachers in uh junior high high school or covenant faculty. Uh, we are finding students who are having difficulty sustaining across multiple pages or paragraphs an argument. Right? So if you read something like in philosophy by Hume and it's like three or four pages, students are increasingly having trouble tracking that because they're used to sort of this rapid, short. Can you just summarize it for me? Right? Just tell me the main point, what's he getting at, and I'll be okay, right? But you lose a lot when you oversimplify, right? Yeah.

unknown 32:51

To add a pro to that?

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that?

unknown 32:57

Um I don't need a paragraph and an email.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Oh, sure. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, and I I'm not I'm not t I'm not trying to be all negative about uh some things. So there are some positives to some of this as well, as we've I think we've talked about. The point is we need to be clear uh on what, and we're just talking about smartphones now before we get to AI. Smartphones have, looking back on time, you know, in time, subtly directed our values in ways that we might not have thought about. They reshape kind of our cognitive habits, they've redefined the spaces in which we build meaning. Um, and like everything else, uh they do not simply change our activities, but they change us, sort of what we what we tend to value, how we operate. Okay? For good or bad. All right, good or bad. Oh yeah. Oh, sure.

unknown 33:48

I read an article recently about the negative physical effects of using a smartphone body, like the eyes, the ears, and what neck.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Yeah, test neck, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

So that you can't actually actually get to the point where they cannot hold their heads up anymore.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Well, there's several physicians in the room, they may be able to testify to that. Um, but I I read that same article where there's something going on with the neck with people who are constantly looking down. Uh maybe orthopedics is going to be the future of medicine, right? Um, so what's the theological implication of this? All right, tools can either enhance faithful stewardship or distort it. Okay? Which means we as Christians need to evaluate not only what we do with technology, but what technology is doing to us. All right? How it shapes our attention, our desires, our stewardship of time and relationships. Um, someone mentioned, um, or maybe I did, the youth spending all this time in the governments doing that. The according to the latest studies I was looking at, the average teenager spends seven to eight hours of their free time, not the time that's required for school or whatever, of their free time on a device. That is a lot of time. In fact, I I ran the numbers. Two hours a day, just two hours a day, uh, is the same amount of hours as in a complete month, not even counting sleeping. So if you if you limit, let's just say, your kids to two hours a day on a device, uh, that is one full month, not including the sleep time of time. Per year. Yeah. Uh let me here, let's do some math. Right? 24 hours, or no, two hours times 365. Right, that's 730 hours a year. How many hours are in a month? 720 hours in a month. Yeah. Same amount of time. Yeah. What's that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I just want to make sure that, but yeah, I mean, um, that's a lot, that's a lot, if you think about it, right? Um, so what is our response? Well, rejection is one response. Uh there are Christian communities that reject technology by and large, or a lot of it. You examples you can think of? Come on. Yeah, Amish, uh, for example. Um, that's a good thing. They build great furniture. We had an Amish furniture store we used to live.

unknown 36:40

They use technology.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

They of course they use technology. Uh it's just modern technology in the sense that we think of, they tend to, yeah, right. There are actually muddite people who just don't have technology at all. Yeah. Uh indifference, this is another response. Like, eh, technology, it's just something. Uh, I don't think that's a good response either. Uh embrace, just we're just gonna embrace it. It's new technology, let's go with it. There are a few people who are like this, like, hey, anything that comes along, let's immediately uh use it for the church and for God's glory, but they don't really think about that a whole lot. So I think the probably the the best way to think about this is responsible, thoughtful engagement. All right. Um so we need to question technology as it comes along. The problem is oftentimes we don't know what it's going to do until we're looking back on it. It's the historians that point to like, hey, look at what smartphones have done for good or bad. All right. So when new technologies show up, we're all forced to sort of evaluate it and choose whether to adopt it, even though we don't exactly know yet in terms of AI now, uh, what it is going to do to us, what it is doing, and things like that. All right. So, how can we make wise and faithful choices about technologies that are new or that we adopt? This is this is tricky. Um technologies surround us more than we realize. Okay? We while we easily notice the latest devices as high-tech, we often fail to recognize the pervasive presence of older technologies because they've faded into the background. Computer science is similar to what uh quote I gave you before. Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born. Yeah? Okay, which is kind of interesting. Okay, so how are computer uh how is computer technology different? Well, computers excel at two things, really. Anything that can be quantified, that can be turned into a number, a computer is really good at. It can repeat tasks perfectly without fatigue, it can scale to millions or billions of operations per second, it can store and retrieve information, vast quantities of information, uh very quickly, all right. And computers are very good at abstraction, that is, symbol manipulation, pattern recognition without understanding, things like that. So uh moving characters around, numbers, and things like that. Not not just calculating on them, but moving them back and forth. Yeah, so really good at those two things. And so uh you've all used computers for many things. That's what a smartphone is, that's this thing in our pocket, is much more powerful than computers just a decade or two ago, just in your pocket. All right. Now, um uh that's what computers do well. Um however, anything that can't be quantified or abstracted in that way, computers cannot do well. This is where we're getting to the AI stuff. They cannot create meaning, interpretation, or wisdom. Alright? They can't exercise moral judgment and responsibility. Now, some of these are like, duh. I mean, I I know you know this, but I want to re-emphasize, because we're going back to the image of God here in a minute, that being created in the image of God gives us certain characteristics that you can never quantify or put into a computer and leave it to a computer to do for you. Alright? They can't exercise moral judgment and responsibility, they can't form genuine relationships. And I've been seeing article after article recently of people forming relationships with AI. They're falling in love with it. I saw some people getting married to their AI and stuff like that. I mean, just some really interesting and disturbing things going on. They can't, uh computers can't enter into covenantal commitments, they can't possess embodiment, which is extremely important. You can read Kelly Capek's book on this. There's something about being embodied as human that's very important, okay, that computers simply cannot do. They can't create with intention or purpose. They can be creative-ish, but they can't create with intent or purpose. All right? So the takeaway is that computers excel at quantification and abstraction, but only humans can understand meaning, pursue wisdom, bear God's image, etc. Alright? Now, when does it does technology, what's the difference between delegating and abdication of our human responsibility in the cultural mandate? All right, so we're developing tools. We're talking about AI now, we're getting there. At what point are we delegating, which might be a good thing, some of our responsibility, and what at what point are we trying are abdicating our human responsibility for the cultural mandate? And here's the other problem with computer technology it changes so fast that we don't have time to think about it. I mean, constantly. In fact, if if we go, Lord willing, we go through this six-week class, I'm sure before we're done here, something new with AI will have happened. I mean, you can ask people who are working in it. Every other week it seems like there's something new. Okay, with all that, how is AI different or is it? Okay, so I'm gonna end with this and then we'll start with some other things next time. All right. Very quickly. How is AI different or is it? Well, it is different and it's not different. Okay, so let's how it's not different first. AI is not fundamentally different ontologically from other technology. By that I mean at the most basic level, AI is still a tool.

unknown 42:27

Okay?

SPEAKER_02 42:27

I haven't defined what AI is, but we kind of have an idea. All right, it's a product of human creativity operating within creation. Okay, so it's a tool, technology. And from a biblical and theological standpoint, it's still created. Okay, it has no soul, it has no moral agency, it has no covenantal standing. All right, it operates entirely within secondary causes under God's providence. In other words, it's something we create, it's not first order uh creation or anything like that, okay? The reason why I mention that is because that guards against both techno-mesiaanism where AI is going to save us, and techno, I don't know what you call it, demonology where AI is inherently evil. Okay, it's just a tool. Alright? So, like smartphones, the printing press, tractors, or whatever, AI extends human capacities. Alright? It reflects the cultural mandate, it's still subject to distortion with sin. Alright? So ontologically, AI does not cross the creator creature boundary. That's important to say. However, last slide, it AI is meaningfully different from other technology in this sense. And this is where all the frustration and the consternation is coming from. AI simulates human cognitive function. Simulates is the important word. Alright, why is that important? Because most technology. Extends physical power, you know, like a plow or an engine or communication speed like printing or phones, but AI extends and imitates cognitive activities like language, pattern recognition, decision support prediction, and all the rest. Why is that important? Because we tend to confuse things, we we anthropomorphize, we project onto things that act human as human. And so humans instinctively attribute intention, authority, personality, trustworthiness to systems that speak fluently and respond intelligently. Alright? This is not true of most technologies. Alright? So the danger is not that AI becomes human, but that humans begin to relate to it as if it were. That's the bottom line. So some things to think about. AI is not just a technical issue, it's a theological, it's a philosophical, it's a moral issue, and it forces us to confront a lot of issues. What is intelligence, what's consciousness, uh what a person is, uh, all of that. All right. And so with that, uh what I the plan, Lord willing, the plan is next week to actually define what AI is, spend just a few minutes, I promise, 10 minutes on a little math and stats, so you understand what it's actually doing, and we we dispel the magic, and that gives us a lot of insight into what we can trust, good and bad, because there are some good things that it can do. There are also some some uh some bad things as well, and that'll lead us uh into the the next topic. All right. Any final quick question or comment? Yeah?

SPEAKER_05 45:46

I was using a piece of technology uh a couple of nights ago.

unknown 45:51

Television.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

There are three countries that I can think of that have AI-based judicial systems for misdemeanor crimes. Um and that's already a thing. That's real. Uh if you can imagine going before an AI judge, right? What's a judge supposed to do?

unknown 46:27

Make judgments.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

Make judgments, right? That's what humans do. Yeah, wisdom. Now you've got a computer who's doing this. Yeah, interesting. Well, we're we'll talk about that actually. Good point. Okay, well, I promised Chad, I said we'll be done. So let me pray real quick and then we'll we'll go. Father, thank you again for uh your many blessings. Um thank you for our time here today. Uh help us to be wise and discerning in how we think about these things, uh, both good and bad. Help us to acknowledge our limitations, um, help us to be wise in um how we think about um the impacts of these technologies on our lives, the lives of our families, maybe at work. Um help us to be responsible uh and thoughtful as we engage with them. And um we pray uh your blessing on the rest of our day. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.