Grave New World: Artificial Intelligence, Electric Shepherds, and Electric Sheep

“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’” (Matthew 15:8b).

Over the last few years, humanity has ushered in a grave new world with the advent of Artificial Intelligence. A grave new world of increasing darkness and deception, all the while clothing its dark members in palatable shades of grey and muted tones of white as they issue from places of deep shadow; sometimes growing so bold as to masquerade as messengers of light. In the words of Jurassic Park’s Dr. Ian Malcolm, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

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Several weeks ago, a sermon by Paul Washer appeared on my YouTube feed titled “Sins that Husbands and Wives Commit Daily.” Now, for anyone who is familiar with Paul Washer, this seems like the type of sermon he very well may preach—and so, I thought little of it and simply kept scrolling.

However, it was only a few days later that another sermon graced my suggestion feed on YouTube, this one supposedly by John MacArthur. And the title of the sermon? You guessed it: “Sins that Husbands and Wives Commit Daily.” With such a unique title, there seemed little chance that both Washer and MacArthur just so happened to preach on the very exact subject with the very same title within the very same week. One—or both—of these sermons was likely fake.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the ‘MacArthur sermon’ and the video opened to a screen with a still, fairly dated, picture of MacArthur. A few seconds later the sermon began and captions filled the screen as MacArthur’s signature voice boomed through the video. But, was it MacArthur’s voice? It certainly sounded like him at first. There was, however, an almost imperceptible change in his voice that struck me. The voice in the video spoke with a tone and cadence that was not unlike the John MacArthur I knew and grew up with, but with more time the voice seemed too clean, too polished, one might even say it was robotic—that is, not quite human at all.

Perhaps these twin sermons—“Sins that Husbands and Wives Commit Daily”—were generated by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), or perhaps not. It almost doesn’t matter. In my mind, the chief issue is that the seed of doubt was planted in my mind about the authenticity of these videos nonetheless. So, whether or not they were real, I skipped them both for fear that they were fake, having nothing to do with the real Washer and MacArthur. With the advent of A.I., and the many questions and dilemmas that such technologies pose, these types of doubts are becoming more and more frequent with respect to items found online.

In the case of the ‘MacArthur sermon,’ the series of events that I noted above fell into place such that I passed judgement on the video as being A.I. generated. The suspect title, the inhuman voice, the still screen, coupled with the lack of any video of MacArthur himself all lent support to my suspicion and screamed Artificial Intelligence. (A brief aside: with the exponential rate of development of A.I., the presence of video for some piece of text may no longer be an indicator of its truthfulness).

However, there remains the possibility that the sermon was authentic. Indeed, I could have missed out on an insightful, thought-provoking sermon, all owing to the shadow cast over much of the internet by Artificial Intelligence. And therein lies so much of the trouble: not only must we now be weary of any spurious claims we see, read, and hear on the internet, but there is the added temptation to now second-guess everything online because of how convincing, deceptive, and ubiquitous this technology is.

But the rot goes deeper still.

As a teacher, A.I. concerns me. As a writer, A.I. frustrates me. But as a Christian, A.I. disturbs me. It disturbs me because of the way in which it has infiltrated the church and the pulpit seemingly overnight. Tell me, what possible function does a predominantly left-leaning, largely atheistic, inhuman, idea-generating machine have in Christ’s church? What role can such a technology take up except to displace the hard work, thinking, and study of God’s people? And worse still, attempt to displace the presence of the Holy Spirit Himself?

The tools of Christ’s Kingdom are not the tools of this world. There may be a degree of overlap—the Lord can and does use all things for His good and glorious purposes—but we would do well as the church to not confuse one for the other.

Now, I am no luddite. I am happy to grant that A.I. does indeed serve many useful functions—such as in the fields of medicine, engineering, and even in education within reason, and many other disciplines, though all of these are not without some consequences and human fallout. With that being said, to then draw A.I. into the church to prepare sermons, conduct Biblical research, write songs or prayers, or to develop programs and content, is an entirely different matter—and a disturbing one at that. Woe to those who sacrifice discipline and reliance upon the Spirit of God for the sake of mere pragmatism and convenience! It is no small thing to outsource your study of God’s word to a machine.

When people sit under your preaching, or listen to your podcast, or spend precious time reading your blog, they do so with the expectation that you, in faithfully exercising the gifts you’ve been entrusted with, are going to bring God’s truth to them in some way. You, led by the Spirit, not a program. If you cannot do that, then I dare say you have no business handling God’s word to begin with. As the Psalmist says,

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7).

Since when did the men and women of God place their trust in the tools of men rather than in the God whom they serve? If we place our trust in the exciting new developments of technology to do the Lord’s work, and encourage others to do likewise, then we are little more than electric shepherds feeding electric sheep.

I understand the temptation to cut corners and be lazy; trust me, I really do. As creatures in a fallen world, we are constantly engaged in a complicated relationship with work, even with work that we love. On the one hand, work can be hard; reading, writing, studying, editing, re-editing, it takes up a lot of time and effort, resources we could doubtless use elsewhere to do more reading, writing, studying, and editing for the Kingdom.

However, if we view work merely as a means to an end or gauge our successes solely by the quantity of our efforts rather than the quality of them, then I fear we may have missed the point of work altogether. Work is hard and laborious, enjoyable as it may sometimes be, in order to point us to our limitations and in turn to point us back to the Lord, who does not grow weary or faint. We can only accomplish so much in a day because, well, at the end of that same day and everyday we are just men, not God.

Indeed, sacrificing product on the altar of productivity is a grave issue, made all the more tempting by the efficiency offered to us by technology such as Artificial Intelligence. I read an article recently where the author went on to say that he had a call with a woman who felt God was leading her to write a book. However, he went on to write, there were a few hiccups: not only did the woman admit she was not a writer, but that she did not like writing at all, that she found it to be a rather taxing and drawn-out affair. Given this was the case, this woman was proposing writing a book relying almost exclusively on ChatGPT and other generative programs.

My dear brothers and sisters, whatever your work may be, this ought not to be the case. Christ desires you and your heart, indeed, your whole being—not the empty words of a machine that are not and cannot be filled with His Holy Spirit.

“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’” (Matthew 15:8b).

Work is hard; writing is hard. To do anything well takes a great deal of discipline, cultivated over years of practice, in order to produce something worthwhile for the glory of Christ and for the good of others. But there is such joy in work also. God-given joy and purpose that we forfeit when we outsource our calling to the many machines and programs that stand by ready and poised to do our work for us. And yet, like any of you, I would rather read ten mediocre articles or books written by a dear brother or sister in Christ than slog through even an iota of eloquent A.I. sludge. There is a real sense in which to be made in the image of God, to be human, is also to work; so work well and as unto the Lord.

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

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Photo by Frankie Mish, Unsplash