Some Thoughts on AI

If you’re going to talk about technology today, eventually you’re going to have to talk about AI.

Here are some initial reflections.

AI is Powerful

I’ve found AI incredibly powerful in some use cases. In the past, I used to look for software solutions for many of the things I need to get done. Now, I often find it easier to vibe code my own solution so that it does exactly what I need it to do. It’s also great at tackling monotonous jobs (“donkey work”), like pouring through a mountain of data, and equalling what any human could do in a fraction of the time. As Challies observes, It’s great at summarizing, searching, researching, finding, and analyzing. Used well, AI can be powerful.

AI is Limited

AI is also limited, although it’s also improving. It seems to make the silliest and most basic mistakes sometimes. It hallucinates. It’s sycophantic, which means it has a tendency to flatter, something that’s built in by design. As someone writes, it’s a “very expensive mirror that always agrees with you.”

When used for writing, it can improve bad writing, but only to a point. Eventually, it flattens it and sucks out most of the originality. Most of the time, it writes in a way that is neither bad nor brilliant.

Of course, AI is arguably the worst it’s ever going to be today. It’s powerful but it’s limited.

AI Has Biases

One study found that AI gives unreliable or incomplete information to the most common questions about the Christian faith. Another study shows a perceived left-leaning bias in LLMs. AI is designed by humans with a particular worldview, and that worldview inevitably becomes baked into the models. Often, that worldview does not align with Christianity.

AI is Artificial

It’s right in the name. It’s not intelligence; it’s artificial intelligence. It’s why one tech pundit insists on calling AI a robot. He wants to remind himself that he’s not talking to anything like a human; he’s talking to a machine that can’t love, feel, or even think. It can act like an artificial therapist or conversation partner, but it can never understand, care, or truly think. It’s more like a microwave than like a human. We should do everything we can to remind us of this reality.

AI Can Use Us Rather Than Serve Us

Picture a radiologist who’s trained to scan x-rays. One day, he’s replaced by an AI model that can scan x-rays faster. The radiologist becomes a second reader responsible to double-check the AI model’s work. In a sense, AI doesn’t work for him; he works for AI.

At first, AI promises gains. It can do much of the work that we used to do. Soon, though, we lose those gains, because we’re expected to do more work, like Lucy and Ethel on the assembly line (watch it if you haven’t). Or, our work is outsourced to AI. AI. gives with one hand, but it often takes away with the other.

AI Could Cause Certain Skills to Atrophy

I once took three months off in the summer. When I began to prepare sermons again, I couldn’t believe how much my preparation skills had atrophied. It doesn’t seem to take long for our mental muscles to get flabby.

Andrew Noble cautions that when we outsource skills to AI, we begin to lose these skills. It’s like going to the gym and bringing machines to lift the weights for you. It will do the job, but it will also rob you of the benefits of the work it’s doing.

Using AI is a Matter of Integrity

Sometimes it’s okay to use AI. Other times, using AI can mislead others into thinking that we did the work. I think Tim Challies gets it right: use it, but disclose it. If you’re allowed to use AI for a particular purpose, be open about the fact that you’ve used it.

AI Doesn’t Give Us What We Need Most

We were made for relationships with others and with God. As Andy Crouch says, we were “born with the capacity for love, eyes wide open, looking for a face,” and this is how we will die. God made us to love, explore, create, and care. All of these are deeply human endeavours that can only be outsourced to machines at great cost.

Only humans are able to love, sacrifice, and worship. These are the qualities we need to cultivate most in our lives, and to receive from others, and machines can’t help us.

In other words, AI is a powerful technology, but it can never give us what we need most, and it can never replace what it means to be deeply human.

Use AI if you’d like, with limits. It can be a powerful tool. But with your eyes wide open, and never surrender to the gradual disempowerment of strength, mind, heart, and soul.

If you’re interested in reading more on AI, I’m currently reading 2084 and the AI Revolution, Updated and Expanded Edition: How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future. It’s a good one!

Adapted from a weekly note I send to the church where I serve as pastor