We are in quite a spot. It turns out that for all the hype the AI we thought so highly of is better at writing code and mining data than any real intelligence or creativity. It may turn out that AI has done us no favor by stealing labor from our lives and leaving us with little more than a life of leisure. Idle hands, you know. What about idle minds and hearts? The first stage of AI was our dependence upon screens for knowledge and understanding. Addicted to the screen, it is but one more small step before not AI but those who control it are in control of us -- what we think, what we do, and who we are. That is the real danger. AI is a tool, just like technology, and it is not always a benign or beneficial one. Sometimes it hits the finger instead of the nail.
Pope Leo XIV has taken up the warning call against making a god out of technology or AI, against a digital reality that replaces the wonder of God's creation and the miracle of His redemptive love at work in Christ. It is time that the rest of us begin to utter a word of caution in a world in which the technology is heading where even the brave dare not go. Oddly enough, there are many within the fold of Christianity who think that AI and screens are the answer and not the problem. Pastors are foregoing the work of sermon prep and preaching sermons largely researched and written by AI. Some are suggesting that more and more of the work of the pastor could be aided and assisted (jargon for taken over) by technology and AI. I reported some years ago of the absolution bot who went around hearing confession and pronouncing forgiveness. Americans have enjoyed too much making worship into the spectator sport of those in sleepware and drinking coffee while laying in bed or sitting on the couch. Our vulnerability is our laziness -- much like those who wanted to make Jesus into a bread king instead of a Savior.
If we can, we might adapt too well to the technology that promises everything and the AI which seems to be about as smart as we are. Given the state of the world today, that is not a compliment to our intelligence and could very well be an indictment against our morality. Wars and violence far and near and a tool like the internet which has been successfully turned into a mega porn site more than anything else is telling. It is easy to fight wars conducted by drones controlled by folks far away from the destruction and bloodshed. Too easy. Our technology allows us to succumb to our baser desires with the impression that we won't get dirty in the process nor will we be more than anonymous. That is its greater danger to us and the moral shape of human life and society as a whole.
I love some of what technology has given us but I tire of Siri and Alexa listening in and then providing me all kinds of things they think I want to see or hear. I love technology for what it can do, like this little blog, but I am weary of trusting those whom I do not know as the directors and controllers of this digital world that accompanies the real one. I love what technology can do but I am reminded how a simple Amazon search is a maddening scroll through things I do not want and am not interested in while simply trying to the one thing needful to me at that moment. The AI gods of this world presume too much and we are too willing to give them their due. Tools are great until the tools rule at the hands of the few who think they know best. Maybe this is our Tower of Babel and maybe what we need is a warning against the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of one in which we are given the freedom to do nothing but indulge ourselves with the presumption that we are almost gods in our own right.
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Given the idea that there are about 7000 languages in the world, even AI technology is challenged to interpret a multitude of regional dialects and speech into some uniformity that can be clearly understood by all people. The Tower of Babel happened Post Flood, and the effort failed. The Lord confused language for a reason; that Mankind will not aspire to take away the throne of Heaven and challenge God’s sovereignty. And In some respects, AI, is the same trap. Like the Tower of Babel, in some ways well intentioned, but in other ways nefarious. For the Globalists, it is a benefit. Ultimate worldwide control is precisely what they seek. And they seek a throne in which God is not present. Therein lies the danger. I have Alexa, the talking machine, on the counter of our kitchen. Alexa listens to me and my wife. I ask her to play a song by Jerry Vale or Willie Nelson. She complies. I ask her for the weather today, and she quickly responds. I ask her what is the dog breed of the day. She tells me, yea, “it is the Dachshund”. Talking to machines has become a habit today. How far will it all go? Sometimes I do consider, that given the perils of this world, a worldwide nuclear conflict is not off the table, and it will send AI and much of technology into a tailspin, perhaps setting back humanity to a future dark age and period of great misery. Or, perhaps, the Lord will return before such a nightmare. So, we might say that like the builders of the Tower of Babel, humanity is still working on a bigger and better Tower, in the form of AI. How long before this Tower falls is anybody’s guess. Soli Deo Gloria
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