Stranger Things: A.I.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly being incorporated into all facets of life.  🤖 For some, AI holds the promise of solving many of the complex problems of modern life.  For others, AI brings us one step closer to having our entire lives run by machines.  But what is the Christian perspective on AI? Can ancient wisdom from the Bible guide us in this tech-driven era? 📜💻   Join us for our new series, "Stranger Things", where we tackle some of the more mysterious topics in the news, starting with AI. Let's explore the intersection of faith and technology. 🌐

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Read the article: The Sacrifice of Knowledge for Attention

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Stranger Things
• 6:44 What is A.I.?
• 13:02 The Leap from Intelligence to Consciousness
• 28:42 The Bible's Caution on Technology
• 38:55 The Myth of Prometheus
• 42:00 The Good and Bad of Technology
• 50:27 A Christian Ethic

Transcript

A.I.

David: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome to Navigating an Ancient Faith podcast. My name is David, and with me is my co host, J.R. 

J.R.: Hey, how you doing? 

David: Good, good. I would normally say we are coming from Florida and Tennessee, but we are in North Carolina. 

J.R.: North Carolina. It's absolutely gorgeous up here. I was looking out at the trees. Man fall is full swing. You see overlooking the lake. This is a way to do this. 

David: Yeah, we have a great view right now. We're sitting here recording this podcast and overlooking a lake and yeah, there's yellow trees and bright red trees and all kinds of colors going on. We may get distracted here. I don't know. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. But we're also doing this kind of off a laptop, so we'll see how it sounds. <Yeah.> But yeah, we're not working in our typical high dollar studios, <Yeah.> that is not really high dollar. But, you know, good mics and all that kind of stuff. We'll see how this works out.

David: Yeah. Supposedly, recording on your phone with our little lav mics here is actually going to be good quality. That's [00:01:00] what all the reviews say. But we will see. We apologize ahead of time. 

J.R.: That's right. Let us know.

David: If we sound tinny and anything like that. But we're going to do this next series probably here at the cabin on my iPhone. And so we'll see how this turns out.

J.R.: Yeah, Stranger Things. What's this all about?

David: Stranger Things. Yeah, this is going to be right up your alley. I'm interested to see what you have to say about some of this stuff. We are going to be talking about for the next three episodes, obviously things that are happening in our culture that we're living in strange times. Let's put it that way.

J.R.: Yeah, no doubt. No doubt.

David: And so there's a lot of weird things that have popped up. Actually, we could have done this on a number of subjects, but we're going to talk about a couple subjects that have been in the news that don't seem to go away. That seems like they're going to be more and more of a bigger thing in our culture. And quite honestly, there's a lot of people who don't know what to do with it. And then when you add to that layer of, okay, what does this mean as a Christian, as a person of faith? 

J.R.: [00:02:00] Right. Yeah, that's right. How it all ties together. <Yeah. Yeah.> And because all these technologies, they're not in a vacuum. And so I think we kind of think, well, you know, the AI, which is what we're going to talk about today, the idea of, well, AI, it helps you do this. And, you know, it's like, man, the way you approach it depends on your worldview. And it really does matter. It's not something isolated by itself. It's going to change a lots of things.

And so, yeah, what do we as Christians think about the technology? Is it good or bad? Is this the ushering of the The Beast? Is this the apocalypse. You know, you hear lots of things, you know, so it, from, from this is going to change everything and it's only going to be good and, how it's going to change society. To the other extreme of, yeah, this is the beginning of the apocalypse. Yes, the beginning of the end.

David: Yeah, so we're gonna be talking about these issues. We're gonna talk about AI today. The next episode, we're going to be talking about aliens and UFOs.

J.R.: Yes, there we go.

David: And then we are going to talk about that whole [00:03:00] apocalyptic thing. <Yeah.> There's several different areas in our culture where you know, there's a lot of apocalyptic hysteria. This is the end of the world. This is the thing that's going to do us in. And so we're going to talk about that too. So this should be a fun series. 

J.R.: No, I'm looking forward to it.

David: Very different from what we'd normally talk about. 

J.R.: What verse should we start out with? 

David: Yeah. So that's the interesting thing, you know, and I think that's really the first question that gets raised or really in all three of these issues. I think the tendency is to think, well, the Bible doesn't talk about that, right? The Bible has nothing to say. 

J.R.: But it does wait a second in Joshua, Ai, you know that. 

David: That's right

J.R.: Now we'll have to go back and look at that. Let's see how yeah, if we can tie that in an interesting way.

David: We will have to it's absolutely right. Joshua fights a battle over Ai. 

J.R.: Over Ai, yeah. <All right.> All right, man. Yeah, we may have to do some reading here. Well, we may stick something on the end of this episode after we go. 

David: Yeah, I did not think of that [00:04:00] angle. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's funny. Sure. 

David: No, so I think with each of these, just as a primer before we jump into it, and then I'll really let you kind of jump into AI because you know a lot more about this subject than I do, although we both played around with it.

But I think as a way to just start out, you know, I think we've already alluded to this, but as Christians, we probably have a tendency to react in a couple of different extremes. And one is compartmentalization, right? Okay. That this has no bearing with religion and faith. <Right.> So when we're talking about aliens or AI or something like that, well it has nothing to do with the Bible. <Right.> So why are you guys even talking about it? 

J.R.: Right. Yeah, exactly. <Yeah.> Yeah. So yeah, you kind of put it up on a shelf and it may be interesting. It may not be, but it has nothing to do with the way I live my life. 

David: Right. Right. And the other extreme is probably, you know, what we could say this divine pronouncement of already predetermining whether this new technology is good or bad because of the [00:05:00] way we read the Bible. So, you know, every new technology is the beast in revelation and, 

J.R.: sure. Yeah. Beginning of the apocalypse. 

David: Beginning. Yeah. All that goes along with that. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. How does this tie into 666? 

David: And so we immediately run down that thread and frankly, probably without knowing much about any kind of new technology or any kind of strange thing, we're pretty quick to prejudge it. <Oh yeah.> And pretty sure that the Bible condemns it, even though we really don't know anything about it. 

J.R.: Well, there's a, there's a short term payoff to all these things. And I mean, this is nothing new. I remember Ronald Reagan, there was a tie in to 666. There's a, there's, you know, it's just all these, all through my life, there's always been this tie in to here's why this is the bear in, revelation. And this is the, what is it? The King from the North, you know, all the, every time there's a little skirmish. And right now there's a war going on in Israel. So there's always something, this will be better for the apocalypse episode, but yeah, there's always a tendency to kind of shift it toward the end of [00:06:00]the world. What does this mean? What does the Bible have to say about this? <Yeah.> And the answer is a lot of times the Bible doesn't have anything to say about certain topics. But we, but we try to specific terms. Yeah. Right. But, but we try to read into it. Yeah. Yeah.

David: So there's these two extremes. The Bible has nothing to say about this, or this is really what the Book of Revelation was talking about. And this is gonna be kind of the end of the world. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. And we project our own immediate culture on what's going on right now and how does that tie into this biblical book? This ancient book that was written 3,000 years ago, you know, those types of things. 

David: As if the Bible was written for 2023.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

David: In 2023, all this will make sense, right? 

J.R.: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. <Yeah.> Okay. So yeah. So where do we start then? 

David: Alright, so let's start talking about this issue of AI. <Okay.> And we've both played around with it. I'm starting to actually use it more, but I know when we get on the phone sometimes and talk, you're always telling me about what the latest is with AI. So why don't you... 

J.R.: Right. Chat GPT.

David: [00:07:00] Yeah. If someone's been afraid to even think about this subject what's the gist with AI here? What's the... 

J.R.: Well, okay. So we're talking about, obviously, artificial intelligence. And right off the bat the word intelligence, that implies... it implies a couple of things that I think we project onto the word. And so you've got artificial intelligence, which is computer thinking, computer learning those types of things.

David: Which in and of itself, just that phrase sounds a little scary to people. Well, listen, the idea that this computer has intelligence. 

J.R.: Right, right. And if you get on Chat GPT, I think everybody's had this experience by now. You jump on Chat GPT and it's, it's weird. You're having this conversation with a computer and it doesn't feel like it's a computer. It doesn't feel fake. It doesn't feel like a chat bot or something like that, you know. It masters the language a lot better. You can tell it to take this paragraph and rewrite it.

And it does this kind of amazing stuff and it kind of blows your mind. You can tell it to write poems about silly [00:08:00] things and it spits that out almost immediately. So it's really kind of fascinating to play with. But then right away, it's this new idea. This new technology that all you have to do is sit down with it for five or six minutes. And immediately you're like going, Oh man, this is weird. This is a little strange. I'm not talking to, again, I'm not talking to a robot. I'm talking to somebody that seems like they're talking back. It seems to have this, exactly what we said, artificial, it seems to have intelligence. Right. Yeah. And so when we talk about intelligence, right off the bat kind of one of the reasons I'm not too concerned with it right away and who knows what the future down the line looks like.

But intelligence is really a couple of things. It's the combination of knowledge, what we have in our head, what we've experienced and agency and that idea, that ability to make decisions. I can eat this for lunch or I can eat that for lunch. I've got this agency, free will, we call it, and there's that can, that's a whole rabbit hole discussion that we don't need to go down.

But [00:09:00] there is, I do have knowledge in my head. I've got these experiences. But I've also got agency and I can make decisions one way or another. So I think when we talk about intelligence, when it comes to artificial intelligence, it clearly has the knowledge, right? 

David: Right. And I would jump in there and say that that in itself isn't that big a deal because different things have intelligence, right? Animals have. <Right.> An animal intelligence to them. <Right. Right.> And you could even say that in some sense, there'd be people who'd say like, look, plants and trees possess a certain kind of intelligence to some extent.

J.R.: But see, I would say that's agency.

David: Okay. So the difference then, what we're talking about is agency then. <Right.> That's kind of the bigger issue here, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, a dog doesn't appear to have a whole lot of knowledge. You can train it to do things, but it does have agency. So in some ways a dog is more quote unquote intelligent than a computer because a dog can, it can bite you. It can sort of [00:10:00] turn on you. It can obey you. You have this relationship with the dog that can be positive or negative. You know, you just don't go walk up to a strange dog and pat it on the head because I don't know what that dog is going to do. It has an agency that's unpredictable.

David: Right, at some level, the dog is making some kind of decision, whether it's through instinct or something inside of it that makes it so that it, it can act differently in different situations.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's unpredictable and so I have to interact with that and kind of assume what it's gonna do and what, you know. <Okay.> And so it doesn't have a lot of knowledge. And so there's this difference between intelligence and agency and we all have it. And I think, I think Jonathan Haidt talks about this and I don't know if he came up with it or he's referring to somebody else who came up with it. But he talks about our intelligence, our mind, is like a rider on an elephant. <Yeah.> And so you've got the rider who has this knowledge, who has this, you can train an elephant to do what it needs to do. And the rider can pull an elephant with the reins one way or another. [00:11:00]But the reality is, is if the elephant wants to do something different, there's no, the rider's not going to stop it.

David: There's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, that's right. If an elephant decides to do something other than what you're telling it to do. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so it's just good picture of the difference between knowledge and agency. And so that's why I don't, I think the concern about AI is, is it ever going to become self aware? <Right.> Yeah. Is it ever going to self aware and then, of course, destroy us all? <Right.> And that's why I think the answer is no, is because I think that while it has knowledge and it does have this information, just like Google has insane amounts of information, it doesn't seem to have agency and I haven't seen anything that pops up yet, right? 

David: Yeah, so I've played around with ChatGPT and it is amazing how, I mean, you can ask it things like, Is there a better way to phrase this sentence? And what's shocking about it is, in that way, it's almost like a souped up search engine because it just immediately says, yes, [00:12:00] phrase it this way.

And it's usually, to my frustration, it's usually right, yeah. <Yeah.> And so, I think that's the extent that it's been rolled out and I've also seen you know, all kinds of crazy videos about how this and that was produced with AI. But the other way that I've heard it talked about is, really projecting out in the future, is will this ever develop consciousness? Now, is consciousness the same thing you're talking about with agency? 

J.R.: I mean, that's kind of where I'm trying to break it down. It's the idea of the combination between your knowledge and your agency. You know, and so, and so AI can definitely assist with our knowledge. It can write a better paragraph than what you could perhaps write. <Yeah.> And it can, just like a calculator, can calculate faster than anybody can possibly calculate, right? <Right.> And so it assists us in that way. But then it doesn't make decisions based off of that. If that makes any sense, you know? <Yeah.> So it's an assistive, it's an [00:13:00] assistive intelligence essentially.

David: Well, and the way I've heard consciousness talked about is consciousness is your awareness of your unique thoughts and feelings and then your environment around you. <Right.> And that's the - I've heard it not even in terms of AI, but in terms of robotics, things like that, that's kind of the, what would you call? That's the big hurdle. Like, can we develop as human beings, do we have the ability to develop something that can actually interact with its environment and make its decisions based on that? And we kind of do that at a low level, you know, the little Roomba robot, can kind of sense things in its way.

J.R.: Yeah, and it can get out of, yeah, yeah, it can bump into walls and move on. <Right, right.> Yes, yes, that's right. 

David: Yeah, so, I, I think, as I've heard people talk about this and maybe express their concern or how's this all going to work is, you know, can a computer ever develop consciousness or [00:14:00]agency that we're talking about, where it can actually start forming its own thoughts and making decisions almost independently of anything that we've programmed into it.

J.R.: Right. Yeah. And that's the big difference between humans and computers in general is humans operate in the physical world, right? An unpredictable physical world while computers right now operate in the digital world where everything is the same. So we can, we can build a digital model of the Eiffel Tower and it will be in pristine, perfect condition for a million years in the digital world. Where in the physical world it rusts, you have to maintain it, you have to change it, you know, things like that.

<Yeah.> And so the physical world is unpredictable while the digital world is perfectly predictable, depending on the algorithm and everything that ties into it. Yeah. And so the question is consciousness, where does that play in? You know, consciousness is interacting with an unpredictable world. And so while AI might be wonderfully brilliant [00:15:00] at -just like a calculator is incredibly fast. You're talking about digits. You're talking about binary ones and zeros. And so it can calculate incredibly fast, faster than any person can, but it still can't interact with the physical world in a way that we can. <Right. Yeah.> And there's so many, data points that we have to process. And I've seen documentaries on how amazing our eyes are. Something simple. Because of all, everything it processes. And it processes things on the periphery of your vision at a lower resolution than what's at the center of your vision. And we take all this stuff for granted because it's our lives, right? We just go through it. 

But the processing power and the ability to predict an unpredictable world is just so far beyond the realm of what's going on inside a, computer brain. <Right.> As brilliant as, as one, as amazing as that is, right? The ability to calculate. <Yeah. Yeah.> Yeah. And so what we've done tying into this idea of the physical world versus the virtual world, is we've blurred the lines between the [00:16:00] physical and the digital world. And so when we put on a virtual reality headset, it's really, really cool. I mean, cause , I feel like this is the real world. But it's clearly not, right? <Yeah.> And so we, so as technology moves on, we kind of blurred the lines. And so I think that's where we get this idea that, well, it's just any day now, it's going to wake up, it's going to become self aware. <Right.> But that is a massive implied leap. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. that's probably a good way to think about it. And that's kind of my understanding too, is it feels like we're getting closer and closer to this line where a computer, the way I would almost say it is, you know, we think a computer is it only spits out what we put into it, right?

J.R.: Right. Garbage in garbage out.

David: Yeah. And so we're getting close to this line where the computer can actually start to take in inputs of its own and then therefore maybe create its own outputs. 

J.R.: Yeah. And make decisions based on that.

David: Interacting and [00:17:00] making decisions. Like it's actually going up to that line. But then to your point, the distance between that and actually being able to do that is in reality, it's a huge gap, right? Even though we feel like we're inching closer and closer to that line. 

J.R.: Right. And, and like I said, since we've blurred the lines, we see this implied massive leap, but it's, it's so far. Okay, so 50 years ago, everybody, everybody thought we'd have flying cars, right? <Yeah.> Because how in the world can we not? I mean, you see this technology. We're getting better and better. The cars are getting faster and faster. The rides are getting smoother and smoother. The assumption is, oh yeah, they'll be flying by 2020.

David: Look at the Jetsons. I mean, how do we not get there yet? 

J.R.: Yeah. And it's funny to watch because movies have been around now for I realize more than 50 years, but futuristic movies, sci fi movies of the 80s. It's always fascinating. What's the 2021? Is that? No, 2001. 

David: Yeah, the movie [00:18:00] 2001 Space Odyssey. Way in the future.

J.R.: Right and and that was 20 plus years ago. And they had AI, Hal, the talking robot and they had space travel. There's just this implied leap that I think we always - our minds can see the jump. You know, it's like, yeah, what's next, flying cars? Absolutely. <Yeah.> But then a physicist will sit down with you and say, okay, do you realize how difficult that is? You know, we can have planes, but the idea of just hopping in a flying car and that we're going to overcome this pesky problem of gravity, you know, our minds can see the leap, but the reality is a lot more difficult.

Another good one is television . If you look at movies that depict the future, nobody, you know, like look at Star Wars. You remember the opening line, the opening scene in Star Wars was Princess Leia on R2D2's hologram image sending Luke a message, right? <Yeah.> And it's funny, look back at that. It's, it's grainy. 

David: It's a really bad image. 

J.R.: Yeah, it's a bad image and it's a hologram. So there's our implied leap that, Oh man, we're right now [00:19:00] we're looking at TVs, but one day it's going to be a hologram, right? You know, when it would have been much better to have a high definition iPad sitting on R2D2 with Princess Leia recording the message than this grainy, silly hologram thing. And so we make these implied leaps all the time. And I think the idea of consciousness is a much bigger leap , than what we assume right now. 

David: So if sci fi movies have taught us anything too, it's that we will all wear polyester jumpsuits one day.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

David: So we can look forward to that. But I think what you're saying is interesting because that it makes a lot of sense in that it's almost one of those things where I would say If you don't know a lot about it, it looks like that leap is right there, and it's a very small leap. <Right.> But the more you actually know about it, you know, if you're a computer scientist or something like that. <Right.> You actually see that leap as a huge chasm.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. It's going to be very difficult. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right.

David: Okay, so your thought is that this [00:20:00] leap from just spitting out what's input to developing consciousness is a huge leap. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's right. The, the simulation of agency we think is going to be, the next step is going to be consciousness, but it's just a simulation. And that's why, that's also why, I was reading something about ChatGPT. One of the things that makes it sound so human, so on the first iteration of this it was spitting out knowledge and it was a little bit, it felt too robotic. And what the, developers were saying was that they actually had to throw in a little bit of randomness to make it appear human, which is interesting, you know. Which again is just fake agency. It's a simulation. And so I don't know if you've ever heard the AI generated podcast between, say Joe Rogan and I forget what it was.

David: No, I still haven't listened to that. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. It's funny because it obviously sounds exactly like Joe Rogan. And I forget who the guest was. It was something like Steve Jobs or something like [00:21:00] that. It was this conversation between them. But it just, it's, it's like seeing a computer generated person on a TV screen. In one sense, you're like, Oh, wow, look how real that looks. <Yeah.> But then you see it talk and you're like, yeah, there's just something wrong. And I, and I can't quite put my finger on it. It just doesn't look real. Well, this, fake podcast thing, the simulated podcast, it just didn't sound quite right. In one sense, it sounded incredibly like the voice of Joe Rogan or whoever, but in the way that it spoke, it's like, yeah, it's missing something.

And so again, we had this idea that, well, that'll get better over time and it will, there's some aspects of it that will get better. But I think what's going to get better is the simulation of human interaction. But it's all just a simulation. And so I, I'm skeptical about the whole consciousness leap.

David: Well, it was interesting because just last night I was watching a YouTube video and the title was 'AI generated faces recreate [00:22:00] ancient languages.' So it was interesting from that standpoint is they used AI to actually have a person speaking an ancient language.

J.R.: Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

David: But some of the video description, you know, was these people that look lifelike talking. They were kind of in their traditional, how they would look if they were ancient Greek or ancient Mayan or something like that. So on one hand it was incredible, but yeah, just as you were saying that I had the same experience that on the other hand, I'm watching it and you can tell that it's fake. You can tell that they're trying to make all these facial movements. And, you know, from the head tilting and all these, but at the same time, you can immediately pick out that that's fake. 

J.R.: Yeah, I think it's interesting that our brain can do that. 

David: So at a very deeper level, I guess, yeah, I think we're very good at spotting something that is a simulation, but it is not real. And it's interesting how actually good our brain is at that. I think you're right. 

J.R.: Yeah, well, [00:23:00] especially the face. So you can simulate the woods or, you know, a nature scene or a lake. And it really, it's all basically impossible to distinguish it from reality. <Right.> But when, when you see the faces, because we've been, we've been designed to focus on our faces convey so much information, conscious, unconscious, you know, the way we communicate. That when you have a simulation of a face, it's immediate. It's like, nope, I don't know what it is, that's not real. You know, and it's just, it's almost like an unconscious reaction to it. 

David: Yeah, and even with the tendency to say, but we're getting closer and closer. In some sense, it's like we're not because, I mean, people have been trying to do this for years and years now. <Right.> Trying to simulate the movements of the human face. And it goes back to what we kind of started out with, I guess, is that, you know, the human brain is remarkable because we are taking in millions of inputs, <Oh yeah.> every day. And we talk and interact with other people. And our brain just, [00:24:00] automatically knows the difference between <Yeah.> a computer simulated face and an actual person talking to you. <Yeah.> You know? 

J.R.: Yeah, sure. And you kind of see this with the driverless cars. You know, I don't know if you've seen all the news about the chaos that it's ... 

David: I haven't seen anything recently. 

J.R.: Well, you know, it's just in, in these cities, you know, cause these driverless cars, they test out really well. And in one way they're fascinating and you're thinking, man, this is incredible. But then these city say, okay, we're going to allow driverless taxis. And it's just, it's just chaos because you know, the, one in a million chance weird intersection, this thing just has no idea what to do. Where even a new driver would say, okay, first thing I need to do is get out of this intersection. You know what I mean? <Yeah.> Like I'm in over my skis. I shouldn't be on the freeway. You know, I'm scared, but let's get off the road. And again, the AI assisted vehicles have no, they just freeze. They just stop. You know, and they cause traffic jams and so anyway, I'm not [00:25:00] saying, yeah, I'm not saying that ...

David: I just picture of the car, you know, shutting down and then that's it. And the car, it's just done. It's done. 

J.R.: Yeah, just in the fetal position on the ground. I don't know what to do. 

David: Whatever the fetal position for a computer is. 

J.R.: Yeah. a lot of these things are going to, I'm not just picking out the worst things. I realized these are hurdles that are going to be, that we're going to get over. Yeah, but kind of the idea that the AI is going to be self aware and kill us all and take over the world. That seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

Yeah, that's another thing is AI, it looks incredibly creative, but it's not actually creative. It doesn't create anything new. You know what I'm saying? It can do some, fascinating things with the information that it has and it can make, you know, music based on a current artist or, you know, he can write new Jimi Hendrix songs or something like that, that sound like Jimi Hendrix songs, but they're not actually something new.

David: Yeah, yeah. It's still largely limited to whatever inputs and the creative process in the human [00:26:00] mind actually kind of breaks the limits of the inputs and that's where the truly creative idea comes through. So I guess it's questionable whether or not AI would ever actually create a new idea as opposed to just reordering ideas that it has processed. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So it can make music that sounds like Jimi Hendrix, but it will never be the new Jimi Hendrix or whatever that is. Right. The new genre that, emerges. I don't think it's capable of doing that. 

David: Yeah. And you can think of that in terms of the next great writer, the next great movie or something that really kind of blows your mind. I don't know that I would look to AI to actually create that. Right. The next breakthrough. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah, to some degree, like Google has all the information. Has more information than any of us, right? Yeah. Has more knowledge. But I don't see Google coming up with the new math theorem. The new, you know, that's going to take something creative. It's going to take that creative spark that we talked about , and we're going to develop [00:27:00] it from there. But Google clearly has more knowledge than any one human, but it doesn't have the creative process to come up with something new and actually innovative it. 

David: Right, yeah. I think I agree with the little that I've looked into it is what I understand. And I guess to summarize this part of it is that, yeah, this is a new technology. It can do amazing things when people start talking about what it might do in the future, it starts to, well, it starts to divide us because some people are freaked out about and others people think it's going to rescue civilization. <Yeah.> But I do think it's one of those things, I tend to agree with you that the leap between where we're at now and where we would need to get until we get to that level, <Right.> is a pretty big chasm.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. No need to panic just yet.

David: It's, yeah, it's not going to happen in the next five years. Yeah. We're going to get flying cars before, before that happens. 

J.R.: Yeah. Space travel, warp speed, you know, that's another one of those things, you know, I thought about bringing up [00:28:00] that Star Wars shows them jumping from universe to universe or solar system to solar system. And of course, scientists get on there and say, yeah, that's not how this works.

David: It doesn't happen this way.

J.R.: But even though you put it on the screen. So that's kind of my general take on AI. But at the same time, it's like you said, there's this kind of divided response to it. <Right.> It's going to save us, and this is what I'm more interested in. The idea that it's going to save us, versus the idea that it's going to destroy us. That's kind of, that's, that's a pretty wide response to it. And that's what, but that's what we see, you know. 

David: Yeah, that's the immediate reaction of a lot of people. Either this is going to save us or this is going to be the end of civilization as we know it.

Well, let's talk about for a minute this idea of, does the Bible address anything like this issue? Because that starts to be an interesting topic as well, despite your assertion that Joshua talks about Ai. 

J.R.: Yeah, we'll come back to that one. 

David: We'll get [00:29:00] back to that. Yeah. I think the immediate response for most people would be like, well, no, the Bible doesn't talk about this. <Sure.> But actually the Bible does talk about the general idea of technology and how to handle it, how to respond to it, and is it a good or bad thing? Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of interesting if we go all the way back and look at how the Bible talks about technology in general, right? <Yeah.> So I want to start out by looking at Genesis chapter four. And who would have thought that Genesis chapter four had something to say about ...

J.R.: Right in the beginning? How does that tie into 2023? Right. 

David: Well, Genesis 4:22. I just want to read this verse real quick and it'll bring up a topic that we'll build on.

So Genesis 4:22 says, "Zillah also had a son, Tubal Cain, who forged all kind of tools out of bronze and iron. Tubal Cain's sister was Nema." So just that simple verse right there. All right, what does that have to do with anything? <Right.> [00:30:00] Well, first we are introduced to this person, Tubal Cain, right? And that person is interesting for several reasons, but it says about Tubal Cain, this is the only place that's mentioned in the Bible is he forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Now that phrase right there, Tubal Cain forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron, in itself doesn't really tell us much.

J.R.: Yeah, well, we read it now and say, Oh, that's a shout out to the father of bronze and iron, right? <Right. Yeah.> Yeah. They're giving them props for, Hey, this is the guy that started all this, right? But I think it's something different.

David: You think it's something different. Yeah. So do you have, I mean, we can talk about this, but yeah. What's your initial response to what is this really talking about? 

J.R.: Okay, so, Tubal Cain is, it comes from the lineage of Cain, right? And Cain, obviously we know the story of Cain and Abel, Cain did not give the proper sacrifice, and he was cast out, and it says he built the first city.

So already there's this tie in with the progression of [00:31:00] technology. <Yes.> The, you know the tie in with all that stuff and then in his lineage, you've got Tubal Cain who sort of masters weapons of war you might say. <Right.> And so I think what it's saying is that technology in one sense is Inevitable; we're gonna continue to use technology and try to improve our world. Whether it's something like modern day, whether it's computers or back then, whether it's just the use of tools or the, building of cities. So it's inevitable, but there's also kind of a warning implied in the way this story goes.

<Yeah.> And it's almost like when you read back in Genesis, I think what it's saying about Tubal Cain is like, Hey, let's see the watch where this goes watch where this takes us. <Yeah.> Because if you go continue down the lineage of Tubal Cain you eventually get to Babel, you get to Babel and, and you get to this idea of we're gonna build our own path to God. <Right.> You know, which is interesting, but the story of Babel's [00:32:00] fascinating. It always fascinated me because I sat there and I would hear that story and think, why didn't God just say, okay, guys, have at it. Because this'll be humorous. You know, I built good luck building a tower to heaven, right? <Yeah. Yeah.> You know, it was inevitable to be doomed from the very start, right? But I think the point of the Babel story is our idea of, hey, we are going to build our own path to God. <Yes.> You know, I think that's, that's the story really, is we're gonna build our own connection to God. And that's the story of the golden calf. This is gonna be our connection to God.

<Yeah.> It's, it's, it's, the theme is seen all through the Bible. <Yeah. Yeah.> But yeah, so I think, I think that's what Tubal Cain does is it kind of leads us down a path that says, okay, technology is inevitable, but let's see where this leads, let's see where it takes the human race.

David: Right. Well, so first of all, there's, again, it's not, you don't read it in the Bible, but there is a lot of tradition that has risen up around this phrase here Tubal Cain. First of all, [00:33:00] it says he forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. Well, the story associated with this the tradition is not that he built cast iron skillets and shovels. Like, what did he build with bronze and iron, right? <Yeah.> And so there's some hints in this story and again with later tradition that what he was actually building were weapons And so, big surprise, right? A new technology comes along and how's the first way it's used?

J.R.: Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And we do that today. And this is every technology. 

David: Every, yeah, exactly. Every technology you can think of, one of the first applications is the military, right? How does the military leverage it?

J.R.: Yeah, exactly.

David: Right. And so, this actually has a tradition associated with it that this is kind of the first hint of that. <Right.> That Tubal Cain starts to develop weapons. <Right. Right.> And then you mentioned this idea of the link with the line of Cain as well. And so that tradition has also emerged with Tubal Cain.

So then [00:34:00] the next story that we get to is the Tower of Babel, which you just mentioned as well. So let me just read verses 1 through 4 of Genesis 11 real quick. "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain, Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They use brick instead of stone and tar for mortar."

So even in that phrase right there, "they use brick instead of stone and tar for mortar." Yeah, that's a new technology, right? <Yeah, yeah, that's right.> "And then they said, let us build ourselves a city." And you had mentioned that idea that Cain develops really the first city. "With a tower that reaches to heaven, so we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise, we will be scattered all over the face of the earth." Okay, so that's the first four verses. So even in there, there's some hints that new technology is being applied and you were getting at this with the [00:35:00] lessons of Babel to rival God.

J.R.: Right, right, right. Well, the technology is used to take our own future and our own destiny into our own hands.

David: Right, yeah, you could say it makes the future more certain.

J.R.: Right, yeah, and that we can remove the unpredictability of nature and we can make it more predictable. You know, and and that's sort of, you know, and what you're saying earlier is that all these technologies that don't make the mistake of thinking that any new technology is going to solve, you know, we say all the world's problems, but even a huge amount of the world's problems, right? You know, I was listening to something about the printing press. And if you go back to the printing press, Luther was all for the printing press and all for the mass production of Bibles, you know, so that the common man could learn the Bible and things like that. And it turns out that the very first books that were put on the printing press were flyers between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church sort of[00:36:00] dogging each other, going at each other, you know, over theology.

And then the other thing that was printed on the very first printing presses was books on how to spot witches. And so, and so you think about that, you know, you're like, well would you rather read the book about theology or the book about witches, you know, or something like that. And so, yeah, so it's, so I go back to this idea of this binary response of AI is going to save us versus AI is the end of the world.

And we've kind of said, look, I don't think AI is, going to be self con-, I'm not that worried about the whole end of the world thing. But at the same time, don't think for one second that it's gonna save us. <Right.> That it's gonna be the answer. You know, if you're one of those that says this is gonna answer all our problems, then I, I think you're, that's the golden calf. <Yeah. Yeah.> That, that, you know, that's the idol that you're creating, <yeah.> you know. 

David: And that's really, I think what the Bible is trying to say with even these couple examples. And there's a lot more examples of where, you know, as things progress in the Old Testament, a new [00:37:00] technology comes along. And there always seems to be a warning with, like you said, it's inevitable, but at the same time be careful how it's applied and used. <Right.> And that's like we said, that's the danger with any new technology. <Sure. Yeah.> You know, we've talked about how the internet makes it so that everything is at your fingertips, right? We're way smarter, right? Well, it turns out that we actually are terrible at memorizing things now. <Yeah, absolutely.> Because there's no need to, right? 

J.R.: Sure. And I think that's the article that I wrote on the website, The Sacrifice of Knowledge for Attention. <Right.> And so we have knowledge at our fingertips. We have more knowledge than probably the smartest philosophers as far as data, you know, of kings of the past. But we've got no attention. We don't think about anything for very long. We don't, we don't ponder anything, you know. 

And that's why that whole TikTok phenomenon, and we talked about this off the podcast, talked about you know, we jump on reels or TikTok and it's just like, it grabs our attention and [00:38:00] they're eight second videos, you know, and how, man, how addicting those stupid things are. You just want to swipe them and swipe to the next one. See the next video of the monkey doing the funny thing. <Yeah.> And how that can just suck away our time. It sucks away our attention. And then we're surprised that we can't sit down for a, a 30 minute podcast or, you know. 

David: Or a 30 minute message and ...

J.R.: Yeah. And why our debates are concentrated down to, you know, we got three minutes 

David: Soundbites. That's the key. Yeah. To 30 seconds. Just get a soundbite. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. 30 seconds you and then 30 seconds response. And we just have no - <yeah.> we can't get into the depth of anything or the nuance of anything. <Yeah.> Because we don't have the attention to stick with it. 

David: Yeah. So the Bible does have some interesting things to say about how technology can either be used for good and the cautions that go along with it. And I would say in general the Bible recognizes that technology is a double edged sword.

J.R.: Sure. Yeah.

David: The other interesting tie in here is there's some Greek myths that have also [00:39:00] been related to this idea of someone like a Tubal Cain becomes this kind of archetypal figure who creates a technology and then gives it to people and those people start developing cities and weapons and things like that. <Right.> And probably the closest story in Greek mythology about this is the myth of Prometheus.

J.R.: Yeah, the Promethean fire. 

David: Yeah, the Promethean fire, right? Okay, so the short story is, is that Prometheus is one of the gods, and at that time, humans... We're kind of like animals in the myth, right? They just kind of went around, did their thing. And Zeus had forbidden them - and there's different variations of the story - but Zeus didn't allow divine fire to be on earth. <Right.> And Prometheus, some of his motivations for doing so are mixed. You'll hear different versions again. But Prometheus decides that humans need fire. And so behind Zeus's back, he [00:40:00] takes this divine fire and he gives it to humans.

Now, along with this, he actually also teaches humans other things. He teaches them art and music. And very much in this myth, the fire represents , I've heard it called like the divine spark in humans. <Yeah.> That suddenly make them, well, we could say it makes them aware, it makes them conscious, it gives them agency.

J.R.: Creativity. Yeah, all those things.

David: All that. And so, Prometheus is kind of the person who gives technology to humans and gives them that divine spark that made us who we are today. <Right.> And then of course, Zeus gets upset about it. And Zeus what does he do? He ...

J.R.: Doesn't, he doesn't, he get his liver eaten out every day?

David: He chains Prometheus, yes, to a rock and every day he gets his liver eaten by a vulture or a crow and it regenerates every night so he can go through the same torture again the next day, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, so that's pretty rough. 

David: That's pretty harsh. So he's chained to [00:41:00] this rock forever condemned to have his liver chewed out every day, until Heracles rescues him. <Okay.> So that's the story of Prometheus. So the bigger story of Prometheus, though, is this idea that he's the one who provided human beings with, we can say technology, right?

J.R.: Yeah, that's right.

David: Technology, the divine spark, all these things we've been talking about. So the myth itself creates a bit of this dilemma about, you know, what are human beings going to do with the technology that we've given to us. And in the Greek mind, was it meant to be given to us? <Right.> Technology very much like comes from Mount Olympus, right? It comes from the gods.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right.

David: And then the question is, okay, so what are we going to do with it?

J.R.: Right. It's reminiscent of the Babel story.

David: Yeah, yeah. Are we going to use it to equate ourselves to God? <Right.> Are we just going to use it to make life better for ourselves? So it's interesting that even in this story of Prometheus, you see kind of the same warnings that you see in the Old Testament when it comes to the introduction of new [00:42:00] technology.

J.R.: Yeah, the ancient tension between new ideas and the ability for it to be both good and bad. <Yeah, yeah.> You know, and again, it goes back to this concept of certainly it's not going to be again, I don't think it's going to be completely destructive, but also don't make the mistake of thinking that it's going to solve <Right.> major problems, right? It's going to come with its own problem. <Sure.> We see it in the internet. We see it in every new fantastic technology and and the good might outweigh the bad, but just don't be so foolish to think that there's not going to be the bad. 

David: Well, I think the internet is a good example because I can still remember the first time I saw this thing called the internet. You know, and we've had it for about 20 years now. <Right.> Of course, the promise was how long much smarter it's going to make us. All the things it's going to deliver. But, I think you can rightly question whether or not some of the benefits of it have been not so good, especially social media. 

Social media is the same thing, right? So it has the ability to [00:43:00] connect us to stay for us to stay connected in communities with people. But at the same time, we are connecting in person less and less. And so it's almost giving us this false sense of, I have all these friends, I have all these connections, but if I actually am put in front of someone else, I kind of babble and I don't know what to say.

J.R.: Yeah, which is why the tie in to social media corresponds to the rise in mental health problems in young people. You know, I mean, it's just such an obvious connection between the two. 

David: Yeah. So I think we're seeing this play out with the internet right now. We're about 20 years into it. We're still trying to figure out what it does to our brain? How to best utilize it? When to turn it off, when to push it to the side, right, when to utilize it? And I kind of see those same things, tensions that are going to be present with AI as well. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay. So let's go back to the idea of agency because you've got this wonderful technology in the internet. [00:44:00] And what is it? Something like 70 percent of the internet data traffic is porn.

David: It's something absurd. 

J.R.: It's yeah, it's crazy. And so we've got this opportunity, but it comes to down to our agency. And yeah, if I want to use this fantastic information at my fingertips, information on my phone. I can choose it to either learn something new or I can choose to watch porn. And we kind of see the way man utilizes the fire that we've been given, right? <Yeah.> I see a lot of good. You see a lot of evil. And again, it comes back to that idea of agency. That's what we choose to do. And every technology has the, like you said, the double edged sword to it.

David: It is kind of an interesting picture from, I guess, more of a mythic level of any new technology is almost like the divine fire that's tossed in the middle of humans. And let's just sit back and see what they do with this. <Right.> See how fast they start burning themselves and, you know, burning their structures down.

J.R.: Yeah, exactly.

David: Even though these [00:45:00] people over here are cooking their food now and they're, you know, using it for wonderful things. Like, just give them time. They'll mess it up. 

J.R.: Yeah, you see the good from it, but you see the bad also. <Yeah, yeah.> Everything has that component to it. 

David: I was actually reading something just yesterday, and I knew we were going to be talking about this topic, and I thought, man, this is good wisdom for this topic as well. And this is a 19th century Russian monastic. His name is Theophan the Recluse. <Okay.> And he wrote a book called Unseen Warfare, and there are a couple of quotes in there. As soon as I read him, I thought, yep, this applies to new technology, right? Again, 19th century Russian living out in the middle of nowhere. Hence the name Recluse.

"The reason why we have wrong judgment of things is that we do not look deeply into them to see what they are. But we conceive a liking for them or a dislike for them from the very first glance, judging by appearances." So there he's talking about the snap judgment of things that we're [00:46:00]encountering for the first time, right? And then he goes on he says " The passion in relation to this thing reaches its ultimate limits so that it appears to a man either as the most desirable or the most hateful of all things that he has ever liked or disliked."

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought that was that binary response. 

David: There's that binary response. Yeah, so here we see this 19th century recluse warning about making snap judgments about something you don't know much about right? <Right.> And then he finishes off by saying, "Otherwise we may sin in taking for evil what is truly good and good what is truly evil." Now, that's interesting, too.

J.R.: Oh that is yeah, that is.

David: So we say this thing, well, this is the best thing to ever happen to us. And maybe it's truly evil.

J.R.: Yeah, not so fast. 

David: Or the reverse. We go, this is completely evil. This is the end of the world. This is, you know, anti scripture. And actually, if we understand how to use it right, [00:47:00] it could be a very beneficial thing for humanity. That's kind of how I read these quotes. 

J.R.: Well, you and I remember sermons about credit cards, you know. The evil of credit cards. You remember? I mean, I don't know if you remember some of these. I just remember sitting there thinking, oh wow, this is interesting biblical take on credit cards, you know.

David: I'm never getting a credit card.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, but you can kind of take you again you can have this over exaggerated response one way or another toward any new technology. And you know, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. But the reason the answer is somewhere in the middle is because we have agency to choose to use it in a positive way or a negative way. You know, we can get in the car and we can get somewhere faster or we can do doughnuts and hit people and be dead. <Yeah.> Be a danger to society. <Yeah.> And so that's why I think that all these technologies kind of lie in the middle, is because of our ability to choose one way or another.

David: Right. It's hard to think of a technology that's pure evil, I guess you would say.

J.R.: I know. I'd have to think about it.

David: Yeah. [00:48:00] There's probably something, you know, even something like the nuclear bomb. Well, you could make an, well, it comes from nuclear energy.

J.R.: Yeah, you got nuclear power and sure.

David: And then, you know, the ability to, well, defend yourself or, or be a deterrent, right? At least in theory. But yeah, it was hard to think of a technology that's purely bad, I guess.

J.R.: Yeah, or good.

David: Or good, yeah.

J.R.: I mean, I'm trying to think of something too.

David: I think all this falls into the category of - I like your idea of, we can't forget that we have agency. We have the choice on how we use these things, how we participate in them, to what extent we allow them to control our lives.

J.R.: Yeah, and I have the tendency to kind of be dramatic on the other side. Because I love all this. I love technology. I love, you've obviously known me, I've always loved stereos and I've loved the newer TV and the louder, you know, so I get into all this stuff. I love all this stuff. I've loved computers since you know, since the 80s and 90s. I used to build them. So I kind of get [00:49:00] into all this kind of stuff. 

David: Did you have a Radio Shack Tandy computer? 

J.R.: I did. Yeah, a Tandy, sure. Yeah, that's right. I used to write programs and put them on tape. Yeah, that's right. We jumped into this kind of stuff. <Yeah.> So. I say this as somebody who's not afraid of technology, who actually loves the idea of chatGBT, and I love all this kind of stuff, and I tend to embrace it. But at the same time, yeah, I have to throttle myself back about saying, look, this is not going to be the greatest of all things. This is not going to be you know, and I've thought of, I mean, in the context of A. I. I've thought, man, wouldn't that be cool to be able to simulate our loved ones that have passed and have conversations with them? And, you know, I can see all this kind of crazy, kind of cool, kind of scary ideas, you know? <Yeah> So I'm like I said, I embrace it but at the same time, yeah, I've got to dial myself back and say, okay, this is not gonna be the the game changer you think it's gonna be.

David: Yeah, so [00:50:00] Theophan the Recluse would say to you, beware of saying this is the best thing ever. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. Dude, the driverless cars is going to be the best thing ever. That really will be. 

David: When we get there.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right, man.

David: It seems like we're hitting a little bit of a setback though. Because a couple years ago, we all thought that this was just right around the corner. And then it kind of, I don't know, it kind of died out. 

J.R.: Well, the implied leap again, you know.

David: That's true.

J.R.: Yeah, it's not, the greatest answer and it's running into its own problems. So, right. 

David: Well, the other thing, we can start to wrap this up, but the other thing that I think that's going on is my opinion, and I don't rush to the new technology like you do, although I'm kind of a fan of chat GPT and, you know, interested to see where it goes.

J.R.: But you still don't have a VR headset.

David: I do not have it. 

J.R.: I've tried to turn you on to that. I know, I know. There you go. One of these days. 

David: Well, one of the other concerns that I think is going on here is I think the more our modern rational scientific minds reject the divine and the spiritual realm. <Yeah.> [00:51:00] I think we actually try to replace it with some of this new technology.

J.R.: No, I think you're exactly right.

David: I, on the way up here to the cabin, I was listening to a podcast and this guy was talking about AI, just an off handed comment, but really quick. But his comment was how he thinks this is actually going to solve a lot of the world's problems. And when I hear stuff like that, I just start to get a little wary, you know? Like, how many times have we thought the new technology is going to solve all the world's problems and, you know, create a utopia here on earth? <Right. Yeah.> And that's where I think as Christians we need to step back and say, There's not gonna be utopia on earth.

J.R.: No. Yeah. Yeah. That's, you realize that from the beginning, and so it tempers your response to some of these fantastic and amazing technologies. <Yeah, yeah.> That, yeah, it's not like gonna fix everything. 

David: Yeah. It's <Right.> And watch it go off the rails as fast as it starts to bring good to the world, you know?

J.R.: Yeah, no, absolutely. 

David: Like there's always [00:52:00] gonna be that. 

J.R.: Yeah. One of the things that I think is interesting about AI, and if you listen to podcasts of the developers and things like that, what you'll hear them say is that there's this, there's this kind of black box they really don't understand. And this is where the fear comes in. They don't exactly understand what's going on - this is specifically chat GPT that they don't quite understand exactly what it's doing because it's not following a perfect algorithm, you know what I'm saying? <Yeah> And so I do think it's interesting that we're in this time where ancient myths, Biblical stories, the supernatural, the spiritual, we sort of roll our eyes to that kind of stuff as quackery. And that's what, you know, the old, the ancients thought. We're a little bit more scientific than that. But yet we still kind of are voyaging into this domain where we don't know what's going on with the AI, but we're going to trust it. You know what I'm saying? You know, it's like, this is a good thing.

David: No, I, yeah, I actually thought you were going to go a [00:53:00] different direction with that, which I think is fascinating of that the more we get into this technology, the more we have a tendency to distance ourselves from the ancient world. But then when we get into something like you were just talking about, this black box of we don't know what's happening. <Yeah.> You can almost see people turning back <Yeah.> to some of the ancient mindset to think... 

J.R.: Yeah, suddenly we embrace mystery.

David: Yeah, yeah. Maybe there's something they knew that we don't. Maybe there's something like they had an explanation for this and you know 50 years ago, we were laughing at it. But now we're going, well, maybe they had some insights. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's starting to make some sense. <Yeah.> Yeah, that's exactly right. So yeah, so that's the question is is this gonna turn us back to Spirituality? Yeah, I mean ...

David: I think it has the potential. In fact, we'll actually get into this on the third episode of this, but I think there are other forces that are actually causing people [00:54:00] to reconnect with the ancient mindset - to reconnect with spirituality. So I won't give away that whole episode, but I do think I do think you're right. I think any kind of new technology like this, almost with all the uncertainty, almost has people reaching back for some kind of explanation of the mystery. 

J.R.: Yeah, absolutely. <Right?> And I think so. And this is, truly a positive, I think with AI: the idea of reaching back is. See right now I would tell my daughter, Hey, don't go out with a guy who asks you over text, right? It's like, you want face to face and all this kind of stuff. Well, you know, that would have been my advice five, six years ago. And I think in just a few years the daughters of the world would look at their dads and say, yeah, duh, of course I'm not going to go out with a text because who knows if this is AI, who knows what this guy's like. So, the more we kind of blur the lines between what's real and what's generated, what's fake, [00:55:00] like the things we see on TV.

I mean, if you and I saw a video just a few years ago of something crazy, we would assume, Oh man, that's nuts. That's real. That was really recorded. <Yeah.> And now you look at it and it's like, who knows? I don't know if it's generated. I don't know. And so what it's going to do, I think is it's actually going to draw us back, not only to the spiritual and the mystical, but I think it'll draw us back to face to face. <Yes.> Yeah, the most valuable communication is going to be face to face because I don't know whether you're texting me using an AI assisted robot in order to communicate a certain message. I need to talk to you face to face so I know. So it's not, it's, it's unfiltered. It's, that's what you are. This is who you are. I think we're going to have a resurgence of that, which is what we were concerned with what social media has done, is it's kind of distanced us. <Sure.> You know, it puts up this fake, alternate reality of all you see is my vacations and my good times. And you just assume that I'm just living the [00:56:00] greatest life.

And so it causes depression and fear of missing out and all these things that we talk about that actually divide us. I think that AI and blurring the lines of reality is actually going to create a yearning for the real, for the face to face. 

David: Yeah, I do too. And I think that, that's where I think people of faith, Christians can take the lead. If we develop an ethic right now around how do we use A. I. And then understanding some of the dangers, right? <Right.> And then creating that alternative, right? <Yeah.> So the more we get into AI, the more you actually need to stay connected to real people and real relationships, right? <Right.> The more the virtual world develops, it's even more important to stay grounded in actual <Yeah.> people and conversations. The more we present ourselves as perfect on social media, the more you actually need to have people in your life that see all your rough edges, right?

J.R.: Yeah, and can ground you. 

David: Yeah, and I kind [00:57:00] of envision, that's where I hope people of faith really take this, is we don't write it off. We don't live in fear of it, we don't maybe run headlong into it. But as a people maybe we can be the ones to step back and say, Here's the good, here's the bad, here's how we need to utilize it, here's how we need to limit it, here's some of the boundaries we can put, and here's the alternative to the deficits that maybe come with a new technology.

Does that make sense? 

J.R.: Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I think the deficits you talk about are going to be more and more self evident. <Yeah.> Because we're gonna see people that are extreme on either side. Oh, we're all yeah Yeah, and and and we're already kind of experiencing this with social media. We're experiencing I mean think about the video game phenomenon, you know You and I kind of grew up in the first video games. <Yeah.> You couldn't save games. You couldn't pause them, you just played them, you know, so it was like whatever.

David: If you start a game It was a commitment <right> because there was no saving it and coming back later. 

J.R.: It was just, it's [00:58:00] 7, 8 years later that it's, it's this epidemic of grown men in their mom's basements playing video games. You know, it's just, it's this terrible thing, right? You know, and again, when we have a chance to see these extremes, I think it creates in us a yearning for something a little bit more real. <Yeah.> Even though we're going to see people go down the road the wrong way and see people make the wrong decisions.

You're right. I think as Christians, if we can have the sense to say: This technology isn't the end of the world and it's not the answer to all things. <Right.> But I do think it has the opportunity to bring us together in a positive way. And, rely on the real, rely on the face to face, rely on the genuine interactions that we have face to face. And I think the more phony stuff there is out there, the more it draws us back to wanting the real thing. <Yeah, yeah.> 

Yeah. Just to wrap it up. I think that the simulation is fascinating. Putting on that VR headset, it really is kind of mind blowing. [00:59:00] But at the same time you have these kind of simulated fake things in your life. I think that also over time creates a yearning for something real and it draws us back to the real thing.

David: Right. Yeah. No, totally agree. The internet and AI, you know, can recreate these things, can simulate them. But I think one of our proper responses is it should create a desire for the real thing. You know, I think of travel, like I can look at <Yeah.> travel videos and VR simulations and yeah, recreations of ancient Rome. <Yeah.> But really it makes me just want to go there.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

David: And another example I just thought of and then we can wrap this up is you know, just I went to a John Mayer concert and there was this incredible moment with this song that happened in the concert. And I was showing you the video <right> of it because it's already posted to YouTube of course. And one of my warnings to you [01:00:00] was, This will give you an idea of that moment, but it cannot recreate that moment.

J.R.: Right, yeah, that's right.

David: And that's that getting back to the real, right?

J.R.: Right. Yeah, that's right.

David: You had to go experience that. I, I still have my question about whether or not AI or anything like that could recreate a moment like that or just like here, don't don't think we're sitting there looking at the mountains and the sunset.

J.R.: Well, I thought, well, I thought about that when I pulled up to the cabin. I came a couple years ago. I remember it. I have memories of it. I have pictures of it. But when I walked up on the porch and looked out over the lake and the mountains and the autumn leaves changing It just took it took my breath away.

Yeah, you know and it's like this is real. This is what you know, and you just can't - and of course like I always do I pull out my phone. Send a picture to my wife say, "hey, look where i'm at." You know? <Yeah> It just doesn't do it any justice and we've talked about that in another podcast. So yeah, you're right I think it should draw us back to the real because I think that's what we, that's what our soul actually yearns for. <Yeah.> So hopefully we see all this kind of turning back to the spirituality [01:01:00] that we've sort of, that the scientific revolution, sort of made us roll our eyes at and scoff at a little bit. But I think we may be seeing it turning. At least that's the hope. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah It's one potential future that I think is a good one and people of faith can actually lead the way in that I think so.

J.R.: Yeah. Yep. 

David: Well cool, Interesting discussion. It's always a fascinating topic and if you all have any thoughts about that, we'd love to hear your feedback as well. You can join our Facebook group. Give us your thoughts. You can go to the website. There's a contact page there. So there's different ways to contact us. Next episode we're going to talk about aliens. 

J.R.: Aliens, dude. I can't wait for that one either. I told you I embrace all this stuff. Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster. I love it all. 

David: Yeah, so same question, I guess. What does the Bible have anything to say about aliens? And the answer might surprise you. 

J.R.: Yeah, the wheel in the wheel, man, right? We'll wait, we'll do that next time.

David: Alright, talk to you all next episode. 

J.R.: We'll see ya.