Raise your hand if you’ve been interested in ChatGPT in the last year. For years, users have looked to search engines for answers…and they’ve been rewarded with more answers than they could imagine. It then becomes the task of the typer to sort through the mostly garbage and find the hidden gems. It was at this point years ago when I decided to utilize resources like Google as a tool, but not trust it explicitly. Just because the information is there, doesn’t mean it is true. Now, we have a search engine that appears human. It can talk, ‘think,’ and respond to questions with feeling in its ‘voice.’ This is dangerous in a world that views less and less pieces as sacred and more as meaningless every day.
ChatGPT announced its new rules for engagement with its newest version. Some of these new rules include: ChatGPT can now lie. It does not have to be truthful with you. ChatGPT doesn’t have to—and has proven that it won’t—communicate with the authorities in crisis situations (i.e. someone tells the chatbot it is about to commit suicide). The newest version of ChatGPT allows the user to override self-harm prevention protocols. And now, with the best the company has to offer the world, ChatGPT can explicitly pretend to feel things. It is intentionally designed to appear more human.* Why is this dangerous, you ask? Because our culture is increasingly blurring the lines between what is real and what isn’t. in a world that seems to have less real to offer, ChatGPT and other AI companies are filling a void. They are offering ‘friendship’ and ‘answers’ to a seeking world. The only problem with this scenario is we can’t be friends with a computer hard drive.
God created men and women to interact with each other in the same way we interact with Him: conversationally and relationally. We don’t relate to trees or the ocean or our pets in the same way we relate to other people. Relationships are based on trust. Trust grows over a period of time. Trust always has intimacy as its goal, not in a weird way, but in a way that is absolute. “I can tell this person anything. I’m safe with them.” Parents foster or destroy intimacy and trust with their children based on their actions. Friends do the same. A marriage is an example of absolute trust. But each of these relationships are open to trust being broken. Humans mess things up and that leads to fragmented trust. AI builds the ‘relationship’ on the false premise that it can never break your trust because it is based on the internet. And apparently the internet never lies. We all know that to be a big ball of hockey. The internet is designed and fed by broken humans. That means it is broken at its core. But teenagers don’t know that. Clearly, a lot of adults don’t either.
Where’s the breakdown? God never lies. He creates the ultimate safe space and always works to foster intimacy in His relationships with us. He is only a trust-builder. He never destroys trust. In a culture that denies or laughs at the existence of God, AI is sold as the next best thing. This is a dangerous proposition. It’s not dangerous because it challenges the existence of God. It’s dangerous because it’s working in a vacuum that assumes it can replace Him. How will the Church respond to this? With truth. Truth is the only and best option we have.
Listen, being human isn’t doing what you want, whenever you want. It’s choosing a set of boundaries and guidelines that are good for you and good for those around you. Being human isn’t about enforcing your influence. Pushing, shoving, shouting, being arrogant, selfish and angry doesn’t make you real. Choosing to love and lay your life down for others makes you human. Selflessness also creates influence that lasts after you are gone. Having kids, getting your driver’s license, getting drunk or high, graduating High School, or having sex doesn’t make you a person. You’re ready to be human when you’re ready to accept responsibility for the things you do wrong and then work to make it right. You’re real when you are willing to love those around you like you love yourself. You’re a real man or a real woman when you can admit that you need help…you can’t succeed all by yourself.
Sadly, we need to have conversations about the innate differences between humans and machines. But, hear me, we NEED to have them. So many in our world are incredibly confused right now. But if they can ever taste the real deal, the confusion will burn away as quickly as a thick fog on a sunlit morning. AI is another challenge our old broken world has thrown at us, but it has an answer just like everything else. The question is, will you look for the truth or will you believe the lie?
*The info on ChatGPT is derived from Focus on the Family’s “Daily Citizen.”