Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe?

The new opportunities and potential of artificial intelligence are making waves in the digital world even as many of us are busy working in our gardens in the world of nature. We can ignore AI tools like ChatGPT, but they will impact our families and farms directly or indirectly whether we like it or not, the same way the internet and cell phones have. It is important that we understand the technology,  it's ramifications, and intentionally engage or disengage from it so that we avoid negative consequences and view it as the powerful tool that it is. My friend, Kevin, joins me on the show today to discuss how we as Christians should view any new technology like this and how we should respond to it. The AI generated picture that he created for a project with his boys is the artwork for this episode. Pretty crazy. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome to the Redeeming the Dirk podcast. This is Noah Sanders. Glad you could join us today. I've been in the space uh, you know, the last couple years after um stepping back from full-time commercial small-scale vegetable farming to focusing a lot on farm education and teaching people about not only how to grow some of their own food, but how to do it in a way that um helps us to learn more about God and learn more about his creation and disciple other people and build relationships. And uh and so through that journey, uh, you know, a big part of um kind of the space that we have engaged people in is uh using technology online, talking to people about that. And really, if you talk to a lot of the people that are in the homesteading space and the gardening space, uh YouTube University is like where everybody learns all the stuff about farming. So it's amazing how we're kind of going back to the basics and one on one hand of learning how to steward God's creation, plant seeds in the ground, eat stuff that grows in our backyard, and just like get to know our neighbors. Um and and on the other hand, though, we're using these incredible technologies that have not, you know, were not around in previous generations. Uh, and so it's been interesting to kind of think about how do we engage with that kind of stuff, how do we benefit from the amazing uh, you know, opportunities we have to connect with people, to communicate with people, to have access to information from all over the world. Um, and how do we keep at the same time be aware of the risks that come with that? Um, and you know, whether it's from wasting time or you know, bad information or uh just spending all of our time consuming information of actually going out and doing stuff. Uh so I think as the church, it's important for us to understand how to engage with technology. Technology does uh nowadays play a big part in agriculture, both in uh you know, the large-scale commercial, uh industrial kind of farming of agriculture with all the GPS systems and genetic engineering and all that, and and the ethical dilemmas that come along with those things. But also, like I just mentioned, uh even the small-scale backyard farmers, we're all engaged in technology as well. And a big part of how we garden, how we farm, how we think about it, uh, the way that probably most of y'all are listening to this podcast is on an iPhone or an Android phone out doing something else, right? And uh so uh understanding, though, how to do that well and how to engage in that well as the church, as Christians, not just going along with the flow, but thinking of um, you know, carefully, uh, allowing God to shape the way that we think about things, not just uh uh adopting or assuming the perspectives or the habits of our culture, um, and understanding that you know a godless perspective uh tends to not be um one that uh promotes or uh fosters truth and health and life in these kind of things, um, even though it may promise that. So I a few uh weeks ago, I think, or maybe about a month ago, a friend of mine, Kevin, who has been in the tech space for a while and also is in the agriculture space and the discipleship space, uh, we were uh he sent me an email uh asking what my thoughts were about kind of the new up-and-coming um realm and sphere of artificial intelligence and how that's kind of come on the scene and changed a lot of uh the tech world and the ramifications of that, both for the opportunities um that it presents and also the dangers it presents and just like what is it and all that kind of stuff and how we should think about that as Christians. So we thought about well, it'd be great to have a podcast to discuss this because our heart is we want to equip the church, we want to equip our own kids and our families to know how to think about things like artificial intelligence AI and and how to what what are what's our perspective of that? How do we engage with it? What you know, and uh these things are very new, so it's it's not something that we we can have figured out right away, but it's important, I guess, uh, for us to have these conversations. So, Kevin, I want to welcome you to the show and thank you so much for joining us today to talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Thanks for having me, Noah. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah, so can you just give us a brief uh background, a little bit about yourself and uh kind of your family and then kind of why you're interested in this topic?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, sure. So I've been, like Noah said, in the tech world since college in 2008, um, doing a lot of web development. And uh I now have a family um with four boys growing up about Noah's kid's age. And um, we've been enjoying uh learning how to farm from Noah and and it's been a lot of fun. So we're just kind of we're doing ministry here in Tennessee, so that's where the discipleship piece comes in. And so we're doing a little bit of farming, a little bit of discipleship, a little bit of technology. Um, at least I'm doing the technology um here in here in Tennessee.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

So that's awesome. So uh AI is one of those things that I've kind of heard about in the past. Um, and it wasn't until after uh around Christmas my brothers were like, Have you heard about these new chat bot kind of things? You know, and and so they started showing me some stuff on their phone, you know, like write a poem about how amazing Noah's left big toe is, you know, kind of thing. And so it's kind of cool. And it's funny because uh we had some farmer friends of ours that were uh staying with us at the time and they came in the room. I was like, hey, look, you know, we started talking to them about it. And it's funny because you know, in the farming world, all of us talk about AI, but that's artificial insemination, that's how you read cows, you know, without a bull. And so they were a bit confused for a while, like, what in the world are y'all? And they're like, Okay, gotcha. Not that kind, the the other kind of the other AI. So for for those of us who aren't in that sphere where we kind of see how that's you know, um rocking a bit of the the online space, or maybe we've heard about it, but we don't understand like what is this? What is this? How is this different from Siri? You know, what is the deal with um kind of the new this new thing that's on the internet called you know artificial intelligence in the way that we're engaging with it right now?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah, so we've we've had artificial different levels of artificial intelligence with us for a while now, um, but there's kind of a a different um a difference now that it's more readily available. Um, people, you know, chat GPT is the is by far the most popular uh large language uh model AI that there is right now. And you know, I think it was in five days they got a hundred million users on their platform. So it's just like an incredibly massive uh step in the AI realm. So everybody's getting involved. There's developers like myself who are getting around there, tinkering around and thinking about ways they could use it and how could they build websites without having a developer or design things without having a designer and you know, things like that. And it's all very fascinating. Um, but I I would equate what we're about to step into in the next five, 10, 15 years as like pre-internet versus post-internet or pre-iPhone versus post-iPhone. Um, it's gonna shape everything we do. Um, and in some industries, it already has been shaping uh and will continue to shape those even more so. But it's very, very uh hot topic in the in the web world right now, where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

So give us like a practical example of something that Chat GPT can do, or maybe talk a little bit about some of the imaging stuff that it can do. Like it's it's it's it's it's just hard to sometimes wrap your head around what these the new capabilities of this stuff is versus just computing power, like we've kind of been used to it in the past, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Sure. So basically what chat GPT is now I'll I'll start by saying there are different versions of AI that are made to do different tasks. Um so you could have like you've you've done you've done the little um are you a real human check where you're like click all the light uh you know, the stoplights in this picture to log in or something like that. That's a version of AI type usage. Um but um the difference with this is a large language model, they've basically given it loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of text so that it can almost predict what would be the smartest next word to have in a conversation. So I can start the conversation with Chat GPT and say, I want you to act like a Christian apologist and give me the top reasons why I should be a Christian. And then it would take what I've given it and predict what it should say about that topic. And it's actually way smarter than, you know, I say smarter, it's way more effective than they were originally expecting it to be, which I think is why all the hubbub has gotten uh, you know, why it's gotten kind of crazy recently. But um so you can do simple things like uh, you know, write me a poem, like you said, or uh you can paste in a a few paragraphs of text and say, can you summarize this for me? Or what's what's this person's view on that? Um the other day I um wanted to watch a video, but it was like an hour long, and so I found a somebody who built a website off of Chat GPT that could take the subtitles and and put it into GPT Chat GPT and then summarize the video for you. So, you know, and it would summarize every five minutes of the video for you, and you could read through the summary. Um so things like that super useful um in a lot of ways. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

And I think the uh the imaging side of the AI is very fascinating to me as well. I know my I think it was my brother-in-law that was telling me about how you know just crazy things like taking two historical, you know, pieces of art and saying, like, tell me what like uh is is to the right of this picture, you know, and like continue the picture over here or connect these two pieces of art and that kind of thing. And it's not like they're just finding an image that you know exists and then they're you know kind of filling in the blank, but they're really creating something completely new with the existing information that it has that uh is you know pretty mind-boggling when we think about what level of effort and creativity that would take an individual human being to do the same thing, and especially given the uh same amount of time that it can do it in.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, for sure. There's a program, uh a website called Mid Journey, um, that I've been playing with a little bit. And um I I have four boys and I like to write things for them and things, and I was like, oh, it'd be cool to have like an image that I could use, kind of like an art piece that I could use at the beginning of this thing that I want to give them, this field guide or something like that. And so I said, um, you know, I gave it the prompt. In I picked out a couple of artists that I liked, and I said, in the style of these two artists, show me a picture of four boys backpacking on a mountain bike on a mountain trail. And the image that it came up with was like stunning. It was beautiful. I would I've shown some of my artist friends that without telling them that it was AI, and they're like, Oh, wow, that's amazing. It's so beautiful. And then I tell them it was AI, and they're like, What? This is crazy. So it's it's really fascinating where we've come with technology. It's got a lot of implications, I think, on the creative side um that we could go into too. But um, yeah, it's it's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

So I think there's you know, part of my rustic kind of uh simplistic side of me that loves, you know, quill and ink wells, you know, quill pens and ink wells and like all that stuff. And then also that uh um when you see you know so many crazy stuff like this going on today, just kind of be a bit like dismissive, not dismissive, but check out or be a bit like freaked out and just not want to engage kind of thing. But it's helpful as you're as you're sharing with this to kind of be like it is just you know an uh um you know a very powerful tool because of the amount of the ability we have to process data today that we didn't in the past, where you know these programs can um handle vast amounts of data and use that to be able to compile answers to things that you know we request from it. Um, but what would you say as far as people like how should people view this? I mean, it's you know, you have kind of on one hand, people think it's the greatest thing ever, and on the other hand, people are, you know, think it's gonna take over the world and you know replace humans. So what kind of uh you know advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, sure. So I I think there's this conception for one that some people believe that it's actually intelligent, um, but it just it seems intelligent, and there are levels at which you're like at some point you realize, okay, it's not real, or like this isn't as good as a human could have done it, or something like that. Um so there are things like that. Um but um but I want I want everybody to know that it it's not at this point, it's not like actually thinking, if that makes sense. Um it's not like making decisions on its own. You can give it a task and it can start doing those tasks as if it would had a mind of its own, but it's just logically thinking about you, you know, using the context of language itself to kind of determine what might be uh its best guess of what to do next or something like that. So um we're not at the point where it it has its own mind and can make its own decisions and and um you know start taking over your kids on its own. But there's another side to it that um, you know, if not used well, if if you just put it in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use it, it could be very dangerous and risky um and and misleading. And they they do what they can to make it not give you bad information or um not tell you lies and things like that. But they're it can easily go down a rabbit hole of of you know, it's like a slippery slope towards uh some destination that uh that uh you shouldn't be at, you know, pretty easily. Um but uh that's kind of you kind of guide it that way. Uh you can you can guide it that way if you wanted to. Uh and so that's uh a danger. But what really what it's pushed me to do is to say is to realize like, wow, if we're depending on like I need to know what truth is more than ever now, um, because the content that I start reading or the images that I start seeing, or even the videos that I start watching, like pretty soon um like it's gonna be computer generated, or you know, like um it might look like somebody, but it's it's not that person talking, or um and so if I don't have a real grounding in truth, um I it's gonna be so easy for me to be uh um deceived. You know, it says it says in the end times, many will be deceived and many will have cold hearts and their hearts will grow cold. And uh that's another big danger to this is that they have, you know, what's what would be easier to go out and find a friend and to develop a relationship over years and years uh and have have to get to know their interests and they get to know your interests, and you see them through thick and thin and whatnot, or jump on the computer and talk to um an AI avatar who loves you and thinks you're the best and wants to listen to everything you ever want to say. And um there's an intimacy that you can create with a computer or AI avatar that is could easily replace human intimacy. And so I can see how AI could very in fact be like such a an easy tool for people to be greatly deceived and for their hearts to grow cold. Um and so there is that um eventual possibility if we just take it off the rails. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Well, I think it was it's it's a good point that uh, you know, this is artificial intelligence, meaning it isn't real intelligence, it's not another life form. Uh, we know as Christians that life is something very special that God makes that we can't make. And uh so understanding that it's it's uh at the same time very powerful um because of the the ability that it has to you know take information. And it's it's kind of like uh you know the you know nuclear power when we discovered that, you know, it has so like it's it's so revolutionary because it's so much more power uh in a nuclear weapon or a nuclear energy in in a sense than it's really even it's hard to even grasp, you know, how a handful of stuff could power you know a submarine for several years. Uh, but the same thing I think um with that we face with nuclear, where it's very useful if it's done well, but it's also really dangerous if it's it's done poorly, is um, I think a something we have to recognize with this artificial intelligence is we live in a sinful world. And anytime there is a new source of something that has, you know, puts a lot of power uh into the into the hands of of people who are sinful, then uh, you know, while there is a great is great opportunity for good, there's also a lot of opportunity for for bad at the same time. And we need to uh be aware of that in ways that you know it's like if you're if your kids are all around playing with bows and arrows in the yard, you know, that's that's one thing practicing. But once they have, you know, a rifle, or if if all of a sudden it's like, oh, you're not just gonna hand them, oh, here's a bazooka, you know, just have fun with it too, you know, because it's it it it it has this level of power that this this responsibility and there's dangers that go along with that. And I think because this is something so that has a power that's unprecedented in its ability to um appear wise, it's something that we're gonna have to know, want to know, you know, need to know how to how to interact with because it's going to be easy to just like even today, just search engines without the AI aspect of it, we start to rely on them for wisdom instead of either thinking for ourselves or praying and asking God. And so we are kind of like looking to them to define truth for us. And the internet has been an amazing tool for information in a way that you know we have. I mean, the gospel has been able to be spread in ways through the internet that's fascinating. And today, you know, the the we live in an era where when I was growing up, you know, if you wanted to know something, you went. The library, right? And you read it in a book and you referenced it. Now it's the internet, and that's where we um not only through um text, but also through video and images and all that kind of stuff. And to now have on the scene a tool that allows uh individuals um to that the individuals can use to generate content that it seems very seems like truth, it seems real, whether it's images or it's an a uh you know art or it's an article on something, but it isn't, yeah, is all of a sudden something that really rocks the world we've been living in in terms of how we think and how we determine truth. And I think what you were referring to about being rooted in truth as Christians, real truth, God's truth, is going to be that much more important and something that we maybe have to do more intentionally than we might have had to in the past.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Yeah. There's a there's a muscle training, like you were saying, with every technology, there's a muscle training that you lose when you use technology. So um I've heard about your your famous Google wall. Um once you once you tell tell the listeners about your Google wall.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yeah. So uh I think it was about a little over a year ago, uh, we got rid of our iPhones and went to a flip phone because I found that I was doing that kind of going to Google for all the answers, primarily like things I was loving teaching my kids. Let me show you a video about a whale or let me show you this or that or the other. And so that was I found my kids being like, show me a video on this, show me a video on that. And I I realized that I engaged in Google, like as a, you know, probably more than I needed to, but that wasn't what shaped my thinking. And so I was like, well, how can I like I need to step back and make sure, like, make sure I'm engaging with this on my terms, not the other way around. And to do that, we kind of stepped back a bit. So for the last year, we had flip phones. We actually just got iPhones again after I drowned my flip phone while making compost. Um, but uh we instead created this bookshelf by the kitchen table that's our Google bookshelf. So it has all of our dictionaries and it has you know encyclopedias and reference books and all that kind of stuff. So that if if one of my kids wants to know something, I'll be like, all right, go to the bookshelf, you know, and and find a book that you think you can look it up in, because I want them to also have that skill as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

And there's all these little skills involved in that, where you know, okay, which book do I choose? Okay, what how do I find where it's at? What am I reading here? How do I summarize this big portion that I read? How do I communicate that to somebody else now? There's all those little muscle skills and probably much more that are lost when you just sit down and watch a video about it.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah, or just do a query and say, you know, why should I care about blue whales to chat GPT? And it's just like, here's why you should care. And you're like, that's so great. Whereas before you'd have to get the article, skim the article, summarize it, find out like that answer as you know, from like your own takeaways from the article. And now you don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's incredible. So there's a muscle loss that that is a risk. Um, but I also want to say that like AI is AI is going to be fantastic in a lot of areas. For example, in the medical industry, they're already doing this where you know you can upload a million different um images of lungs with diseases, and they've had qualified doctors go and and label each one of those diseases. And so now I could take a picture of my lungs and input it into the algorithm, and the algorithm can go pull it out of the database and and give me an output that says um this is most likely what your disease in your lungs is. And that that is statistically going to be more accurate than your local hair healthcare professional. And so there's areas like that that are going to be fantastic and amazing. Um, but then there's other areas, um, like in China right now, they have not only do they have facial recognition, but using AI, they can recognize a person by their gait, like their walking gait. Um, and so you can see that there's a level of like AI for good and AI for potentially evil.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Um, because they're using that not necessarily like for good all the time in that kind of situation.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

I would think they're they're using it mostly for control, right? To keep things under control. Um, so you know, if there was some really bad person who needed to be under control, that might be a great thing too, you know. But it's more up to then them uh what they want to control, you know. And we know that China is not super friendly with Christians, so um they might want to control more Christians.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Yeah. Well, I think that's something just to be, you know, aware whenever we're uh dealing with something that gives people power like this, you know, it has the potential, like you said, for for amazing good. I mean, you could upload it a library of information and say, give me this data, and it could save you a you know a ton of time. Yeah. Um, and yet that same uh power, you know, we we there's that that idea that you know, that quote of power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, you know, absolutely. And so the idea that if it if there is potential for evil in the power that you can gain from AI, there will be people that seek to exploit it. And I think because it's not just like a nuclear weapon or a nuclear energy source, something that that you know gives you the ability to to either have you know, to generate electricity or to you know destroy things. It's not just a destructive, coercive kind of thing, but it's a you know, it it's uh like I said, it appears wise, like it, it it's offering this kind of smarts and wisdom and like counsel that um almost appears divine compared to what most of us are capable of. It is going to be looked at by people, you know, to be able to come up with solutions that normally they would be unable to come up with those kind of solutions for you know manipulating people or controlling people, or you know, like there's times in which you're you know, we're all engaging online for, you know, and there's all this information being gathered from us. And part of us is kind of like, well, who's gonna watch that video? You know, who's gonna listen to that conversation that my iPhone overheard or whatever, you know, because it's like there's bajillions of hours of that. Well, when you have a tool like this, you you have to understand that you know, there are there is now the power to process and compute that kind of thing in order to gain information that people can use to exercise, you know, even more power. But uh aside from that, I think just that idea of understanding um it's going, it's whether we're Christians or, you know, even if we're Christians, it's tempting to go to other sources than God for wisdom, you know, when we need answers. Um and now that we have something like this where people can ask much more complex questions, it's going to probably for many people become kind of a replacement uh source of wisdom, you know, almost a divinity of types that's like, what does chat GPT say, or whatever the next version is? I mean, if we've come this far in the last year, who knows what kind of thing? Yeah, you know, uh, if you're down, you know, whatever relationships, dating, and all that stuff. I mean, all the kind of online stuff that that can uh it can digest, all of a sudden now people are gonna go like all sorts of things, and and then who dare deny the truth, you know, of that because you're not smarter than it. Uh and so it's it's a very um, it's an interesting, you know, thing for us as Christians to say, well, what is what is the truth of of what we live in? And even though this adds a degree of elements that we may be unfamiliar with, our responsibilities as Christians is still the same, you know, in obeying God on a daily basis. Yeah. And we've been given the same things, you know, we've been given to do. So, what are some of the ways that you see potentially um AI uh being used by believers to, you know, like to full like to fulfill the commands of Christ, to, you know, engage in kingdom building in a way that, you know, we've been using the internet so far for, you know, with a lot of different things. What are some of those exciting possibilities that you think of in that space or related to agriculture? You know?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Well, I'll start with the story back in 2015. Uh, I was about ready to give up web development. I was like, I'm tired of staying sitting in front of the computer all the time. I want to get out in the world and make make something real. And um, we went to a meeting that night. I was a missions meeting at our church. And at the beginning of the meeting, the pastor stood up and said, I just want to thank God for the internet. Because if it wasn't for the internet, we wouldn't be able to reach these people in the far-off countries and share the gospel. And our missionaries right now are using websites to to bring in, you know, in the last year, we've had 70 people baptized because we've had their native language on these websites and things like that. And so it's like, okay, maybe there is a reason that I'm in this realm and I stuck with it. Um and and so I I see that uh in the in the reason I bring up that story is because that is still so effective. Um, they make websites in the native language that's basically, you know, it might be a an apologetic website for Muslims or Hindus or something like that in the native language. Um, and so people who are searching, you know, what is the Quran real or should I listen to this, or what's the difference between the Quran and Christianity? Up comes this website on their search results about, you know, the difference between the Quran and the Bible in their own language. And then through that website, they can get in touch with somebody and then begin a human face-to-face discipleship piece. And so um the the point I'm trying to make is that people who are lost are gonna be using this technology, and and so it would be uh I I think it would be kind of it wouldn't be smart to just step out of it altogether or to say, you know, all Christians should not be using AI, you know, um, because there's gonna be a lot of lost people listening to AI. And if there is um if there are ways to, you know, you could train AI on uh a Christian worldview, you could train it on a naturalist worldview, you know. So why not why not present um a worldview that we we believe will give them life? Um so that when they're searching for the answers, they'll be able to find uh truth. Um and so that's one way that I think that it could reach the lost and and be helpful in discipleship. I use it uh as part of my Bible study sometimes. So it think of it as like a blue letter Bible uh website on steroids. Yeah, it can give you very specific commentaries, very specific uh details. You know, I can I can what is you know, what are some of the the meanings on this verses or things like that? And it's pulling from other Christian websites and blogs and resources and things like that, uh, which are open source and you know, so it has an understanding of what the Bible is and things like that. So you can use it like that, but you also at the same time need to be careful how much you believe it and when you believe it, because it you didn't make it, somebody else made it, and they they hold the dials and switches, and so now it might have a lot of Christian content, and in the future maybe it doesn't, or maybe that Christian content gets kind of weird, you know, and that's the point, whereas you know, we've got to be so aware of the truth.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Um and when you say, yeah, when you say aware of the truth, you're kind of like you know, talking about non-AI like engagement with yeah, like people, the word, letting the Holy Spirit speak to you that way, so that that's our foundation, right? Then as we engage in these other things, we maintain that ability to discern, you know, and take it with a grain of salt without it being what's shaping our thinking. Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Yeah, we don't I wouldn't want AI to shape my thinking or my children's thinking.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah, and that was the next question I was gonna ask is for me as a dad, you know, I'm I think about technology in light of my kids so much because you know, I wasn't shaped in my formative years by feeds and scrolling and like all the ways you engage, it was much more book and linear thinking and and all that kind of stuff. So that when I engage with it, I'm engaging with it with an already established way of thinking. But I understand that like how like the amount that I uh allow them to participate in that in these formative years has I need to be very careful with that and intentional about it because it's it's much more um like shaping, you know, than than it is for me at the moment. So as a dad, what's what are some practical tips that that you have to share about what you how you plan to both equip your kids to know how to think about it and and you know engage with it, but also you know, what are the what are the the the um kind of safety rails or what where are the boundaries, what are the boundaries you're gonna set and and why. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

I think you know, as I as I lean more into uh the foundation of truth and God's word, um, I think that's gonna overflow in how I interact with my kids and teach my kids about the word and the importance. And we've started doing more regular like Bible times, just getting in a little bit of content from the Bible every day. Um I gave each of them a an MP3 player and I put in the Street Lights Bible, which is like a fun version of audiobook Bible where it's just a scripture NLT version, but there's some like cool beats behind it to kind of keep you listening and stuff like that. Um, kind of like spoken word almost. Um and so they've been listening to that. Um, you know, it's some of my some of my boys aren't reading a whole lot yet, but they've listened to like books and books of the Bible. And then at night they're like, Dad, did you know that in in Acts it was saying this and that? And I didn't know about that. And so it's it's awesome ways to like try to feed your kids more of the real truth. Uh, and I think that's gonna be key in how they step into the future, and they'd be like, Well, I know this is truth, I know that's not truth. And at the same time, I'm not gonna like shun AI from everything. You know, I I was this morning, I was pulling one of those chicken tractors and it was super heavy. And I was like, okay, they probably make it heavy so there's not like raccoons that can just pick it up and eat all my chickens. Um, but I wonder what kind of materials I can make it out of that it's lightweight, but then maybe put something heavy on the outside. So when I'm ready to move it, I just move the heavy stuff and move the lightweight thing and then put the heavy stuff back on. And so I asked Chat GPT, like, what are some really cheap, lightweight, readily available materials that could be eight feet by six inches? And it was like concrete boards. And I was like, I've never heard of concrete boards. I don't I don't know if it's called that or something, but there's like and it gave me a hole that you could use PVC pipes with water in it. And I was like, Oh, I never thought about that either. So there's a lot of like little weird ideas that could be useful tools too. So I don't want to shun AI, um, but I want to teach them how to use it, you know. Like I don't want to take all the knives out of the house because they could cut somebody. Like, I'm gonna carefully teach each one of my kids how to use the knife so that when they need to use a knife, they can use a knife.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah. And I think one of the things that I've tried to be aware of and try to teach our kids is, you know, as we engage in anything, the Lord's really, you know, concerned about like the permissible things we're talking about, not wicked things here, but permissible things, some things that are permissible, you know, are not beneficial once we start relying on them instead of the Lord, or it once we realize that like the way that we're going to them is not um like drawing us closer to the Lord, it's not stirring our affections for Him, it's not helping us to like walk more in the spirit. There's times when I can listen to like a song I like, and it just really like I'm seeking the Lord through it and just speaks to my soul and I love it. And there's other times I'm just feeling bad instead of going to the Lord, I'll like go to that song, but I'm just checking out if that makes sense. So rather than like, is that song a good or bad song? Well, the question really is is like, why are you listening to that song? You know, and the same thing, like if you're engaging with AI, but it's it's damaging your relationships, you're not really learning from older men in your life, you're just going to chat GPT, you know, you're um you're not uh uh listening, like you're not as as ready to just pray and ask the spirit, you know, for an uh a divine answer in the moment. Instead, you're always going to that, like maybe at that point in time that's something you need to step back from, right? Because if it's not like if it's not helping you grow closer to the Lord, more obedient to him, then you need to probably, you know, like abstain from that or regulate, you know, uh your use of that. But then if it is, you know, like we can typically tell when we're going to things in the spirit and when we're going to things in the flesh, you know, if we're honest. And uh, and so I think that's really, I don't want to just put these hard lines in place of we're gonna do this and not do this to my kids, but I want to train them to like, especially if they've, you know, profess the Lord, to to learn how to how to how to think about their days on and evaluate it more in terms of their connection with the Lord, their walking in the spirit versus walking in the flesh, and not just in terms of what's allowed or not allowed, but I do want them also to be equipped with, you know, um, you know, to be aware of the times, to uh be able to be useful people because they understand um, you know, the dangers that are out there as well as the potentials and stuff. So we have a couple minutes left here. I'd love to hear a bit of um what kind of the potential future you see in AI, and also talk a little bit about kind of the spiritual element of transhumanism and how that kind of relates to um some of this stuff and how you know the lost world is viewing the potentials of these kind of technologies.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah, that's good. So um there's a good video um that has John Lennox, he's a mathematician who loves the Lord. Uh it's called AI, God and Man. Uh it's an interview of him. He's he's written a book called 2084. So it's kind of his perspective on you know, a 1984, but in more modern realm. And so there's a bit of AI um included in that book, but he talked um a bit about how there's there's a group of individuals that um we want to become as smart as possible. You know, Elon Musk, when he was a child, he went through this existential crisis with like, what's the meaning of life? And he he read as much religious texts as he could, and then he he came to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and thought, you know, like Earth was just a a model to come up with an answer, and he and that kind of inspired him to think, like, oh, we just need smarter questions, and so his pursuit is continually about like how do we get things more smart? How do we get things more intelligent? How do we grow the intelligence of humans? And then I think there's a another group of individuals who are like, how can humans become more powerful and live longer? We all have this longing to live eternally. Um And I think it was C.S. Lewis that was like, it we would would we have that longing if it wasn't possible to have in some way? Um and so people are longing for immortal immortality, you know, um in in this supercomputer thinking. And so they want to create uh like a biotech cyborg kind of person, and AI would play into that in a in a massive way to like I could think of things faster than a human could and something in the future, and so um I will then become like God essentially is is their goal. Um and John Lennox made the point where like you you missed the train, like God already became man. You're trying to do something that's impossible, but God already did the impossible, and um and pointing them back towards that. So I think too, in this time, as we see more and people, more and more people flood to AI instead of the Holy Spirit or instead of relationships, real relationships. Um there's gonna be just like there was in the Jesus revolution, there was a hunger that people had at that time that um that they were looking for truth. They were looking for a connection to what's real and and um and immortality, eternal life, you know, they're looking for it. And we need, as believers, we need to be ready to give them an answer uh for the hope that lies within us, not the hope that lies within AI.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Right. Because the sad thing is, is all the, you know, when Satan tempted Eve in the garden, he said, You can be like God, you know, if you eat of this tree of knowledge and good and evil, uh, in in direct disobedience, like instead of going to God, instead of listening and trusting in Him, trusting yourself and your own ability to be God. And, you know, again again, he preys upon the very design that God put within us of we're promised to be co-heirs with Christ, you know, one with Christ. We're gonna be like part of that divine divinity relationship for all eternity. But he we he offers it in a way that it's still gonna be empty. It's still, you know, is going to, it's not gonna satisfy these people. And that's the that's what should break our heart is these people that want to be, you know, like transhumanist humans where they in they they bring on the they're able to kind of live for forever or for hundreds of years by syncing with technology in this way and creating this new amazing global, you know, utopia and solving all the world's problems through all this kind of stuff. All it is is Satan's uh you know, counterfeit alternative to what Jesus, I believe, is soon going to be coming and doing. But for real, he just wants to deceive as many people as possible into a counterfeit. And it should what should break our heart is just to realize that all these people that buy into that one day will wake up. And it's not like they're gonna be satisfied, they're gonna have expectations of satisfaction, but it's gonna leave them more broken, more empty, more messed up. And that's where we need to be not just like part of the carnage ourselves, right? But we need to be intentionally like thinking about what is it that God has given us that is real, yeah, view these things for what they are, but nothing more than what they are, and be able to have those answers to give people of real hope.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

Be ready to to feed these physically, maybe and spiritually hungry people, because it there's going to be more of them.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Yeah, exactly. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for this uh discussion today. I really appreciate you initiating it because I think it is a timely, timely discussion that we need to just be thinking about um as we want to be, you know, like Jesus said uh to the um when he was on earth when he was talking about looking at the signs of the times, or you know, he said you you know how to tell the weather. If it's red in the morning, you know it's gonna rain, if it's that kind of thing. He's like, Don't you can't you see the times you live in? We need to make sure that we're not being lazy and and ignoring, you know, the times we live in, um, but with the intention of so that we can be more faithful, so that we can be, you know, even better able to um communicate accurately what real truth is, the more the darkness gets darker, the more confusing truth gets, the more we need to be able to step up and answer questions that previous generations didn't have to. And understanding, especially as parents, that our kids are gonna need to be equipped in ways to engage in topics and to be able to bring God's truth to bear in a way that uh that we we need to be intentional um about and prayerful, prayerful about. So any can any final thoughts that you would like to leave with uh the audience listening today?

SPEAKER_00 49:13

I can't think of any right now. It's been good, it's been really good. Appreciate the conversation and the dialogue.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Yeah. Well, if you wouldn't mind just uh praying for us and for our audience that God would just uh continue to give us wisdom on topics like this.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

That's good. Yeah, Father, we want to um we want to fear you because it's that that's where we find wisdom. Real wisdom is the fear of God. And um Father, I ask that you would help us discern between man's wisdom and God's wisdom in this world. Help us to raise our kids uh to fear you as well. Um help us to realize how your love will defeat that fear, any other fears that we have and um help us overcome them. Um Lord, we ask that we could walk and steward uh what we have in our hands, uh, whether it's farms or computers or little children or uh whatever it might be, whatever you've placed in our hands, we ask that you would give us your wisdom to steward it well and um to just shine light on those dark areas of our hearts, those motivations that that keep wanting to run away from you. Uh that like um like in Song of Solomon's that we we don't want to run to the mountain with you to do hard things sometimes. And I ask that you would um just shine light on those areas of our hearts and um so that we can come running with you wherever you take us. We love you, Lord. It's in your name we pray.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Amen. Well, thanks again, Kevin. Really appreciate it. And God bless you and your family and to everybody listening. Thanks so much for uh joining us today. And uh, as always, I just encourage you to be faithful, to be humble, and to keep redeeming the dirt. God bless.