“Perhaps Christians will have done well if, in a hundred years, we are known as people who still talk to each other face to face and without the aid of a machine, as people who try to build worthy and beautiful things with their hands.” 

Jake Meador

Cultural anxiety around technology surrounds us these days. Most prominent is the fear of artificial intelligence (AI) and what the future will look like when computers do much of our work for us. Certain job sectors are already facing upheaval, and there seems to be much more on the horizon. Many of us don’t quite understand the technology and where it’s going, even if we have found practical ways to use it in our daily lives, whether for work, amusement, or academics. One thing is certain – very soon life as we know it will look much different. 

Just as there are economic and academic tremors from AI, there are also spiritual ones. If machines can truly “think” for us, what value does a human being have who are seen as much less efficient, powerful, or intelligent than the network of computers that power artificial intelligence? More importantly, what will it mean if in the near future human consciousness and machine consciousness become indistinguishable from each other? Will religion have anything to offer once AI can give us all the answers we need? 

I have a strong suspicion that much of the hype around AI will not live up to its reality. Still, it’s become obvious that much of our anxieties are well-founded. As people in society turn more and more to machines for advice about how to live or look to chatbots for friendship, we must do some serious thinking about the state of our souls.    

The quotation above from Jake Meador offers us a spiritual way forward. In the book of Genesis, the Bible records that God made man in his image. Human beings serve as the pinnacle of God’s creation, because we are the only creatures who bear his image. What does that mean? First, it means that even in our fallen state we can do what God does. God thinks, so do humans. God creates, so do humans. God is relational and shows love, so do we. Our initial purpose in the Garden of Eden was to carry out our God-given mission to bear his image in work and in relationships. 

One of the reasons I think Christians shouldn’t dabble too much in AI is that they are outsourcing their divine purpose to a machine. Certainly, artificial intelligence can write a half-decent essay or provide an image of the sun setting behind a mountain or design a building in a certain style, but what is lost when we don’t do those things ourselves? I believe we actually lose a lot. We miss out on the awesome privilege to bear his image in our work. What we outsource in our initial experimentation will eventually become habit, and soon we may forget an important part of our godly inheritance – being a created thing that creates things. 

It’s even more crucial from a relationship perspective. One of the things I have noticed about artificial intelligence is how timely and accurate its feedback is. I can run a piece of writing I’ve written through it, and it can provide an instantaneous critique that evaluates what I’ve done well and what can be improved. It’s very gratifying to have a “superintelligence” that gives you compliments at the speed of light after reading your work in a nanosecond. Even if I can’t find a human who has the time or ability to affirm my work, AI will always be there for me to do it. This type of feedback can almost feel intoxicating, and I’m sure there is a similar feeling when people turn to AI for companionship. Here is this machine that sounds human, is always available, never judges, and often has very intuitive and helpful things to say. I can share with it my darkest secrets. It won’t tell my parents anything. It always has time for me. It won’t leave me or ignore me or find someone else better to interact with. 

After spending some time with it though, it becomes apparent to even the most casual observer that AI isn’t relating to me, it’s mimicking me. It knows how to read linguistic cues and parrot human speech patterns. But it doesn’t understand me any better than a toaster does. It will tell me what I want to hear; it might even tell me what I need to hear, but it won’t care either way about what I do with that information. It’s in the room with me, but only as an impersonal, disembodied presence that doesn’t really “see” me the way I long to be seen. 

And so we go back to faith. The Bible tells us that Jesus entered history walked alongside men and women. His presence was so special that crowds flocked to him wherever he went. He wasn’t always available. He had to take time to pray and sleep and eat.  He sometimes withdrew to lonely places. But through the Incarnation he experienced everything that we experience, and so He understands us in a way a computer never could, even with every Psychology textbook ever written at its disposal. The beauty of the gospel and the hope we have in Jesus far surpasses any technological progress our world will ever see. To know the creator of the universe, and to be known by Him, is the most meaningful experience a human being can have. And as Christ’s disciples, we thus fulfill a calling to continue to live in loving relationship with Him and with our neighbor.  

What will make Christians different from everyone else in a hundred years? Maybe it will be the simple act of living a life that still seeks to create, love, and relate apart from the glow of screens. Maybe our embodied faith communities will be the last link we have to the time of our fullest humanity in the Garden of Eden. 

(This piece was written and edited by human beings)