Is AI going to kill us all? Is AI literally the Devil? How are our kids going to learn when AI writes their essays? Pastor Matt shows that God’s word gives us better answers and more hope than any machine.
Hello and welcome to the seventh of Proverbs and seven deadly sins of smartphones. And we have made our way to sloth. How to escape the AI apocalypse. thinking that AI is one of the next in a long series of inventions that have invited us as human beings to be lazy. July 16th, 1945, in the desert of New Mexico, a light flashed as the nuclei of atoms were ripped apart so that a fine summer day became as hot as the surface of the sun in that New Mexican desert at the first detonation of the atomic bomb.
Do you know what the name of that bomb was? Trinity, the name of God. And that is not an insignificant fact. These atomic weapons were godlike, unleashing apocalyptic hell upon an enemy. Oppenheimer, the flamboyant scientist said, quoting an eastern text, I have become death, the destroyer of worlds. Now, before that day, there were terrible weapons that could kill people. Guns, bombs, tanks, but none of these could have conceivably destroyed every person in the world. They were for but the weapons of man.
But after that day, man possessed the weapons of God. Well, whatever you call a superhuman power that is not the true triune God. After that day, man had the weapons of demons. We might be on the brink of something similar in our world today. Artificial intelligence is a tool that can almost think. And and just as the world destroying power of atomic weapons was unthinkable to the people of 1944 and then in one moment everything changed. Perhaps we are at the brink of something similar with AI.
Um, this series has been focused on all of the ways that we have seen smartphones changing us and the world around us. How there has been increasing anxiety, loneliness, social isolation along with ways to connect like never before. But today we are going to look into the present and peer just a little bit into the future that AI is presenting us. Now there’s a couple of big questions about AI and you could probably guess some of these. Uh my first question is are the machines going to kill us all
Terminator style? Like I have seen this movie before. I have watched the Matrix. I have seen AI. I have seen iRoot. I have seen this movie. I know how it plays out. Hopefully, hopefully not. Secondly, in some of the ways these things are almost human, you almost wonder if they are potentially demonic. Is AI literally the devil? And third question, and this is probably the more pressing question at the moment. How are our kids going to learn anything when AI writes their essays for them? Or maybe how are we going to speak when
AI writes our emails or perhaps our love letters? So, are the machines going to kill us all Terminator style? and I decided to uh do do a thing and ask chat GPT, are the machines going to kill us all Terminator style? And conveniently, for the machine’s sake, it said no. It said that uh uh it said no and it said this is the reason why I said no. There are growing efforts in governments, academia, and industry to ensure that it is developed safely, ethically, and responsibly. I I just had to laugh because the
machine told me with a straight face, which is apparently the only face that a machine can make, that just trust the government and corporations and you will be fine. Now, that’s a little unsettling to me. I don’t know about you, but we shouldn’t be asking a machine this question. I I was talking to Jill uh Jill Crusen just uh the other other week and I was talking a little bit about AI because it was a I I knew I was preaching on this and and she told me and this is so insightful I need to stop asking questions to AI
that I should be asking God and and that’s so true because because God has given us his word so that we can know how to live in this world that we can have faith that we can have confidence in the future and the amazing thing is that God’s word tells us that mankind will not bring this world to an end a fleet of robots will not bring bring this world to an end or an asteroid or COVID 26 or AI because the end will come when God says it’s the end. 1 Corinthians 15:24, then comes the end when he, that’s
Jesus, delivers the kingdom go to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Jesus Christ will bring history to its rightful conclusion, seated on the white horse to conquer with the word of God. And we at best be on his side. Go to his word for answers. Now, now this isn’t to let the machines off the hook. Many terrible things have caused terrible harm throughout history and AI very well may be
but they are not God. We should not go to them for final answers and we should not fear him. Remember book of Proverbs the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. And so are the machines going to kill us all? No. Because God tells us that he will bring history to an end on his own terms. Second question is I AI literally the devil? I asked Chad GPT this and it it kind of went on and said this idea is more metaphorical than literal. But then again, don’t be asking AI questions that
you should be asking of God. Like there is a literal devil. Matthew 4 and more. And and he is a danger to you and your soul. And we are commanded with good reason to put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. We need Christ to overcome this power. Uh when I was in Bible college, I was doing research on uh old, you know, Windows 95 uh desktop computer really slowly looking up some old uh old o old websites probably with way too many uh way too many like tiles and things. and
and I came across this website and it and it claimed that since 1997, computers had had enough RAM or or memory to house a demon. Now, I I thought this was like kind of a ridiculous joke and so I kind of showed my friends all of this and uh I had a good laugh about it. Of course, then I can’t have thought about a little longer. And I was like, you know, maybe maybe this isn’t entirely wrong. But sometimes the computer seems a little demonic or at least it’s something used by the devil to do a
lot of harm to my own soul. Now, God’s word does tell us that demons can inhabit things like pigs or humans. Um, I don’t know if we can say yes or no. Can the machine be inhabited by a demon? But I do know that the devil will use whatever means necessary to kill, steal, and destroy your faith and your family. And so, you would best be watchful and put on the whole armor of God. And remember that the sword of the spirit is the word of God that can tear down arguments and Christ is the power
that will put down every authority and rule on this earth. And so we at best be very careful if we outsource our thinking and our reasoning to things like AI chat bots. We need to be wary that the devil is not if if he is not inhabiting he is not at least using these as a means to tear down your faith. We must be built up in the word of God. And even more so as technology increases to have our character meet the challenges of the day to overcome his temptations. And so I can’t say a AI is literally the
devil. I I suspect largely and we’ll talk about it in a second that it is it is a tool like many tools that can be used for good or ill. But things that speak and interact are things that have a potential to do harm to those who are immature and unwary. So we at best be built up in the word of God. Third, how are our kids going to learn anything when AI writes their essays? And I think this is a big problem today in education, how how AI is making it so kids can cheat. I I read a news article and it said that chat GPT
traffic dropped considerably at the beginning of June. And I am not a prophet, but I do suppose that it will pick up again somewhere around the middle of September when students begin to write essays again. Learning is biblical. An intelligent heart acquires knowledge and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. To be wise, we must be people who seek knowledge, to have a heart that desires to learn and grow and be challenged. And these tools are giving license to the worst of our inclinations, training us to be what the book of
Proverbs calls slugards, lazy people who bury their hand in the dish and cannot even bring it back to their mouths. Oh, the student uh the soul of the slugard craves and gets nothing while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Whenever we get a labor saving device, there is always a little bit more room for laziness and these things that can help us physically are one thing. So, so physical and maybe I I won’t have to do quite as much backbreaking work if I have an excavator instead of a shovel.
But if I’m outsourcing things mentally to a machine that can kind of think for me, the danger is even greater because I can quickly become a fool. And the students know that the tools to avoid AI detection are better than AI detectors. You know, I thought I thought it was pretty cool. I I I was trying to help people to to sort out AI. I I’d come across this AI produced Christian testimony on YouTube. I think I think the channel is called Soul Sync. Don’t look it up. It’s terrible. Um but but
basically, it’s using AI to write fake Christian testimonies to make money. I I can’t imagine something much worse that you could use AI for. And and I was trying to show people how you can, you know, put the text into an AI detector and it’ll show that it’s AI. And it actually worked pretty well for this because they were pretty lazy. But if you go to an if you have AI write something and tell it, hey, I’d like to write this at a fifth grade level and write it so it will avoid AI detection.
the AI bot will actually write it in such a way that it will avoid AI detection and look like a fifth grade fifth grader wrote it. Uh now that is a dangerous thing because if we let a generation of children grow up letting machines do their thinking, we as a society are ripe to be enslaved by any wind or wave of doctrine or political philosophy. Our very liberties in every way, both spiritual and physical, are at stake if we allow ourselves to outsource our thinking to machines and so become fools
and slugards. An intelligent heart acquires knowledge. Fools rely on chat GPT. And there’s something even worse here. And that we don’t just use grock to write an essay on the Magna Carta. I I saw a teacher complaining about this on on uh Facebook is that they they’ failed a student for writing an essay that was obviously written by AI. And then after they failed them, they received an apology letter. And as they receive, look at the tiny hollowess of the apology letter, you know, full of, you know, telltale signs.
M dashes. Look it up. It’s a thing. AI love M dashes. M dashes, numbered lists, and the kind of tiny hollowess perfection that you can expect from an AI written document. The teacher realized that the apology that the student wrote for writing an AI produced essay, they also wrote an apology with AI. And so they outsourced their apology. As bad as it is for us to cheat and undercut our learning by having a machine do the writing. It is far far worse to outsource our humanity by using these things in our personal
correspondence and communication because there is something uniquely human about speaking. Only in the beginning, the Lord God spoke the world into it into into existence. Jesus Christ, the son of God, is the eternal logos, the eternal word of God. That is that is God speaking into the universe. And as we are made in God’s image, we are people who are spoken to by God and speak back to God. The first thing that God has Adam do as his vice regent created in his image is to speak names over all the
animals. We are made to be people who speak. And if we allow a chatbot, a machine AI to write our communication to each other, we are outsourcing the very thing that makes us human. If you allow AI to write personal correspondence, you are outsourcing your humanity. Reminds me of Psalm 49. Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish. And these machines have a kind of imitation of humanity. But those who utilize them are in grave danger of becoming like them and becoming without understanding. We
become like the beasts that perish. Young people today students resist the urge. Don’t hand in something that is not written by you. Remember, thou shalt not bear false witness. God wrote it on the rock for a reason. It will be hard, but you do not want to be a beast. Adults. But before I get to adults, I would like to I would like to interrupt this sermon with a poem to my beautiful wife. Through simple days, we wo our dreams with joy. Your laughter, Kari, sparks my very hearts alloy. No storm could break
this bond so fierce, so true. With you, my love, forever I’ll pursue. All right. Now, that that that might seem nice, but it’s a machine. And and and is my wife honored by by a love poem written by a machine? No. Because it rings as hollow as the case of that Commodore 64. No. Don’t use AI for personal correspondence. and be wary of using it for anything. Now, now as I’ve said that that these things are tools and as tools they might have a proper use, although their misuses I have noted extensively.
I do think it’s likely okay to have AI write the kind of boring technical documents that are barely human to begin with. think TPS reports. I I think it’s a little ironic that we’re about to be in a world where machines are going to write a whole bunch of standard operating procedures and policies and things that no one is actually going to read other than other AIs that will read them and summarize them to people. we’re going to have email chains where uh bots are talking just one to another
filling up our inboxes. So, so, so maybe there’s a use for that although I am suspicious. Uh secondly, I think these things are pretty decent editors. If you want to write something, have this edited and then uh produce a final draft like you would with a human editor. Maybe there is a specific tool for that. That’s honestly what I use AI for. Although I don’t trust it and I make sure I read read everything that’s written that’s written carefully. So they don’t sneak a hail Satan in somewhere. I got my eye on
you machine. And and I think they’re also pretty good at searching and making summaries of things. And and as we like like these technologies are really new. haven’t even gotten into like online chatbot girlfriends like like don’t it’s really really bad. There’s a lot of scary stuff coming in the future. But in all of these things we need to be guided and sharpened by God’s word and not just by what is easiest and what people do. Because if we use these things to write and create, we are outsourcing the very
core of what it means to be human. We must glorify God with our words and our minds. So our big questions, are the machines going to kill us all? Terminator style? No. Jesus ends the world, not the machines. Is AI literally the devil? Uh, no. Likely not, but be wary. Three. How are kids going to learn anything when AI writes their essays? Uh, they should all be writing handwritten essays in class. There should be a lot of that going on. If there is not, complain to your school or homeschool them. Keep phones out of
schools. Now, as we bring our series, seven deadly sins of smartphones to a close, there’s been common themes in this whole series. is that technology, especially our mobile phones, are are squeezing the margins of our lives. And the things that are squeezed are first time to reflect and think. You know, what’s the cost of living in a culture where we’re never bored and we pull out our phones waiting in a line. Secondly, we’ve had the time for God squeeze. the time that we used to pray
and consider and meditate on his word. And I wonder why we spend so much time while writing a post to our 78 followers, three of whom are likely bots when we could be talking to the God of the universe. And three, we have found time squeezed, the time that we have to love, to serve, and be loved by others. I wonder how many random conversations that we miss with strangers, with our spouse, with our kids, gobbled up by phones, and maybe AI. You know what the top use of AI according to a Harvard Business Review
analysis was? therapy and companionship. We’re using AI for therapy and companionship. The the very thing that we should be using like real people for to talk to and to relate with and be encouraged by. We are commanded to encourage one another as Christians. I actually ran across something that I could only describe as an apocalyptic black hole of sadness. Uh there’s a thing called social AI and it’s a it’s it’s a social media that looks kind of like Facebook, but instead of interacting with real people,
you can interact in an entire universe of AI bots that treat you like you’re Taylor Swift. From its very advertising, it says, “Post status updates and get infinite replies from millions of AI followers. Feel the boost of always being surrounded by your AI community. Explore a new kind of social engagement where it’s all about you. AI offers us a world in the future where we are kind of gods. It whispers in our ear to take that bite of that apple device and we will know all things.
But the thing is, AI is a false pretender that really only leaves us the kind of empty hellscape of social AI, a fantasy world that can never even give one single real pleasure that is real. You can see the hollowess in all of this with the third most common use of AI, finding purpose. But like don’t don’t go to Google. Don’t go to a web guru. Don’t go to any human if you want to know your purpose. But go to your maker. You weren’t an accident. You weren’t the product of some overraiated sludge. You
were made by God. And you are loved by God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. This truth is a better and more present reality than any digital fantasy. And the proof of God’s love is that he gave the best of himself, Jesus Christ, his son, for your salvation. Now, I said the AI pretends you’re a god. All the while, it puts you into its world of fantasy. It offers you to the place of God. But all along it makes itself a god that you
go to, that you serve. But God, the eternal God who had everything, leaves his place to bring you to God. The son humbled himself to become just like you with every hardship, betrayal, and pain of being a human being. He went all the way to cross to bring the cross to bring you to God. And the fact that so many people out there are asking a machine what the purpose of life is, it shows that we long for meaning. We long to know that there’s something more to all of this. And I am here to declare
to you today that your life matters because you were made by God, redeemed by Christ. And there is And there is hope and salvation to all those who merely just believe in the name of Jesus Christ. Turn from the terror of sin and self in a world where it’s all about you to him to be reborn and renewed by the power of his holy spirit and to live a life of meaning to please God. A life where you know where you’re not your own. and you were bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:20. A life where you can glorify God from
the awe of a beautiful sunset to the feeling you get when you’re in love. You were made to glorify God by working with your hands, appreciating the gifts of this earth that are real and not some digital makebelieve. You can glorify God in song and solemn worship. You can glorify God with a prayer of hope on your darkest day, knowing that God loves you. And you can glorify God longing for the day when he comes again. when the end comes, not by some AI machine, but when the King of Kings shall reign
forever and ever and ever. And so this is the day. This is the day of salvation. And even though digital pretenders abound and distractions pull us in a thousand directions, this is the day that you can be sure whom you serve. The Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth. He’s as close as a prayer. Why don’t you come to him today? Lord Jesus, I believe. Renew me by your power. Forgive me of my sin and help me. Make me new so I can live for your glory and turn away from a thousand falsehoods
of this world and the bondage of Satan to be free. Free. free at last in the arms of Jesus Christ. Amen.