Navigating AI as a Christian

In this episode we discuss a message from Austin Hamrick of Cornerstone Chapel titled, The Rise of AI and the Future of the Church. We spend most of our time reviewing his 6 guidelines on AI. 

We recommend watching the entire message and found it to be very helpful biblical counsel: https://youtu.be/TtwIapjZX9I?si=3YTe4ZbiU7Ljut0w

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:05

AI GENERATED TRANSCRIPT: Hi everybody, you're listening to the People Get Ready Podcast. I'm Heather Duff, and in just a minute, we'll be jumping into a conversation with Barb Ho. We're talking about everyday issues from a Christian perspective while we eagerly wait for teachers. People get ready. Let's go. Okay, so we thought we would do a follow-up to last week's episode on the dangers of AI and discernment in the church. So we uh I think what we're gonna do today is review a message from Cornerstone Chapel that Austin Hamrick did. And he talked about AI. It was a very informative uh message, I thought, about even the different kinds of AI, how AI is being used, how it's impacting the church. Um he gave some really good examples. He uh even talked about some articles, and then he uh closed that out with six what I thought were really fantastic points to help guide the church. At the outset, he said his goal was to equip us biblically on how to approach the subject, which I think he did a fantastic job. And I was very appreciative of the information that he had. And uh, like I said, I felt like it was really solid biblical guidance on how to think and use AI. So we're gonna talk about that today. Barb, did you want to say anything at the outset?

Speaker 1:25

Just that it really helped me to understand. You have a lot deeper understanding of what AI is than I do. And even someone who is, you know, doesn't really understand much about it, he really helped me to understand it and what it does and you know the the dangers of it. And I I loved it too. I've listened to it a few times, and I really recommend people to to follow up listening to it afterwards.

Speaker 1 1:47

Yeah, great. So we're gonna put a link to that message in the show notes. And also I wanted to say we referred to a few things last week, and I did put some links to like statistics and different videos we referred to in the show notes. So we really want to be careful to do that from here on out. So um again, that's gonna be in the show notes, and we do recommend watching that full video because I think it would really be helpful. And one of the things that he said at the beginning was that some people may say, why do I even need to hear this? I'm not really that into technology. But then he said, Your kids are, and AI is into your kids. Amen. And that that was really a striking statement. And that's true. And we're gonna see this more and more. We have we're gonna have a generation of kids that are gonna be brought up with this kind of technology. So I think that it really is incumbent upon us as mature Christians, as parents, to really know what the Bible says about this and how to think about this biblically so that we can give good counsel, good direction, and help set parameters for young people. I don't want to go into too much of the statistics and things that he said about that he said during his message, but one thing was that 72% of teens are using chatbots as companions. Wow. And that's really scary to think about that because um it's sort of personifying this technology. And I don't know, I just think that's kind of scary because especially when he goes into some of the deceptive characteristics of AI. I mean, this is not really who we want our kids befriending on and leaning on for advice and counsel. And they are, they're turning to AI to ask questions about life. I'm gonna, like I said, not go too much into what he was saying, but we're gonna just gonna hit a few of the topics that he touched on and then touch on his six closing points. One thing he made the point, and I think this is uh good for us to know, he talked about the difference between narrow AI and general AI. And narrow AI is used in a very narrow sense. So it may be used in a certain medical technology, it may be used in a certain financial technology, and it doesn't know everything at once. It's very specific and it's trained to learn and compute in just a certain very narrow area. And what they're working on developing is a general AI, which is also referred to as strong AI, which that's what gets a little bit scarier, and that is more manlike where it's able to have just a broader understanding and not in a limited specific use. So you can think of narrow AI much more of a tool that you would pick up and use, but general AI is more of an it has agency, it's decision making, and it has a little bit more control. And that's already in development, but we haven't seen that yet. Last time, I know I shared that scripture from 1 John 1: 5 that said this is the message we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Because there is, we don't know how much we can trust AI or not. And when you you even when you're asking it questions in the very narrow sense, it may provide you with some good research with um, you know, statistics, but even the statistics you need to look up and verify from a very dependable source. There are a lot of examples of people uh getting wrong information. And sometimes it's it almost I'm not gonna say it it knows it's being deceptive, but there are uh times where you you can say, give me a source for this and it'll give you a source, and then you look up the source and it's not there. So that this isn't something that we can just 100% trust. And that's why we know that God's word is 100% truth, it's dependable. And this AI is going to be increasingly used, which means that there's going to be an increasing chance of deception, and it's going to be getting into all different areas of our lives, and we have got to be steeped in the word of God. The word of God is the one true thing that we know. And so it's just a safety for us that in God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. And I just think that that's just such a refuge for us as Christians that we can know that we can turn to the word of God and absolutely know that we don't have to be suspicious. We don't have to, you know, even if we don't understand things that may be hard to understand in the word of God, we know that God's word is truth. And there's just such a rest and a peace and a safety in that for us.

Speaker 6:46

It's funny when you're talking about that, because I woke up this morning, the thought was right in my mind, and you know, I spend my time with the Lord, so sometimes he'll kind of speak things into my heart when I wake up that he wants to deal with me about. And when I woke up this morning, he spoke that into my life and he said, Faith is built on trust, complete trust in me. I was thinking about that word trust, how important it is. And what you're saying is so true. We cannot trust AI. You can't trust it. Can you go to it? Can it be a tool? Can it be a helpful resource? Absolutely. But we can't fully trust it. The our only full trust is in God alone, is in his word, is in scripture, is in who God is, and the fact that he is God. That's the only place where 100% of our trust not only can be, but should be. And it's interesting that this morning that was my focus and my time with the Lord was talking about the importance of trusting God for everything.

Speaker 1 7:43

And it's very exhausting. I mean, think about it. Again, not to get political, but when the government says something, I think historically that citizens probably, U.S. citizens, probably had a greater trust in their government. Now it's you don't know what to believe. You're hearing the exact opposite things. The news, you hear something on the news, do you trust that? Do you not trust that? We talked about last time. Pastors, Bible teachers, do you trust that? And it's it's not wrong to not be gullible. It's it's actually a good thing. And what is that, Acts 17? Let me take a second to look that up. It's Acts 17, 11. It says, now these, he's talking of the Bereans, these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. So Luke was commending them because they weren't being gullible, they weren't just taking Paul at his word, but they were turning to the word of God, which we know is truth, and they were verifying that the things that they were hearing Paul say were indeed scripture. And that's a safety for us, that's a safety for pastors, that's a safety for Bible teachers, that we want people who we know they are going to turn to the word of God to verify if these things are so. But it gets exhausting because in every area of our lives we hear things and we're like, is that true? I don't know. Now I have to go search that out.

Speaker 9:13

Our trust is built on what scripture says, and people don't know scripture anymore. They're not they're not spending the time in the word, they're replacing the very thing that gives them the foundation of truth with something that's not trustable and something that's not not truthful, and they're replacing it with that.

Speaker 1 9:33

In the message that um we're gonna be talking about today, Austin Hamrick said that the greatest threat that AI poses is one word deception. Amen. And our defense against that is the word of God. It is just to hide ourselves in Christ and to meditate on the word and to remain in the truth. So that's just what we want our focus to be.

Speaker 9:59

And our time in the word and also our time with God, our time. We've been talking about the importance of prayer and that altar time, spending time with God daily, where you just, you know, you just spend time in his presence. You get to know him intimately, and people are getting away from that and and that they're replacing it with this stuff. It it's just crazy how that's happening. The very thing that they need the discernment from God for is the very thing they're replacing that discernment from God with. That's how the enemy works.

Speaker 1 10:27

First Timothy 41 says, But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. And then in Second Thessalonians chapter two, verses nine through eleven, it says, For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but who took pleasure in wickedness. But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. And we're getting to a time where not only are people going to be deceived, but they're going to choose that deception rather than the truth. And you can kind of see it now. We would rather live in our own sort of fantasy worlds. We're seeing that play out right now, but we we know that it's times are only going to get darker, the deception is only going to grow deeper. It's just more important than ever that we are clinging to the word of God and our time in prayer with him. Let's talk about his recommendations at the end. Okay. Okay, he gave six, and the first one was decrease screen time and increase Bible time. Yeah, that was a good one. And he even recommended get a paper Bible. This is important for adults because I think adults are spending too much screen time as well. It's kind of what we do to fill in our time now. I think what we don't realize, what we're seeing on the screen, we're just being saturated in the world, in the things of the world, in the culture of the world, and all of that is having an impact on our on our soul, on our spirit. And so I think for adults it's important, and for kids it's important. And I know it's probably one of the hardest things for parents to limit that screen time with their kids, but it it really is true. I mean, we're we're just becoming glued to our screens and we're filling our minds and our hearts with with all of these things that are, I mean, what is it even? It it's just like really shallow entertainment, most of it. You know, and a lot of it is even anger baiting.

Speaker 12:41

I I've heard people say, can you imagine if people grab their Bibles as often as they grab their phones or their tablets?

Speaker 1 12:48

Right. And you know, what a great thing it would be to adopt that kind of habit. I Right? Yeah, last year I okay, I'm okay, I'm gonna say I did this, but I did it for like a week. So I mean, don't think, wow, what a great thing that you did because I didn't keep doing it. At least you did it. Full transparency, but you know, maybe talking about this, I'll get back to it. But I bought a special notebook and I wrote in there just some scripture that I was meditating on and I put that in my back pocket. And when I had a minute during the day, instead of reaching for my phone, I took that out and I meditated on it. That's a great idea. Yeah. It was it was a great idea, but you know, I I didn't keep doing it. But I am I'm gonna uh I'm gonna uh challenge myself to do that. Okay, so number one, decrease screen time and increase Bible time. Number two, seek wisdom from God's word, God's spirit, and godly friends.

Speaker 13:42

That's one of the things we were highlighting on last last week is is uh that's where discernment comes from. Discernment comes from um God's word. And if you're not getting God's word, you're you're walking according to your own understanding. You're walking according to the world, and it has to come from the counsel has to come from God's word.

Speaker 1 14:04

It's neat that he said godly friends because godly friends also have within them God's spirit and God's word. And that's why it's good to seek counsel from godly friends. Because, you know, we were talking about turning how we're sort of personifying this technology, how people are going to chat GPT and others and asking questions, even life advice. And think about it, young people, it it's especially teenage years filled with angst, a lot of awkwardness, and sometimes it's uncomfortable asking your parents questions. So it's it's how easy is it to turn to this thing that you have in your pocket all the time, you know, and then just start asking life's questions and getting counsel from some technology that who knows what kind of advice that's imparting.

Speaker 14:54

Absolutely. And you know, one thing that I noticed when he says to seek counsel from God's word, comma, God's spirit and godly friends, he different differentiates between God's word and God's spirit. And I think that that's a really good point because we have to learn to hear from the Spirit of God, the impression of God. And how often do we not recognize the voice of God, that that still small voice? And does God speak to us through the word? Absolutely, but he also speaks to us through our heart, he speaks to us through our understanding, through conviction, through just that still small voice and just knowing that his presence is speaking into our lives. A lot of us are look are replacing that. There's something about that. I mean, you know, Heather, when God, when you're in a situation, I know I've had some situations lately where God has spoken into my life and he's told me, I mean, there's no words, there's no, you know, it's just, I just know that I know that I know that this is what God didn't want me to do. And if I had done it, it would have been sin because I knew that God was directing me. And that comes from spending time with him and in his word. And when people are replacing that time with hearing from God and hearing through prayer and hearing from God's word with just grabbing your phone and and checking out what AI says, you're you're not going to be hearing what God says. You're not going to be hearing the voice of God. And that's something we're going to be talking about in the future. How do you hear the voice of God? And how do you recognize the voice of God? Well, it's by doing it, it's by spending time with Him.

Speaker 1 16:32

And it really is different because some people are thinking, well, AI is just like grabbing a book off the shelf. The thing is, AI is not one book, it's millions of books, and it's a mishmash of all those books. So if there's a book that is written by, let's just say, Andrew Murray, okay, we know Andrew Murray's life. We know he's a godly man. We know of the hours that he spent in prayer with God, that he's filled with the Spirit of God. So if I open up an Andrew Murray book, I know what I'm getting. And that doesn't mean I take it all at face value either. Like I said from Acts 17, we want to be like Bereans and go to the scriptures and see if these things are true. But it's not just like pulling a book off the shelf because it's it's pulling information from varied sources and summarizing it's a computation. It is not spirit-directed counsel. It is not godly counsel. You can open up a book from Andrew Murray and get godly counsel, but you don't know what you're getting with AI. Okay, number three, ask God to help you discern the truth from the lies. So there again, making it a matter of prayer. Yep.

Speaker 17:49

Giving it to the Lord, surrendering it to the Lord, asking God to give you the wisdom, asking him to guide your ways. If any man lacks wisdom in James, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. He gives it two things. He gives him without reproach, he gives it generously and without reproach. And so God will always give wisdom. If you go to God and ask him for specific wisdom, he's going to give it. And if you need wisdom to know how much should I get involved in this, what should I do? What shouldn't I do? He's going to do it. He's going to do it generously, and he's going to do it without reproach. That's who God is. That's what his wisdom does.

Speaker 1 18:24

Yeah. And on this point, Austin Hamrick quoted, I think it was Spurgeon, who said, discernment isn't knowing the difference from right and wrong. It's knowing the difference from right and almost right. Yeah, it's really good. And again, I mean, this let me read one of the quotes that he had in the beginning, because that was he was quoting Gary Marcus, who is a professor at NYU. And this is Gary Marcus's quote. They can, and he's speaking about AI here, they can and will create persuasive lies on a scale humanity has never seen. It's hard to even envision the consequences. So discernment just so important because things are going to look so real. They're going to seem so right. And of course, Satan is going to try to use this technology. We know that he appears as an angel of light. So just so important to be in prayer and to be asking God for wisdom and discernment.

Speaker 19:21

And and the fact of the matter is, you know, we always say that Satan never comes with a hundred percent lie. He comes with some of the truth. You know, when he when he challenged Jesus, when he tempted Jesus, and you know, he tempted Jesus with with some truth. Doesn't the Bible say? Don't the scriptures say? And also with Adam and Eve, did God really say, you know, and when he comes into our life, it could be it could be 90% truth, but if it's 10% lie, it's a hundred percent error. And when there's when it's not a hundred percent truth, you don't take it because God is always all the way truth. And I think that's the danger with AI. You just have to be careful. And again, we're not saying don't use it. It it is helpful, but be really, really careful, be discerning and and keep your eyes open and your ears open.

Speaker 1 20:13

Yes, absolutely. Okay, so just quick recap. Number one, decrease screen time, increase Bible time. Number two, seek wisdom from God's Word, God's Spirit, and godly friends. Number three, ask God to help you discern truth from the lies. Now we're up to number four, and I'm gonna read a few sentences because this was such a good Yeah, it's some of my favorite one too. Yeah. Number four, patiently wait on the Lord for answers. God wants us to sit at his feet and patiently wait on him. This is where he binds our hearts to his. That happens through laboring and intense seeking of the Lord. Fast and pray, but that is a labor and it takes time.

Speaker 20:55

I think the other option is just that it's easy. Waiting on the Lord takes takes work, it takes labor. When you wait on God, it's not just an easy thing to do. You have to work at waiting on the Lord. You have to be disciplined, you have to spend your time, you have to put those things out, you have to take those thoughts captive, you have to surrender those thoughts to the Lord, you have to surrender the desire to just get going. I know because that's one thing that I struggle with. I'm a go-doer. I like to get things done. I don't like to wait. I really don't. And so for me, when the Lord is ministering to me and and and telling me to just wait on him, trust in him, that takes time, that takes work, that takes toil. And with AI, it's not there. You don't have to wait. You don't have to toil, you don't have to work, you just have to ask it the question and just walk away with it. And it's just an easy way out.

Speaker 1 21:50

Part of this process is that we have to put down the flesh. When we're patiently waiting, we have to humble ourselves and we have to cry. Crucify the flesh. Only God knows when our hearts are ready to hear what he has to say, to receive the wisdom he is about to impart, to understand what he's about to reveal in us. Only he knows when our hearts are ready, and then he speaks.

Speaker 22:17

And hearing the voice of God, I mean, what a wonderful opportunity that is that we can actually hear and listen to and experience the voice of the Creator God in our personal lives. I mean, that's just amazing. And you know, what God wants us to do is a million trillion times better than just turning to this whatever it is to get answers and to get direction and to get guidance and to get whatever it is we're looking for. God wants to meet those needs in us. He wants to pour himself into us in such an intimate way and such a dependent way. And dependency is another important part. Who are we depending on? Are we depending on God? If you trust God, you're gonna have to depend on Him for things. And if you're depending on the work from AI, you're missing out on everything that God has in your life. And can we go to AI for things? Yeah, we can. But man, don't lose out on experience, the intimacy and the presence and the voice and just that that that time with God that He wants so desperately for us to have.

Speaker 1 23:29

We can be so like little children who are scattering all over the place. As a mom, you'll know this. You're trying to get the attention of your child to tell them what you expect from them. And your child is sort of all over the place, and then you say, Look at me. I mean, I could just picture, you know, yeah putting you putting your hands on on the sides of your your child's face and saying, Look at me and listen. And I think some of us we're just so busy. We're we're running our lives like that and we're not stopping. And we need to put ourselves in a position where we are just sitting at our father's feet, looking and seeking his face and waiting upon him. It's good for us.

Speaker 24:13

And we're raising a generation of kids that don't know how to wait on anything. Everything is given to them instantaneously, everything. That's why AI is so it's just their lives in a lot of ways. And it will be unless we make a difference in their lives, it will be in the future. And our children and our grandchildren in my case, that's really important.

Speaker 1 24:36

This is a seismic change in our way of life as humans. You know, this I I don't know what we could even compare this to, the shift that is about to happen when AI increases in its use. It's important that we think through these things. Where is all of this leading? We need to really take a pause and think through what kind of a life do we want to have? What kind of people do we want to be 10 years from now? We're just gonna fall into this. Instead of using AI, we're gonna be enslaved to it. If we are not wise in thinking about limiting our use and being thoughtful about how we're encountering this technology.

Speaker 25:18

And we're gonna be dependent on it. And once we're dependent on it, it's hard to turn back. Once you go in that direction where that's that's your dependency, it's really hard to turn back. A few weeks before I shared about the Shema that I wake up every morning and a lot of times before I go to bed, I believe it's in Deuteronomy 6 where it says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you walk on the road, when you sit at home, when you tie them as symbols on your hands and imprint them on your forehead, write them on the doorposts of your houses. And the whole point of that is bring me, God, into your home. Let your children know that God is in control. God is first. This house is dedicated to God, this family, this home, everything we do is dedicated to God. We have to live that practically when we're thinking it might sound crazy like we're just making a big deal about something with this AI, but you have to make that aware in your children's lives that God is in control. We're not depending on anything for everything that we do. We're depending on God. And although we use it for tools, our dependence and our trust is fully on God. There's ways, practical ways that we bring that into our family. One way is by limiting what our children are allowed to do with their tablets and with what they're exposed to as parents and grandparents. I think it's it's essential for the future generations.

Speaker 1 26:52

That is a great point on how to model dependency on God. Very good. Okay, number five is be sensitive to the voice and leading of God's Spirit to help guide you. We cannot detect and discern God's voice if we are not in God's word.

Speaker 27:09

It's not just listening, it's learning to be sensitive. And sensitivity takes time, it's a process. You become sensitive. You're not just born to be sensitive. You sensitivity to the Spirit of God comes within sanctification. As we're sanctified and we grow closer and closer and closer to the Lord, we become more sensitive to his voice and his leading. And that's kind of what I was talking about before that has a has something to do with the waiting on the Lord, but learning to be sensitive to that is God's voice. You know, I'm not, I I might not know the situation, I might not know everything about it, but one thing I know, I'm recognizing the voice of God in this. And I'm recognizing God's God's leading and God's prompting and God's touch and and God's presence in my life. And that sensitivity takes time and it's a process, it takes work, and that comes through waiting on the Lord.

Speaker 1 28:03

Part of what's happening as a society, we're we're becoming problem solvers. So when we're confronted with a situation, we look at it as just a problem that needs to be solved. And it's easy to turn to technology to say, I have a question that needs answered, I have a problem that needs to be solved, but we don't need a solution to a problem. We need a shepherd to guide us and protect us. And that's that's the difference. It's not, you know, I'm not just looking for an answer. I'm looking for a savior, a shepherd. It's it's relational, and that is one thing. AI will never have affection. It will never have a heart, it will never have love. And when we can turn to a loving God who is our savior, our shepherd, who wants us to depend on him, to call out to him, to cry out to him. Why would I not want to do that?

Speaker 28:58

One of the things that you were saying is it it even encouraged you. You know, you you shared that last week that it said, Oh, good job, Heather. Like it tried to make you encouraging and stuff. And and I think that's one of the the deception of it. It doesn't, it's not compassionate. It doesn't feel it's not a person, it doesn't have any f life to it. It has no compassion to it.

Speaker 1 29:20

At first, when it says that, you laugh because it's kind of funny. Here's this technology affirming you, but I could see how part of me also felt like, yeah. A firm. Yeah, I really am doing a lot, you know? Yeah. But as you continue with it, it is continuously doing this. It starts to feel so icky, you know? It's like, just stop it. You know, just give me the answers. I don't I don't want any of this like gushy affirmation from you. I'm not that weak and insecure that that I need you to to keep affirming me, but it I don't know, it's kind of funny.

Speaker 29:53

The sad thing is is all that stuck we can get from the Lord. Those are things that God wants to be. And what Satan does is he tries to replace what God has given us. So the very thing that God gives us is compassion, is love, is intimacy, is encouragement. You know, all that stuff that God does want to give to us, we're going to AI for in a lot of ways. And you can just see how that is the hand of the enemy. You can see him. He is an angel of light. That's what he does. He comes across as this is so good, this is so good for you, but it's a replacement of who God is in our lives and who God wants to be to us.

Speaker 1 30:36

The last point here, number six, is keep looking up. It was an encouragement to anticipate and to love Christ's appearing and to keep our eyes fixed on him. So no surprise, Barb. Um, these recommendations are to just saturate yourself in the Word of God, to sit at His feet, patiently wait on the Lord and to trust Him with our whole heart and to make Him our hope for the future.

Speaker 31:03

The word comes to my mind to expect from God. Sometimes we've gotten to a place where some of us have gotten a little hopeless in in who we expect God to be and the relationship and the intimacy that we want to have from the Lord. And we haven't had our needs met. Maybe we haven't really reached out to the Lord or understood who God is to us or who we are to God. And so we've we can replace it in other ways. Expect God to meet you in these ways. God wants to meet you in these intimate, personal, loving, you know, loving ways and expect that from Him. He wants to do that in us. Well, let's pray together. Father, we thank you so much, God. We thank you for who you are, Lord. We thank you, Lord, because when we think about who you want to be in our lives and who what type of a relationship you want to have with us, Father, it's amazing, God. It's amazing the intimacy and the depth and the deepness, God, that you long to have with us and that we can have with you. And Lord, the enemy is fighting us just in every way to destroy that, Father. You come to give life, and he comes to kill, steal, and destroy. God, give us the wisdom, give us the discernment, Father. Give us the hearts to come before you, to trust you to meet those needs in our lives. Father, we have these needs. These are needs that we have, Lord. And we pray that rather than go to anything, even if it's just information, Father, which a lot of us are just going to, just simple information. Help us to be discerning about that. Help us to be discerning and where we go for that information, Father. And Lord, not that we see it it is completely evil, but that we're wise about it, Lord. Help us to trust you, help us to know. And Father, for those of us that are parents and grandparents, help us as we raise our children to raise a generation, Father, that knows you, that knows who you are, that learns to hear from you, that learns that intimacy, Father, and that sensitivity to your presence, God, that sensitivity to who you are. Father, give us wisdom about this. Guide us in this. Help us, Father, to know what you want us to do and how to do it and and and to trust you in it. Lord, help us to trust you. We entrust these times into your hands. We thank you, Father. We thank you for who you are. We love you, God. We entrust this again into your hands. And it's in Jesus' name that we do pray, Father. Amen. Amen.