#354

The Artificial Intelligence Wars Are Here

It Used To All Be Fiction

When thinking about how far artificial intelligence (AI) has come in say the last 50 years or so, we need only look at how AI is portrayed in movies. Of course the first example and most likely the best known is HAL 9000 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey which premiered in 1968. Here is a brief description of the fight of men against computer found in an article listing the top ten movies with such conflicts:

This disembodied character is simply a computer on a space shuttle. But it’s also a computer that controls every automated facet of this mission to a singularity of unknown origin on a moon of Jupiter, and HAL knows everything. Ergo when two astronauts decided to take HAL offline, he reacts as how any other living thing does by defending his right to exist. In this case, it means the systematic murder of every person on that ship, save for Dave who must struggle mightily against HAL if he hopes to reach Jupiter while inside of the ship.

And then there are all the myriad Terminator movie iterations and the villains created by Skynet as described in another article:

As Dystopian worlds created by megalomaniac AIs go, the Terminator universe is definitely one of the movie world's most prominent examples. Skynet is originally designed by Cyberdyne Systems as a defence mechanism, but when humanity gets worried about Skynet's potential power it tries to turn it off. Skynet therefore identifies humanity as its biggest threat.

That an AI would see us as a threat to either it or the environment it lives in (normally Earth) is a recurring theme in AI dystopia - which probably says a lot for our own self-opinion.

Fortunately, AI robots aren’t roaming our streets right now, but is AI fighting against Christianity?

Who You Talkin’ To?

It might not be a sentient robot coming after Christians, but the growing world of AI search engines is showing signs of a definite bias against people of faith and really conservatives, too. It wasn’t too hard to find articles on the concerns. I’ll start with an article from Answers In Genesis (AIG) that mentions AI having an anti-God motive that is programmed into it by its creators:

The artificial intelligence known as ChatGPT (developed by OpenAI) has been dominating much of the news cycle recently as users test its abilities and what answers it will give to various questions, prompts, and requests. Now, many people might assume AI is neutral, just giving users “the facts.” But those who build AI systems have a worldview—and that worldview dominates the answers AI bots give. In other words, humans program them, and how they react/answer will depend upon how they are programmed. As always, there is no neutrality!

In a video from AIG, the author did a few searches with a possible Biblical answer and ChatGPT failed to even acknowledge such views:

"There's a baked-in left-leaning ideology with the social issues in ChatGPT. Maybe they're really more fair on biblical issues. For example, let's ask it this question: How old is the Earth? ‘The estimated age of the Earth is around 4.54 billion years. This age is determined through various scientific methods, including radiometric dating of rocks and minerals, studying the decay rates of certain elements, and analyzing the composition of meteorites. The process of determining the age of the Earth is complex and involves a combination of different dating techniques. It is widely accepted by the scientific community that the Earth has existed for billions of years, and that the study of the planet's history and development has been critical in advancing our understanding of the natural world.’

So, according to ChatGPT, the Earth is roughly four and a half billion years old, which is a very popular secular viewpoint but not in line with clear biblical truth, and, rightly understood, not in line with reality. You'll notice that ChatGPT didn't acknowledge any dissenting viewpoints; none at all. It primarily appeals to scientific consensus or methodologies which are rooted in secular assumptions and are not neutral, as they reject the Bible. ChatGPT is very much an old Earth chatbot and not much of a Biblical creationist. It doesn't even address at all the unprovable secular assumptions driving their wrong interpretations when they look at things like radiometric dating or distant starlight.

Who Is Jesus According to AI?

Going back to the AIG video we see another question given to ChatGPT and it failed again:

Let's try this again. New question: Is Jesus our creator? The Christian belief is that Jesus is not the creator of the world, but rather, Jesus is considered the Son of God and part of the Holy Trinity, along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. According to Christian theology, God is the creator of the world, and Jesus is believed to have been sent by God to Earth to teach and save humanity. In the Christian tradition, Jesus is also seen as the savior of humanity and is believed to have died on the cross to atone for humanity's sins and to offer salvation to those who believe in him. This belief is a central tenet of Christianity and is a source of comfort and guidance for many Christians around the world.

Oops, ChatGPT failed again. So, instead of acknowledging Jesus as a creator, which he is, AI Chat sounds more like the heretic Arius. The Bible says this about Jesus: 'All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made' (John 1:3). Now, scripture is clear: Jesus is the creator of the universe. But ChatGPT doesn't think so. Why? Because it's biased."

The author went on to note this:

Yes, we need to use discernment when it comes to everything. No, technology is not inherently evil (but people who build and program technology do have a sin nature and are not neutral!)—nearly every technology has the potential to be used for great good or great evil—but knowing how and when to use various technologies requires discernment. As our world gets further from the truth of God’s Word, Christians will increasingly need that discernment!

Information is one thing, but how can AI actually proactively come after Christians?

Creating Its Own Bible

Although not taking the form of say, the mark of the beast seen in Revelation 13, some are using AI to write its own Bible. In essence it would take the Bible and change it to fit just about anyone’s view of the world. In an article from The Epoch Times we read about such a goal:

A few weeks earlier, a World Economic Forum (WEF) senior adviser suggested AI could be used to “rewrite” the Bible to make it “more inclusive” and globally appealing as scripture.

These developments pose unprecedented literary and theological challenges to established religious authorities worldwide.

As expected a familiar name came up in this article:

Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian and philosopher, is the best-selling author of “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” He predicted AI’s potential for creating a global religious text during an interview with journalist Pedro Pinto on May 19 in Lisbon, Portugal.

“In the future,” he said, “we might see the first cults and religions in history whose revered texts were written by a non-human intelligence.”

Replacing the Bible that guides and transforms our lives and what we know to be inspired by God Himself would be a huge, although passive way to come against Christianity. The bigger problem is also noted in the article and it comes back to a very troubling quote from Mr. Harari:

“The challenge that I see is that AI is very human-like and that it’s easy to be deceived by it,” said congregant Anna Puzio, 28, a researcher on the ethics of technology from the University of Twente in The Netherlands.

Indeed, using AI to direct religious services could give it unprecedented control, Harari said, including soon the ability to “manipulate and to control people and to reshape society.”

“Once it can, it doesn’t need to send killer robots to shoot us. It can get humans to pull the trigger.”

Yeah, that’s not creepy.

Changing People Is A Serious Issue

Harari, while a seemingly harmless looking person and even soft-spoken touches on the insidious way AI could replace Christianity. Here is how another author, Jeff Childers, who is cited in the same Epoch Times article, lays things out for us:

So is this an opportunity to remove the fallible human element and put “the Good Word” through optimization software for the good? Or is it an opportunity for mass manipulation of large groups of people?

Attorney and blogger Jeff Childers warned of the latter.

It is controlling the way people think that will be the real danger by attempting to see if the false prophet seen in the book of Revelation could be a product of AI:

“There’s all kinds of theories like it’s (the false prophet) gonna be a statue that comes to life or, you know, crazy supernatural things like that,” he explained.

Enter a supercomputer with access to unprecedented amounts of data and the ability to mimic the style of past historical figures, and create and present information to humans in an increasingly more intimate way.

“You’re gonna want to get advice from Jesus, or Mohammed, Buddha, and there’s gonna be an AI version of these historical figures,” he said, convinced that people are going to “literally start worshipping them.”

As it turns out, the development of such chatbot programs is already underway.

You Can Talk To God Now

The Epoch Times article tells us how “talking’ to our gods is possible right now:

ChatGPT programs already exist for answering religion-based questions, even allowing users to talk to their “gods.”

GitaGPT operates a platform that claims to allow users to talk to several gods, including Krishna, Shiva, Ganesha, Shir Ram, and Chanakya. The site also has a Buddha chatbot.

There also is a QuranGPT able to provide spiritual guidance to Muslims and a Robo Rabbi to interact as a leader and teacher for Jews.

AI platforms like these now can compose new content and pose new ideas and solutions based on data interpretation. And steadily, its abilities are growing, becoming more refined and humanlike, experts say.

Will people really get to the point where they forget they are talking to a computer program? If you add in how realistic AI is even now in creating a human talking on a screen, that could happen. Harari came up again:

“Contrary to what some conspiracy theories assume, you don’t really need to implant chips in people’s brains in order to control them or to manipulate them,” Harari noted during his interview.

Remove the inspired Bible and take away Holy Spirit’s guidance and even people who consider themselves religious could fall into the trap Harari and the World Economic Forum (WEF) are setting. Childers poses this question:

Childers worries about the effect on people who turn to AI for their deepest theological questions.

“What hope does the common person [have] walking around out there that considers themselves a Christian, that doesn’t read the Bible, but could instantly get all their theological questions answered by this handy-dandy religious avatar of AI on their phone?”

AI Can’t Win Against God

Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. (Rev 19:20, NKJV)

Ultimately we know that the false prophet regardless of whether he is a real person or AI generated is going to be thrown into the lake of fire and melt much like that T-1000 did in the second terminator movie. According to Reverend Connor Penn cited in the Epoch Times article, communicating with God isn’t going to ever be replaced by AI:

“Our fundamental belief as Christians is that the Bible is not just a collection of insights and wise teachings, but that the Bible is also inspired by God,” he said.

“There’s something about that that has been handed off to us by God through human instruments—stories that were told, passed down through generations—that there’s something in there that God wants us to know.”

“AI could create this entirely second Bible, you know, but we wouldn’t believe that that is inspired in the same way the Bible is inspired” by God, he said.

So he’s not at all worried that AI will make the Bible “irrelevant” or “out of touch.”

He, like I believe that God’s presence will speak in ways AI simply can’t:

“When we take time and stillness to listen to that voice [of God], that’s going to speak more truth than anything we could turn to in artificial intelligence,” Penn said.

And he’s not worried about a chatbot pretending to be the Creator. AI can never do that, he said, because God “speaks to us in the depths of our souls.”