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Knowing Faith
Is It Wrong to Use AI?
00:44:40
Jen Wilkin, JT English, and Kyle Worley discuss how Christians can use A.I. wisely and the concerns to watch out for.
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- [00:02]
A
This episode of Knowing Faith is brought to you by Crossway, publisher of the Grace Laced Bible Journaling Edition. This Bible showcases the beauty of God's word alongside artist Ruth Chow Simon's signature watercolor art. Featuring 50 full page verse illustrations, 250 illustrated verses, and lined writing space in the margins, this elegant journaling Bible is ideal for personal reading and reflection, small group study, or taking notes during sermons. Pick up a copy of the ESV Grace laced Bible wherever books are sold or visit Crossway.org ESVGracelaced to learn how to get 30% off with a free Crossway plus account. Are you one of the millions of Christians searching for a path from anxiety to assurance? If so, Overflowing Peace by author and Bible teacher Tara Dew should be your next read. This verse by verse. Exploration of Psalm 23 reveals the complete, total and matchless peace only found while walking with our Good Shepherd. Perfect for personal reading, small group study, or as a gift for anyone longing for peace in turbulent times. Visit overflowingpeacebook.com to get your copy today. This is Kyle Worley and I'm joined by my co host, Jen Wilkin and J.T. english. Or maybe I'm joined by their avatars. Maybe these are, uh. Maybe I. What I have done is I have generated through a lot of very sophisticated prompts, a composite sketch of JT and Jen. And so jt, is this really you?
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B
I don't know. It might be.
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C
I like to think I'd have a way better hairdo.
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A
Yeah, well, I. I did think about making a pun with, you know, they. All the talk on AI is generative AI and that just is so easy
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C
to pun with your name. Yeah.
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A
You know, so. Or when people get it wrong, it could be generative.
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C
You know, for the Jan Wilkins or
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A
Jan Jan Wilkins fans out there. We had to do it, y'. All. We. We had to do it. We had to do an AI episode. You know, I have told people AI is a little bit like froyo or vape stores. I had not. Nobody was talking about. I had not ever seen a Froyo establishment. And then after I saw one Froyo estab, they were in every strip mall that I ever drove past. And then it's like I saw one time somebody smoking something that I thought was an actual pin. And then they're like, no, it's a vape. I had never heard about vapes. The day after they explained it to me, I felt like there was a vape store at Everywhere Everywhere now. So it's like six months ago, nine months ago. I know there were a lot of people spending money on and thinking about artificial intelligence, but then it just felt like it hit the crest of the wave and now we are on it. And yeah, so we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about is it wrong to use AI? This season and last season we've been doing tricky topics, thorny questions. I can honestly say we have not talked about this. This is like not one of those ones. I have no idea how we all feel about this and what we think about it. And I don't know if there's going to be we're all on the same page or we disagree or we don't care or some comb. But if you want to let us know what you care about and you want to help the podcast, here's a free and easy way to do it. I read all of them and you can put your questions in there if you will. Go leave a review over at Apple Podcasts on knowing faith and drop your question in. What tricky question or thorny topic do you want us to look at? Go leave a review over at Apple Podcasts. If you're wondering if I read them, I read every single one of them. So if you want to get my eyeballs, go leave a review over at Apple Podcasts and it will also help us stand out from some of the other noise. I don't know if you've scanned the religion and spirituality category on Apple Podcasts. Let me tell you, it's a wasteland. It's bad. It's a bad, bad, bad, bad place. And you know what? We don't want. We don't want to. We're not trying to win against our peers in the Christian podcast landscape. None of the three of us care about that. I would be totally fine if we were more showcased than some of the absolute wackadoos that exist on the religion and spirituality.
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C
Would you like to mention any of them by name?
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A
I'm not going to. I'm just gonna say that the Mormons are running a campaign and it seems to be effective and I'm. I. I don't care to beat my Christian friends. I would be totally fine if we were more showcased than the crazy mystics and the heretical Mormons. So go with God. Leave an Apple Podcast review, help us out, help the future listeners out, and leave a question in there that we can consider for a future episode. Today we are asking, is it wrong to use AI? And JT is already privately texting Me to mock me and to give me guff. It's not even asking you a question.
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C
Why didn't you ask it on our shared thread?
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B
Yeah, Kyle said to ask him a question and I did.
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A
Yeah, he did. And he didn't do it because it was right at that threshold of the brother sister partnership.
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C
Okay, all right.
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A
It was more.
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C
I'm happy to be left out.
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A
It was more on the gross side of.
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B
It's why we have Men's Bible studies and it's why we have women's Bible studies.
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A
You do need those gender exclusive spaces every once in a while. Okay. Hey, is it wrong to use AI? Jay, just go ahead. Let's just. Let's put our cards on the table here. I want to get everybody.
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B
Jack, give a yes or no.
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A
I'm going to say this. You have to give me a yes or a no. As it like, no caveats, no qualifications. And then do you actually care about this conversation? Jen, is it wrong to use AI? Yes or no. And then do you care about this conversation?
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C
No and yes.
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A
Okay, so no, it's not wrong to use it. And yes, you care about it.
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C
Yes.
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A
Jt, is it wrong to use it
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B
saying no, it's not wrong. Yes, I care about it. I care about it deeply.
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A
Well, we're all starting on the same page. No, it's not wrong to use AI
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C
not shaping up to be much of a fight.
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A
I think we're going to get there.
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C
Do what you can, Kyle, based off
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A
of the questions I have outlined for us here. So let's just start.
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C
AI was the run sheet created by
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A
AI it wasn't, but I did think about doing it and seeing if you guys noticed it, but I didn't. I have too much ownership over these run sheets. I like to tailor them. You know, when we get to Genesis 1 and 2, we find something called the cultural mandate. And as a part of that cultural mandate, you have be fruitful and multiply, cultivate and subdue. I think it's important to start here on some shared ground. Work and doing work is a pre fall image bearing reality. Is this true or do we all agree with this that work is something God calls us and commissions us as image bearers to do? Okay, so work is significant. It's valuable. It's formative. It's designed. Work is designed. It's not like a dilemma. It's not a problem. Now, after sin enters the world, there are some complexities to work. Part of the consequences that are enumerated in Genesis 3 is that the work that was going to be fruitful and not toilsome labor. Now, because of the brokenness of humanity and the brokenness of the created order, is now going to have a unique toil attached to it. That work was going to be worship and fruitful, and now it's going to be wearying and it's going to be laborious and toilsome in a way that it would not have been apart from sin's impact on the world. And so I think it's important to kind of lay that foundation because I think part of my concern with this, just from a pastoral standpoint, from a biblical faithfulness standpoint, is that tools rightly used should be tools that help you fulfill the cultural mandate, not get out of having to engage with the cultural mandate. Does that sound reasonable?
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B
I mean, yeah, there's nothing that you said that I think is wildly unreasonable. I mean, broad agreement.
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A
Okay, is it, I guess, let me ask it more pointedly. If a tool could be devised that alleviated from you the, the need to work or the, the engagement that that good work requires, is that a tool that should be used by a Christian?
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C
Okay. Okay. Now you're, you're so I'm prodding. First of all, I love my dishwasher. In fact, when we bought this house, it had two and we were like, kind of a weirdo puts two dishwashers in your kitchen. And two weeks later we were like, why doesn't everyone have two dishwashers? It's a labor saving device. The microwave is a labor saving device. And so I don't think we want to wholesale categorize labor saving devices as sinful.
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A
Okay, great, let's stop.
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C
Because there's always a trade off. You know, we all are dealing with a fixed amount of time and every day, and labor saving devices enable us to spend our time doing other things than what may have taken up our time before. And so AI is a form of labor saving device. And just as I could use labor saving devices to feed my laziness, I could also use them to feed my productivity. But also, the more you utilize a labor saving device, the more productivity is demanded of you. And that, I think is one of my biggest issues with AI, is that it feels in the near term like you're able to be more productive in the same way that like when we got email or texting, it felt like, wow, I can be so productive now. And then you realize that what's happened is the bar for productivity has shot through the roof. Roof from where it was before. What's expected of you to produce is now much higher than what was expected before.
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A
Yes. I like where we're at, and I'm glad that we started where we did. Way to go, Kyle, for writing the run sheet in this.
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C
Yes, Kyle, Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.
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A
Labor saving devices are not necessarily intrinsically morally bad.
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C
Right.
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A
They're tools. And the question is, for what end are they being used and with what? When they save labor, what is that energy then directed towards? Jt, are we missing something in this? Because I do want to stay on this for a second, because I think if we rush past this into here are all the problems or all the possibilities of AI, it all becomes kind of a surface level conversation. I want to keep it theological and rooted here towards the cultural mandate as much as we can. When you think about AI as it pertains to the cultural mandate or pertains to tools and labor saving, what's going on in your mind in this conversation?
- [11:28]
B
I agree with everything Jen said. I think that's the right kind of perspective and approach to begin asking the question that you asked. Kyle, a couple of things that come to mind for me. First, we're using the language of technology and tool, and I think one of the questions we should ask when we're using that language is oftentimes we can be using something thinking it's a tool that we're using, but rather we're the tool being used by the technology. Does that make sense? So dishwasher is obviously a tool that I'm using. It's a technology I'm using as a tool to eliminate labor that I would have had to have done before it was invented. And that's a good thing. And it's freeing me up to potentially do a different kind of labor. But often technology can twist the relationship and make us the tool that the technology is using. Social media, I think, is an example of that is we think we are using the tool, but we're actually being used by the tool to create an algorithm, to sell ads, whatever it might be. And so AI is something similar. You might be using it as a tool, and that can be a good use of AI, but it also can be using you. That's. That's one thing I would. I would consider another thing. You know, there's kind of these utopian and dystopian narratives around AI right now, and I tend to find myself somewhere in the middle. But it's not that I'm in the middle. I actually just bounce back and forth really fast between how good it can be and how bad it can be. But, but I read something recently that was talking about the emergence of like the Internet and even just computers and cell phones text that you were talking about. And this article made the case that it actually was really dehumanizing because it turned us into having to interact with machines primarily. And this article was saying what AI might do is do the machine work for us, which actually could be rehumanizing for people and return us to face to face interaction and more human work. So like I might be doing my email, which actually might be a helpful thing in some regards. I know there's lots of caveats there, I'm not going to give them, which could return me to face to face conversation. So that was kind of more of a utopian narrative around that. And that would, that would indicate that AI could be used as a tool to do something that isn't using me, but I'm using it.
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A
Yeah. And I like where you're going with that. I will say I trend on the more pessimistic side when it comes to this, but I was confronted recently and I did mention this on the last episode that we did, but I was recently in D.C. and we went to the Museum of the Bible, my daughter and my wife and I, and we had an incredible experience there. But we walked around, they have all these Bibles throughout history. And we were looking at the Bibles and a lot of the placards and cards and write ups to talk about these Bibles. Talked about how labor intense the production of Bibles were. Right. Like it just would take these monks years to manufacture these Bibles. And they're ornate and lovely. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to see an illuminated Bible. It is a work of art. Like they're gorgeous to look at. But these Bibles, even the plainest and the simplest of them were like incredibly laborious. And it made the accessibility of the Bible very, very rare. It wasn't just like people had Bibles around, right? And then the Gutenberg printing press comes around and it's this incredible achievement and it's this marvel because now all of a sudden you can increase the accessibility by decreasing the, the cost from a time and a money standpoint of production of the Bible. And I think all of us would agree, like that's a good thing. Like that's a tool being used in a healthy way. And I think that when we think about the purpose of tools and their use. I've been reflecting a little bit on Genesis, on the Genesis Accounts from Cain and Abel to the Tower of Babel, as I've been thinking about AI. And when you get into the descendants leading up to Noah from Cain and Abel, you get these this interesting aside about some of Cain and Abel's descendants and Seth's descendants. You have that there was a man
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C
named Jubal Jubalcain and Tubal Cain, who
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A
was the father of all those who play the lyre and the pint. And then you get Zillah also bore Tubal Cain, who was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. Now, it's interesting because this is a little bit of a. Yes, it's in the Bible. It's relevant towards the witness of Scripture. It's also a little bit of just kind of a historical note that you're seeing the development of man's ability to use. You're seeing civilizational development here, of which a core part of that is tool building and tool culture cultivation and development. Now, you're going to flip over once you get over to the flood, you know, and the judgment of the world, and you're going to find on the other side of this that you have a group of people that gather together to build a tower that has its heights in the heavens. Now, it's too much to say that there's a direct line between Tubal Cain's forging of instruments and the ability of the people at Babel to construct a tower. But it is to say that the tools that were used to construct a tower at one point were tools that could have been used for more global means and for good purposes. And I think it's just important to remember that because of the impact of sin in this world, you have tools that can be used for proper and holy and righteous cultivation and for wicked ends. And there's no doubt that we will see both of those as it pertains to any tool, including something like AI.
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C
Well, I mean, the story of the Tower of Babel follows on the story of the building of the ark, which was no doubt done with tools. And so I think that tools can be used to build our kingdom or to build the Lord's kingdom. And the tool itself is morally neutral. The user of the tool is what turns it into either. So I just taught on the story of Jael that 10 peg gets used for a very moral purpose, that it was never intended to be used for. It was supposed to be used to just put up tents. So a tool in the hand of a particular person can be used either for a moral purpose or for an immoral purpose. And I think AI is the same way. And I think, you know, I've been around long enough and I'm married to Jeff Wilkin, who has done it for forever. And I've been around long enough to hear the dystopian threats associated with various waves of technology. And I remember Y2K and at when Y2K happened, I was pregnant with our fourth child and the others were 3, 2 and 1. And so, you know, we had the prepper extraordinaire, people in our home group who were. They had water barrels and they knew how to shut off things at the curb. And I mean, they were ready for things to go down. And Kyle is laughing because he's like, oh, I'm ready for things to go down. And. And then there was us. And I'm like, hon, we have all these little kids. What are we supposed to do? And so we bought like a bottle of bleach and some green beans and cans, you know, and we're like, that'll. That'll do it. Jeff is like, I just don't think that this is gonna, you know, I don't think this is gonna do what people think it's gonna do. The worst case scenarios. And I would say I think that about AI I think AI is gonna have some very dark people who are very dark in their hearts are going to use it as in very dark ways. But that are the. Are we going to find ourselves in an episode of Terminator? Probably not, because humans tend to rise to the occasion when things become too inhuman. Are you tired of shallow discipleship in your life, the life of your church or small group? God is inviting you into deeper places. Real participation in his story, real understanding of who he is and what he has done, and a more meaningful practice of following in his ways. For the last 10 years, JT, Jen and Kyle have been teaching a program called Deep Discipleship in their local churches. And they have now worked with Lifeway to make this available to everyone everywhere. Whether you're an individual looking to go deeper, a church leader looking for an accessible way to invite your small groups, classes and student ministry, or a homeschool family looking for curriculum for your high school students, Go check out the Deep discipleship program@lifeway.com deep discipleship.
- [20:14]
A
Are you one of the millions of Christians searching for a path from anxiety to assurance? If so, overflowing peace by author and Bible teacher Taraji do should be your next. Read this verse by verse. Exploration of Psalm 23 reveals the complete total and matchless peace only found while walking with our good shepherd. Perfect for personal reading, small group study, or as a gift for anyone longing for peace in turbulent times. Visit overflowingpeacebook.com to get your copy today. Let's do this to be interesting. Are any of us using AI in any way right now? I mean, and I don't mean that this moment. No, no, no. Not right now. I'm sorry because.
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C
Thank you.
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B
Maybe.
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A
No, no.
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C
I mean, I usually wait until about 25 minutes into an episode to start using AI.
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A
If. If in kind of your normal life, are you. I know a lot of apps now have AI integration. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you're going to ChatGPT or Google Gemini or Claude. You're using the AI in suite tools for anything.
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C
Yes, yes.
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B
Yeah, but not very often. Like, not very often.
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A
Let's give. Let's give example. Let's just talk about. Give examples. This is a judgment free zone.
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B
My primary use has been like, it's what I used to put in a Google search bar. Like, hey, tell me about. Or like, I use it just to learn something that I might otherwise. So, like last night, Thomas wanted to know what a Cracker Jack looked like. He's never seen a Cracker Jack. So like, I just tell. Told chatgpt, hey, tell me, tell my son, like, the history of a Cracker Jack, what a Cracker Jack is and give me a picture of it. So. And that's better than what Google used to produce in terms of how I could search. I use it as a search function. I also did a pretty cool project the other day. I'm not very good at, like, technology in terms of like, as demonstrated often on this podcast, but I'm also not good at, like, creative arts. And I know there's lots of people out there like, oh, you are. You should cultivate it. No, I'm not. Leave me alone. But I. So one of the things that I'm trying to help Thomas and Bailey with is just simple chores around the house. Incentive, learning about finances, not an allowance, but salary. So I had Claude build these. This really, I think, pretty cool kind of chore chart list, incentivizing them to do certain things around the house for money. That's like this really, really fun. Like, they love it. It has our monthly memory verse on it. It has like weekly streaks. How many weeks in a row did I do this? How much money have I invested back with mom and dad that they're gon. I couldn't have built that by myself. I have all the ideas, but I couldn't have put that on a piece of paper. And so I just told it, hey, do this. And then bang, it came out two minutes later. And I made a few modifications. And so that I think is a great use of it because something I was unable to do that now is done immediately and it's gonna help my family.
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C
So JT's using it for child labor.
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B
SM my lawn, make my bed.
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C
I've used it to be a party planner and a research assistant. So I had. I mean, I've done more than that, but, like, I had to. I got to plan. I hosted a 40th birthday party for a dear friend and I didn't want to pay for a caterer. And so I said, create a menu for this number of people using only Costco products. And it created the whole thing and told me, like, where to go get each of the. You know, and then I edited it according to my preferences. But it saved tons of time for me. And money, too. Saved a lot of money because everybody was like, did you cater this? And I'm like, no. And then I also used it when I wrote the most recent book that I wrote to do things that I would have previously perhaps asked a person to go, like, can you go find an article on this or that stuff? That used to take a lot of time to find online. Now what I don't do is like, oh, here's an article. I'm just going to drag and drop the reference into the. But I mean, you gotta. You gotta do the reading and make sure it got the right thing for you. But just actually physically finding what I needed was a lot easier. And then I'll tell you another thing that was amazing is it generated all the footnotes.
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A
That was heaven. 100%, that is. That's one of the ways that I've been using it as well, has been in a citate, like the finder. I've been using it as a finder tool. Yeah, I've been using it as an organizer tool and I've been using it as a citation tool. And that has been like absolute speed game changer. Because being able to, like, build outside citations very effectively with a drag and drop feature. Like, I don't think there's, like, I don't feel any particular. Like, I think the sweat equity value of properly citing is like, not proportional to what they actually produce.
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C
Right.
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A
So, like, I would not. If I was doing a content footnote, I would not, not push In a blog article to chat GBT and say, summarize this into a content footnote that I can use in this book. I would want to write up that.
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C
Yes, yeah, yeah.
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A
But when it came to citing that article, I. I'm like, great, you cite the article. I want to do the work of understanding its conclusions and synthesizing that for the purposes of the argument I'm making. I want to do that work creatively. That's knowledge work I want to do
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C
not being like in the Chicago manual.
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A
That's right.
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C
Require me to do to get this cited the proper way.
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A
Yeah. So I found it to be great. I'm high on it for finding, organizing, sighting. I use it recently as a vacation planner.
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C
Oh yeah, Jeff did that. Okay. This is a funny story actually. We did this when we went down to Big Ben and so Jeff was like, I need a one day thing. And so he, you know, it gives us this itinerary and it says, this will take you about this much time. And the guy who we were staying with is like, yeah, I don't. I don't know. I think that's kind of a long day. And we were like, no, it's from ChatGPT. It's perfect. We could have died in the desert. Yeah, it was like, oh, this is, this is taking longer.
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A
It's like, it's like when Michael and Dwight are in that car with the turn right. Yeah, the gps. And he's like, it's telling me to turn right. I have to trust the robots. Right into that.
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C
Yeah, that's exactly. And we're out there. And Jeff is like, I'm so sorry, guys. I mean, this is what chat GPT said. And we're like, we get it.
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A
The robots are trying.
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C
We will all.
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A
Yeah, it might not be a terminator, but they're gonna give you a one day itinerary in the desert. That leaves you.
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C
Yeah, but there's really more of a three day itinerary.
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A
But yeah, well, no. So I think it's just interesting. It's good to talk about it openly like this because I do think that right now, particularly in the Christian community, I think what we want to avoid when these new issues emerge is like the war camps get drawn up immediately on these things, like whether it's yoga pants. Froyo. Chatgpt.
- [27:01]
C
It's like, wear yoga pants in the new Jerusalem.
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A
It was like the battle lines immediately become so enforceable when it's often an issue that requires wisdom. We've talked over the last couple of seasons that the role of wisdom is paramount in the Christian life. If you are looking for the Bible to give you a strict binary on to use or not use generative AI, it's not providing that. JT just texted me and said, are you wearing yoga pants? And the answer is you'll never know. Neither you nor those who watch, who Support us on trainthechurch.com support and get the full video will be able to tell yes. Yeah, that's not something we make available to the, the watcher, the viewer. I do want to talk about some of the Christian ethical concerns. Jt, would you ever, just to get us going here because I've got hot buttons for you, J.T. and hot button for you, Jen. J.T. for you. Would you ever. You just got through preaching John. Would you take John 6 and take, say, hey, I want a 30 minute sermon on John 6 in the voice of Tim Keller and I want you to produce because it can. It will do that for you.
- [28:09]
C
You.
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B
It will do that. But like that takes the fun out of preaching. Not only is there a lack of integrity there, if that's the kind of stuff you're willing to do, get into a different industry, do something like that is the centerpiece of what I get to do. Study God's Word, enjoy God's Word, deliver God's word to the people here at Storyline. If that's the kind of thing that you're tempted to do, you're probably not called to ministry and I not. And I mean that's called acting. Say it again.
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C
You might be called to acting.
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B
Yeah, maybe you're called to acting, but like that's not what. And again, there's a whole issue of integrity there that we'd have to address, but also just an idea of like enjoyment and vocation. I'm called to be the pastor here at Storyline in the season and part of that responsibility is reading God's word, studying God's word and delivering God's word contextually as the pastor to God's people. Now I will say I think there are uses for AI for sermon research, for sermon prep. I've used it to help me think of illustration ideas. Like I've said, I'm preaching on John 6 and here's my main point and here's what I'm trying to say. Can you help me think about four or five stories about this and it'll give me some ideas? And so I've got no issue with that. I would have used, you know, Google to do that a few years, like a Google search Bar. So I think there are uses of it for research, but certainly not generative in terms of here's the, here's the delivered product.
- [29:22]
A
Give me, give me. Like, I know that, like I'm putting you on the spot to do this. Give me a real snapshot of the guardrails. When would you, in sermon prep, for example, when would you be like to me, that's when you cross over the guardrail.
- [29:36]
B
When it's telling you main points to preach, when it's giving you applicational points to preach. When it's like you could. Here's a, here's a good use. Help me understand the passage better. How have different traditions Understood John Chapter 6?
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A
I think that's a really, that, that right there. The. Give me different traditions. That's the kind of prompt that I think because that's aggregation. You're not telling it to synthesize or interpret necessarily. You're just saying, hey, I want to hear what different theological traditions have said about.
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C
It's using it as like a commentary set in a lot of ways. I mean, you got to be careful. Like, I also think it's easier for you or I or Kyle to do that, jt than it might be for someone who hasn't spent a lot of time in commentaries and kind of knows how that world functions.
- [30:21]
B
Oh yeah. I mean, one of the scariest things is like my people or anybody, anybody just saying, like, tell me what John six says, because who knows what kind of interpretation it's going to give that's doing the work for you.
- [30:31]
A
Well, you know, funny you should mention it, JT because right before we signed onto this episode, I prompted Google Gemini to give me a 15 minute sermon on John 6 in the voice of pastor, author and theologian J.T. english. And I want to read the introduction and give you the three main points. Church, it's so good to be with you today. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them to John chapter six. If you've spent any time around our ministry or read Deep Discipleship, I love you. Know that I'm convinced of one thing. The church is not called to be a shallow water park. We are called to be a deep, shallow water park. We are called to be a deep sea diving school. We are here to know God, to love God, and to be formed by the beauty of the triune God. And there is perhaps no chapter in all of the New Testament that forces us to decide what kind of disciples we are going to be more than John 6. This is the Mount Everest.
- [31:19]
B
This is Preaching right here. I'm in.
- [31:21]
A
This is the Mount Everest of the Gospel of John. It's a long chapter, it's a difficult chapter, and it's a chapter that begins with a massive crowd and ends with almost everyone walking away. That was the introduction.
- [31:33]
B
I'm in. Three main points to sermon.
- [31:35]
A
The provision of the king. Point one is the provision of the king. Point two, the person of the son. Point three, the price of discipleship.
- [31:44]
B
Oh, yes. That sounds like something I'd preach. I like it.
- [31:47]
A
Nailed it. Okay, Jen, it might be hard for you to imagine I did the same thing for you. Jen, give me a 10 minute teaching on John 6. And the voice of author and Bible teacher Jen Wilkin. Here's the introduction for Jen's teaching on this.
- [32:02]
C
I hope I'm selling things.
- [32:04]
A
Oh, that. Wouldn't that be great? Friends, notice it's friends, not church. Here, friends, I'm so glad you're here. Before we dive into John 6, I want to ask us to do something we often struggle to do. I want to set aside our personal application of the text for a moment. We have a tendency to run to the Bible asking, what does this say about me? Or how can this fix my Tuesday? But the Bible is first and foremost a book about God. If we want to be women and men of the Word, we have to start by asking, what does this text reveal about the character of Christ? John 6 is a massive chapter. It's the longest in the gospel and it's a masterclass. And how Jesus reveals his identity by echoing the Old Testament. Listen to this last line because it's clearly pulling from what you've published online. If you don't know your Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, you're going to miss half of what's happening here.
- [32:52]
C
That's the latest thing I tweeted.
- [32:53]
A
Exactly right. Because Google Gemini is pulling from your entire composite online now. Now, your main points, the context, a new exodus, the claim, the first I am and the crisis. Hard words for shallow ears.
- [33:10]
C
That's pretty good. Not bad.
- [33:12]
B
Kyle, since you've done this, I went ahead and pulled yours up.
- [33:16]
A
This is going to be a troll. I know you. Whatever you're doing here is about to be mockery.
- [33:21]
B
No, this is exactly what it says. I wish I could turn my camera on and show you. It says. It says, here's a 10 minute teaching on John 6. And Kyle Worley's voice. Theologically rich, accessible story, grounded, rooted in union with Christ, with knowing faith, DNA running through it. Point number one. Listen to JT instead.
- [33:40]
A
See, I knew it. I don't even know why I gave that the benefit of the doubt. There was. There was a solid 10 seconds there where I thought, huh, that's pretty interesting. I wonder what it says. Amazing. No, but, like, okay, I think that's interesting here for a couple of reasons. And we could spend too much time on this. We probably have, but it's fine.
- [34:00]
C
No, you better be glad, Kyle, that what you said at my last women's event that you came to is not available online. That showed up in your Shermans.
- [34:07]
A
Should I tell this story?
- [34:09]
C
Okay, this is the best.
- [34:11]
A
I'm. I am still in the doghouse with my wife on this.
- [34:14]
C
Are you serious? It was epic. I will never forget this, jt, you don't know this. You don't know what happened. Okay, so Kyle. And I feel like I. It's my fault. And you were also factually accurate. I went and checked afterwards because what I had done in the talk that I'd given before this was. Was talk about that I was an Indian princess, and I gave my dad this name, and it was an inappropriate name, but I didn't know because I was a kid, and names say something about a person's character. And so in the Q and A, we get the question, what Indian princess name would you give to Kyle and to jt? And so Kyle says, well, I would name JT Stubborn Donkey. And I make the joke that, well, we would do it in the King James, not in the esv. So everybody's laughing, and then Kyle says, well, what Indian princess name would you give me? And I said, I don't know. Probably, like, adorable koala. And Kyle goes, that's the second time you've called me a koala. And I'm like, it is. And apparently. And now I remember, like, there was an episode a while back where I said he looked like a. What was it, Kyle?
- [35:18]
A
Adorable koala.
- [35:19]
C
Yeah, adorable koala. And so I said, like, who doesn't love koalas? They're so adorable. And then Kyle says, well, I think they carry chlamydia to a room full of women. He says,
- [35:40]
A
I can't believe I said this. I just said it. It was just like, I had heard it in a trivia episode recently of a podcast. And I was just like, that's the second time she said it. And it's like, koalas evidently are, like, known carriers. So, like, if you go handle a koala at a zoo, you're like, you gotta wash off afterwards, because you might have chlamydia. You have. Definitely. They're like, all. They have it. They all have chlamydia.
- [36:04]
C
So I turn to him and say, did you just sell a room full of women?
- [36:19]
A
Yeah.
- [36:20]
C
Anyway, it turns out he's not wrong. They do, in fact, transmit cl.
- [36:29]
A
Oh, God.
- [36:29]
C
Oh, my goodness.
- [36:31]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Those are those moments that you really
- [36:34]
C
think, did you learn that on AI? Is that where you.
- [36:38]
A
I did not. No. I heard that somewhere else, and I was like. And then afterwards, I was like. It was one of those things that I said it, not thinking like, oh, this is like. I wasn't even thinking about it as, like, a joke.
- [36:51]
C
It was just you and me having a conversation in front of a thousand women. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [36:57]
A
Immediately, the first thing my wife said to me, because I come off the stage, I say goodbye to Jen because we got to get to the airport.
- [37:02]
C
Yeah.
- [37:03]
A
I walk back, I find my wife, and she goes, you are a class A dummy. And I was like, what? She was like, you just told a room full. You just made a chlamydia joke in a room of a thousand women at a women's conference. And I was like. I didn't even think about it. I wasn't. It hadn't even read.
- [37:22]
C
You were just so comfortable.
- [37:24]
A
Yeah.
- [37:25]
C
Yep.
- [37:25]
A
God bless those women out there. God bless them in Maryland.
- [37:29]
C
Well, now they know. I mean, honestly, you probably saved them from a world of hurt. The next time they go to the.
- [37:37]
A
Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. I don't know how we got here, but I'm glad.
- [37:44]
C
Anyway, where were we?
- [37:45]
A
We were on AI.
- [37:46]
C
Yeah.
- [37:46]
A
Okay. Talking. I can make a segue here.
- [37:49]
C
Okay. I know you can.
- [37:50]
A
We're talking about koalas. That is, they are a animal. They live in the environment. Gin. One of the things I know that you're actually pretty passionate about is Christians exercising proper environmental stewardship. And it, like, the jury is out, at least on AIs right now. It is, like, the environmental impact of AI for those who care. And I'm not saying that everyone has to care, but I am saying I know that you do care. The environmental impact on this is, like, very, very bad. The water consumption is high. What it does for local bio ecosystems, the data centers required to power these things, is just, like. It's crazy. And there are whole places in Texas right now, small towns, that are being effectively obliterated by the noise pollution that these data centers are producing. We already know it's affecting migratory patterns for birds. We know it's consuming water, which is a not like which is a, a scarce resource as it is. How do you. I'm going to put you on the spot here, Jen. How do you justify putting in a plan, a party planning agenda into a tool that is environmentally destructive?
- [39:04]
C
I think that it will not always be as environmentally destructive as it is now. I think that that is a, that's the next. The problem to solve and so that, But I do, I think it's another good reason to use it sparingly. I do. And you know, it's interesting. This made me sad there. I listened to a podcast about the moon launch and one of the reasons that we want to go back to the moon is because Helium 3 is available in quantity on the moon and it can be something that, that makes AI more able to run efficiently or certainly more cheaply. And when I thought about strip mining the moon, it made me feel really sad. So I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, you know what's not on the moon though? Chlamydia or koalas.
- [40:02]
A
Best we know, not a colon or
- [40:04]
B
bird migratory patterns that we need to be worried about.
- [40:06]
A
Oh, mercy, guys, if you're.
- [40:09]
C
Anyway, yeah. So I still think you are a
- [40:12]
A
true fan of the show.
- [40:13]
C
Yeah, I do think that is, I think that's a major consideration and I think that in typical American form, most people will not give it a thought.
- [40:22]
A
Yeah, yeah, it is. I think these are the issues that require thoughtful wrestling consideration and that we want the best of scientists, but even Christian scientists to be thinking through. Anytime you introduce a new tool or a new opportunity, you do have this. There's a reason why if you're going to go, go build something out in Texas right now, they're going to require you to do an environmental impact study. Because when you create something, build something, cultivate something, it is disruptive creation. Any creative work is disruptive. If, like when, if Jen or JT and I begin a book, it's a blank document. Creation is a disruptive act. Now the question is, can it produce a value that is redemptive and that leads to flourishing, to benefit, to blessing, to worship all of those other creaturely goods, common graces and blessings. But it requires thoughtfulness. And so the approach here should not be unthinking dismissal or unthinking adoption, but should be thoughtful consideration, contemplation and engagement with any new tool. And that would include AI. Some of the obvious icebergs ahead of us are going to be the exploitation of people. Anytime you have a new tool, one of the chief ends of a new tool in a broken world is how can you use this to exploit people? And we will see that there's no doubt that generative AI is already being used for the exploitation of people. And we should be mindful and cautious about that. I think the second thing is to be mindful and cautious that AI is entering in at a time in which the, the kind of desensitization to violence to of all kinds and the disinterest in truth claims as measurable realities. That is going to continue to compound a degree of epistemological confusion over how do we determine if something is true or not. We are all. We've already been in this like a little bit of a petri dish on the notion of truth. What started as kind of a philosophical inquiry into is truth possible? Has now resulted in this kind of cultural narrative that there actually isn't any real true things. And now you've injected into the system a tool that allows for the very, very passable illusion of truth or illusion of fact. And that, I think is going to be a really significant challenge for anybody who cares about truth. So I think those are some of the obvious icebergs other than environmental impact and malpractice of piracy or copyright infringement. Are there any other big obvious icebergs that, as you've thought about this, like, you've moved past that this could really help. Like, I love hearing scientists talk about how this could systematize data research to provide more helpful. Like, wouldn't we all want a cure for cancer? Like, if everybody right now was like, we could get a cure for cancer. And it's like, wow, they're passing through reams of data to try to get this. And this expedites that process. Well, that to me sounds like a win, but there are all sorts of wins like that where the labor time saved can be used for other ends or other purposes. Are there other obvious pitfalls or icebergs we should be mindful about other than ones we've already talked about?
- [43:50]
B
We've talked about this a little bit, so I don't know if we want to rehash it. But just something that comes to mind for me that feels important to me just as a dad, is just the intellectual development of my kids. I think a big pitfall here as we see, you could look at any statin study, but since the 2010s, the IQ literacy level, not only was it bad then, but it's just getting increasingly worse. And so I think communities, churches, families, friend groups kind of coming together to figure out how do we use technology appropriately in a way that helps develop our kids at their understanding of being image bearers, not not detriments or brings harm to them. Everybody who's, who's like at the kind of the top level of this AI world is talking about this and how they limit their own usage of this. They limit the usage of their kids not just related to social media, but AI because they I think one of the most important things that we can do in the emergence of artificial intelligence is become extremely intelligent ourselves, is be critical thinkers, develop critical thinkers, not just people who are going to go down the rabbit hole. Whatever AI says, I hope that it
- [44:57]
C
will be a chance for people who have been used as machines to be used as humans again. Like I think there we'll see some of that in the workplace. I shifted to good, good things and that will be interesting. Like, I know there's all of this talk right now about loss of jobs and that's when I'm really thankful that I took economics in college because there aren't lost jobs. There are reallocations of jobs. And that takes some time and it does mean people are unemployed for a period of time. People have to be retrained and all those kinds of things. So I don't mean to oversimplify it, but a lot of the doomsday predictions are, excuse me, they're short term adjustments which are painful. I don't mean to say they're not people are being laid off as I speak, but that I think on the other side of it, it'll be very interesting to see if the outcome is that we less human or more human in the way that we practice our work.
- [45:58]
A
These are good thoughts. This was a good discussion. There was some detours along the way, some sad words, and if you stuck around to the end, then you got some good laughs. You did a lot of the way, you heard a great story, you can tell your friends. And now you have also some really good facts about koalas. You have some of our thoughts on AI and some really cautionary tales about handling koalas, it would really do us a big favor. Maybe this is the wrong time to ask, but if you would go over to Apple Podcast and leave a review of the show, drop in your favorite animal that carries a disease in there. We'd love to consider those for future episode inclusion. No, seriously, it is a complete mess on the Apple Podcast charts when it comes to religion and spirituality. And we again, we're not looking to be number one among our Christian peers, but we definitely want to be able to offer some help for some of these tricky questions in a biblical theological way and with a little dose of humor attached to it. I better roll us out. Thank you for listening to our podcast today. Don't forget to check out our sponsors through our webpage, link in the show notes or online at trainthechurch.com under the Knowing Faith Podcast webpage. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. Grace and Peace.