The SkyePod - Drew's News

Summary

The SkyePod - Drew's News Hosted by Skye Jethani Release Date: May 16, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of The SkyePod, host Skye Jethani welcomes his friend and regular contributor Drew Dick for a special "Drew's News" segment. The episode delves into two major headlines: a scandal involving a prominent Reformed Baptist pastor and the pervasive issue of students leveraging artificial intelligence to cheat in college.

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Section 1: The Pastor Scandal

Drew Dick kicks off the discussion by revealing a significant scandal within the Calvinist community:

"[05:05] Drew Dick: There is a prominent pastor and founder of a fairly large ministry, a Reformed Baptist ministry called G3, who was dismissed from his church and his ministry for a very unusual reason."

Key Points:

• Josh Boyce, a rising star in the Calvinist world and founder of the G3 ministry, was dismissed due to unethical online behavior.
• Boyce operated at least four anonymous social media and Substack accounts where he slandered other pastors and attacked individuals within his own ministry.
• Initially, Boyce denied the accusations but eventually confessed and repented after undeniable evidence emerged.

Sky Jethani reflects on the rarity of such a scandal:

"[05:56] Sky Jethani: ...we've had numerous stories about immorality and financial shenanigans, but this is something entirely different." ([05:52])

Discussion Highlights:

• Historical Context: Traditionally, pastor scandals often involved sexual indiscretions, making Boyce's case unique.
• Community Impact: The incident underscores issues of anger, pride, and arrogance within leadership, revealing a more complex character flaw beyond typical moral failings.
• Accountability: The swift action by Boyce’s church elders highlights a commitment to maintaining integrity within their leadership.

Notable Quotes:

• Drew Dick:

  "[07:14] ...it is a little bit refreshing to see a pastor being held accountable for some behavior that isn't just sexual in nature."

• Sky Jethani:

  "[13:52] ...if someone isn't willing to put their name on it, if they're not willing to own the critique and enter into a dialogue about their critique, then they're not worth listening to."

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Section 2: AI and Academic Integrity

Transitioning to the second major topic, Drew Dick introduces a concerning trend in higher education:

"[21:35] Drew Dick: ...generative artificial intelligence chatbots like Chat GPT, Grok and the like, are basically ruining the college experience because almost every student is using them to cheat on their essays."

Key Points:

• Widespread Cheating: A New York magazine article highlights that AI tools are being extensively used by students to complete assignments dishonestly.

• Student Perspectives: Some students view mastery of AI as a core component of their educational success, with quotes like:

  "[21:53] Drew Dick: ...college is just how well I can use CHAT GPT at this point."

• Impact on Education: Prestigious institutions like Ivy League schools are struggling to maintain academic integrity, leading to curriculum adjustments aimed at mitigating AI misuse.

Sky Jethani references Ezra Klein's recent discussion on AI's impact on education:

"[22:24] Sky Jutani: ...kids of all ages are being impacted by AI and the impact it's having on education."

Discussion Highlights:

• Historical Parallels: Sky compares the current AI dilemma to past technological shifts, such as the introduction of early computers in education, which quickly became obsolete.
• Future of Education: Concerns are raised about the long-term implications for society if critical thinking and deep learning are compromised by overreliance on AI.
• Educational Philosophy: Both hosts emphasize the need for education systems to focus on developing critical thinking and deep comprehension skills rather than merely technical proficiency with evolving tools.

Notable Quotes:

• Skye Jethani:

  "[27:00] Sky Jutani: ...we need people trained in things that we have always needed, which is deep critical thinking, the ability to assess an argument..."

• Drew Dick:

  "[27:09] Drew Dick: ...this is something that was not a concern 20 years ago before the advent of social media."

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Section 3: Reflections and Solutions

Both Skye and Drew share personal anecdotes and broader reflections on the issues at hand:

• Skye's Past Experience: Recounts dealing with anonymous, critical letters during his time as a church pastor, emphasizing the importance of accountability and direct communication over anonymous slander.

  "[12:30] Sky Jethani: ...if someone isn't willing to put their name on it...then they're not worth listening to."

• Managing Online Behavior: Drew admits to previously engaging with anonymous online critics but has since ceased, recognizing the futility and negativity of such interactions.

  "[14:31] Drew Dick: ...I think you're better off for it."

• Education Reform: Both agree on the necessity for a shift towards classical, critical thinking-focused education to counteract the superficial learning encouraged by overreliance on AI and technology.

Notable Insights:

• Character Development: Emphasis on the foundational role of character and accountability in leadership, whether in ministry or academia.
• Technological Adaptation: Recognizing that while technology like AI presents challenges, education systems must evolve to prioritize enduring skills over transient technological proficiencies.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Skye Jethani and Drew Dick engage in a thoughtful examination of significant issues affecting both religious leadership and the educational landscape. The scandal involving Pastor Josh Boyce serves as a cautionary tale about integrity and accountability in leadership roles, while the rampant use of AI in academic settings underscores the urgent need for educational reforms that prioritize critical thinking and deep learning. Through their insightful dialogue, they advocate for personal responsibility, transparent communication, and a return to foundational educational principles to navigate the complexities of modern challenges.

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Note: This summary captures the core discussions and insights from the episode. To delve deeper into these topics and access exclusive content, consider subscribing to Holy Post Plus.

Transcript

[Drew Dick]

I mean, strictly speaking, God is an alien, right? He is extraterrestrial.

[Sky Jutani]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Sky Pod, brought to you by Holy Post Media. I'm Sky Jutani. Joining me on today's episode is my friend Drew Dick. Hi, Drew.

[Drew Dick]

Hey, Sky. Good to be back with you.

[Sky Jutani]

All right, we're doing a Drew's News episode where you cover the headlines. But before we get into that, Drew, I have a question for you.

[Drew Dick]

Hit me.

[Sky Jutani]

I'm scared to ask this. Are you a Holy Post plus subscriber?

[Drew Dick]

I am. Oh, I am.

[Sky Jutani]

Good.

[Drew Dick]

No. Well, yeah. And I forget, I may have gotten it for free because I do this segment.

[Sky Jutani]

You are a regular contributor.

[Drew Dick]

So, yes, I go in there just to see the comments, and it is a thriving, very thoughtful community. Oh, that's actually makes me nervous to do this because I have said so many things, and they're like, actually, it's a little different, and here's some more research on it. And I'm like, yeah, they're right. Whoops. I'll try harder next time.

[Sky Jutani]

Yeah, they do keep our feet to the fire over there. I bring it up because this podcast, some of it is available to everyone for free, and then the entire podcast is available only to Holy Post plus subscribers. But there's a lot of people listening who don't know what they are missing. Over at Holy Post Plus, I mean, we have new content every day. Exclusive interviews, bonus segments, the Holy Post Book Club, Holy Post events, exclusive merchandise. There's shows that are only available on Holy Post, like Getting Schooled by Caitlin chess. Esau McCauley, New Testament professor at Wheaton, New York Times columnist. He's doing a reoccurring. I think it's almost weekly now. He's going through the entire Bible by talking about one verse at a time, like from each book of the Bible. I think it's the Bible in 66 verses, something like that. It's a great family devotional thing. We've got all kinds of new stuff coming out soon that I cannot share yet because it's top secret. But I'm just telling you right now, you want to get in on this because there's some fantastic stuff. All the best stuff we're producing in Holy Post Media is for Holy Post plus subscribers, including full, unedited, complete Skypod episodes every Friday, including Drew's news episodes, like the one we're about to record. So all the cool kids are doing it. You guys got to get over there.

[Drew Dick]

Don't want to miss that.

[Sky Jutani]

Don't want to Miss it.

[Drew Dick]

Best stuff for the behind the curtain segment, too, right?

[Sky Jutani]

That's exactly right. We do have stuff in front of the curtain, like the Esau McCauley show, which is amazing. He's doing amazing stuff. Great guests, interesting content. Esau is one of these polymath people that kind of freaks me out a little bit because he is a brilliant New Testament scholar. He's an Anglican priest, he is a basketball nerd, and he is a pop culture nerd. Like, he loves comic book movies and so. And they cover everything and anything you can imagine on that show. And Esau's endlessly entertaining. And of course, there's the curiously Caitlyn show, where Caitlyn Chess. Do you know what's funny? Is almost everyone connected to the Holy Post is, like, more educated than I am. Like, she's getting her doctorate at Duke right now, and she does this show about Christian theology and doctrine. But every episode is a kid asking a question, and then she has a scholar or someone super smart on, and they answer the question. But Caitlin kind of translates it for kids, and not just kids, but for, like, average people to understand why these important doctrines like the Trinity or bodily resurrection, you name it, like, why they matter. So anyway, we got tons of great content both for Holy Post plus and non Holy Post plus people. Everyone should be absorbing all of this all the time. Okay, Drew. It's Drew's news time. You've scoured the Internet. You look for stories that we miss that fall between the cracks that no one's paying attention to but should, and you bring them to our attention, and then we talk about them. Can't wait to see what you've got this time. Where do you want to start?

[Drew Dick]

Let's get into it. Well, I do think that everyone is paying attention to the first one I'm bringing because it kind of caused a little bit of a scandal online. There is a prominent pastor and founder of a fairly large ministry, a Reformed Baptist ministry called G3, who was dismissed from his church and his ministry for a very unusual reason. And first, let me just say a little bit about him. Josh Bruce is his name. Boyce, actually, I think is the way you pronounce it. Josh Boyce. And he was a pretty big deal. I've seen him online. I don't know him personally, but he's kind of a rising star in the Calvinist world. The kind of John MacArthur camp. And he had a large church, a conference that he associated with his ministry that he founded that had about 8,000 attendees, a church network, and it came to light that Josh, in addition to all the other things he was doing, was secretly running at least four other. In addition to his own four other social media profiles, as well as two substack accounts. And he was using those anonymous burner accounts to slander other pastors, say nasty things about them, unfair things, just attack them online. And at first he denied, you know, I guess it was his church as elders that brought it to his attention. And he denied it for like two hours. And finally, after providing irrefutable evidence, he did confess, apologized, repented, but was let go from his church and from his ministry.

[Sky Jutani]

You know what I appreciate about this pastor scandal story?

[Drew Dick]

Tell me.

[Sky Jutani]

It's just something different. Like we.

[Drew Dick]

That it is.

[Sky Jutani]

You know, we've. There's been a bazillion immorality, adultery kind of stories. There's all kinds of financial shenanigans and duplicity on the books or whatever, but this is. I haven't heard one like this before.

[Drew Dick]

You're right. Yeah. And I actually kind of had a similar thought because, well, at least a generation ago, the only way a pastor would get booted usually was for some sexual indiscretion. Right. And. And it was tragically hilarious because, you know, sky, like, when you kind of work in the publishing or ministry world, you get a closer up view of some of these people. And I won't mention any names, but there were some people that every. It's like an open secret. This guy is the biggest jerk in the world. You know, he's just ripping into people. He's running his church or his ministry like a dictator. And then after decades of doing that, there's a sexual indiscretion and everyone's like, oh, no, Satan poached another humble servant of God. And you're like, this guy's been fallen for decades. But now it crossed that line that we just can't overlook. So, yes, I guess in a sense, it is a little bit refreshing to see a pastor being held accountable for some behavior that isn't just sexual in nature.

[Sky Jutani]

Did the article explain how he got, how he got exposed? Like how they knew that these other accounts were really him?

[Drew Dick]

No. Now, I mean, there are articles, there's Religion News Service has one, and CT and Christianity. So there may be more information, but I don't recall seeing exactly how it came to light. But it was his, his elders that that brought it to his attention. And then he finally, after being forced into a quarter and going, hey, look at this. They found, I guess, evidence that they were his and then he, he confessed.

[Sky Jutani]

It reminds me of the, the Mark Driscoll story where he was, he was posting things. This is in the early years of the Internet. He was posting things, I guess on message boards or something under the name William Wallace the second or something like that.

[Drew Dick]

I think it was William Wallace too.

[Sky Jutani]

Yeah.

[Drew Dick]

And it was really just going off on people.

[Sky Jutani]

Right. It was, it was grotesque and belligerent, I think profane in some cases. And it later came out that it was actually Mark Driscoll. So I mean, I don't know what you do, but I, I kind of let all that stuff out in prayer. I mean serious like when you're Right. It's like when, when I'm struggling. Dedicatory psalm When I'm struggling with. Yes. When I'm struggling with judgments or anger or some of that stuff. I find prayer to be an outlet or a therapeutic place where I can be honest and I don't in any way condone my own judgments or actions or thoughts. But I'm like, this is in me. God, I got to put it somewhere. I'm going to admit it. This is what's in me. But the idea of creating burner accounts basically on social media where you are publicly destroying people, that. That's kind of creepy.

[Drew Dick]

Well, everyone has their hobby. Yeah, no, I agree. And prayer is definitely healthier that I actually think of that as an outlet for if you have this kind of pent up rage or discontent or quibbles with people. Yeah, definitely healthier to bring it to God or if it's serious enough, bring it to them personally rather than going after them online. Right. If it's something that you feel like needs to be addressed.

[Sky Jutani]

Are there any examples of the stuff he posted?

[Drew Dick]

See, this is the problem and some people are saying we need to see the burner accounts because people don't know they haven't divulged what the accounts actually were. So Yeah, I don't know. But apparently it was pretty nasty. Surprisingly it was even lashing out against some people in his own camp, people that had spoken at his conference.

[Sky Jutani]

So there is a real duplicity here where he's pretending to be chummy with people in his own church or in his own network, but behind the scenes he's destroying them online and. Okay, that's rough.

[Drew Dick]

Yeah. And his, his real profile or his, his non anonymous profile, I think he had like 60000 followers on X. So he's a pretty prominent guy. And he was in that, you know, kind of extreme Calvinistic camp for sure, but his, at least from what I saw, he was pretty gentle and not pugilistic. So this was his outlet. Here's my other question, though, Sky. Like, who has the time? My goodness.

[Sky Jutani]

I have been pretty much off social media for a couple months now. If people look at any of my accounts, the only stuff you'll see there are, like, holy post things that I've retweeted or reposted because unfortunately, it's a necessary reality of my work that I need to use my accounts to promote what we're doing here. But I haven't really posted anything. Personally, I don't have the bandwidth or time, and I've really come to this place of. I don't get. I know you're good at it and you're funny and you're charming and all that on social media. But, like, I mean, at the beginning you mentioned everyone kind of knows what's going on because this stories. I had no idea this was happening because I'm just not on social media much anymore.

[Drew Dick]

Ignorance is bliss. In this case, yes. I think you're better off for it.

[Sky Jutani]

Okay, so this reminds me of a story when I was a pastor at my local church here, and I was in my late 20s, I guess, when I started on staff, we had. I don't know how many people are on our staff, but we would periodically, in our mailboxes, in the office, you know, you have like the little mailbox cubby things, whatever. Everyone on the pastoral team was getting these letters from someone in the church that we refer to as the anonymous prophet. Because these letters would be, like, scathing critiques of us and different things about the church or different things we were doing or different sermons that were preached, whatever. Just all these, like, negative judgments. And this person claimed to be getting these views from their communion with God, but the person would never put their name on it. And it was really hurtful, like, it was really nasty stuff at times. And the senior pastor, my boss, gave us some really good advice because we kind of all kept receiving these letters periodically over the course of a. A few months. And he finally said, listen, if you see one of these letters in your mailbox, just throw. Don't open it. Just throw it away. And his argument was, and I think he's correct, that if someone isn't willing to put their name on it, if they're not willing to own the critique and enter into a dialogue about their critique, then they're not worth listening to because. Because there's no risk for them. There's no Accountability for them. There's no. And so that's what we started doing, is just kind of throwing that stuff away. And it reminds me of this story because here's this guy who's unwilling to put his name, his true name, on the judgments and critiques he has, apparently of all these other people. And I think it's a sign of cowardice because you want it out there, you want it public, you want some weird affirmation for your hot takedowns of people's, but you're not willing to risk being wrong or being pushed back upon or being. I find that really, really cowardly. And we all struggle with anger and we all struggle with judgments and things. And I think that is the prayer is the outlet for that. Because not only is it a place for us to be honest about what we're struggling with, it's also the place where God's spirit chastises and corrects us and puts us back on track and maybe helps us realize that gratitude is a better response than anger or compassion is a better response or empathy or going to that person you're struggling with and talking to them directly as a brother or sister, whatever. There's all that happens through communion with the Holy Spirit in prayer. That's usually not the feedback you get from people on social media.

[Drew Dick]

Yeah, you're either going to get bitterness in return or affirmation that you probably shouldn't get. I learned this too late, but on social media I would always reply to the anonymous accounts. And then finally I stopped. I was like, I'd make some fun of them, be like, is your name really truth teller28 or something because they have no skin in the game. You don't know who they are, what they stand for. And it does, it gives you that like anonymity, is that kind of. Or that online courage. Right. Where you just feel free to say anything. And I've always thought that, like, if I'm going to confront someone online, would I say this if we were having coffee?

[Sky Jutani]

Totally.

[Drew Dick]

And if it's a confrontational thing, often I wouldn't or I'd soften it. You know, it's funny because I've seen instances where people are fighting online and then they get together to like duke it out one on one and everyone's like anticipating it. And actually it turns out that they kind of clarify their thoughts and it ends up being more amicable than people thought it would be. Because that's what in person, real life, face to face communication does.

[Sky Jutani]

Whether you believe we are created by God for that kind of social reality or through evolution, develop whatever. Like that's what we're created to be, is social creatures. And so when you divorce interaction from that full embodied social reality, you get the worst things out of us. And I, yeah, I just, I, I think what's problematic about this story is other than the duplicity of the pastor and the lying and all that, it's. A pastor should be a person who exhibits that kind of maturity.

[Drew Dick]

Yes.

[Sky Jutani]

Right.

[Drew Dick]

Yeah.

[Sky Jutani]

And so, okay, here's my question. So many of the pastor scandal stories that we've seen over the years, pastor gets busted for something and, and is removed from their position and then there's like a really quick process of quote unquote restoration and they're put back in. Is, is, is this a permanently disqualifying thing that this pastor's. I mean, I don't know how many years this persisted or was it like a one time whatever? Like what's that, what's the church of the pastor saying about the discipline that's being enacted here and the removal of this guy from ministry? Is this like a slap on the wrist? Like 30 days, you know, take a sabbatical, be back after meeting with a counselor twice and having a tearful apology in the pulpit? Is that the plan?

[Drew Dick]

Lock them out of all social media accounts? I don't think they've given a timeline at this point from what I've seen, but I think there was some mention of him still contributing some content. I could be wrong on that. Look into that. But my guess is that this isn't going to be a permanent thing, especially because he's a fairly young guy. Still, this probably won't be a permanent thing and there probably will be a comeback to minister ministry six months, a year or two down the road. And I don't know, I mean, this is kind of uncharted territory in a way. Like someone's being a jerk anonymously online. How. And they're a pastor and they have this position of authority. How long do they have to sit out? What kind of process do they go? Here's the other thing too. And a lot of people have been talking about this online, but this does kind of peel back the lid on some of the, some of the Calvinist circles that I'm not writing them all off for sure, but some of them that tend to have a problem with arrogance and mean spiritedness. Right. And people from within that own tribe saying, hey listen guys, we got a problem here. When a leader of this level was engaged in this kind of behavior. So hopefully it's a moment of self reflection as well.

[Sky Jutani]

I mean, I don't know what I would do in this situation, but I think we minimize, as you said earlier, we tend to maximize the depravity of sexual sins. And some of them are very devastating to marriages and families and communities and all that. And some are less so, but they're still. We maximize the damage of sexual sin or lack of self control, and we tend to minimize the gravity of sins like anger and pride and arrogance and spiritual self righteousness and all that. And I just like, I think that's.

[Drew Dick]

But Jesus went pretty easy on those sins.

[Sky Jutani]

Oh, yeah, right. I'm in no way advocating minimizing sexual immorality, but I think, I don't know, we just. There's a. There's a deep character issue here that I think if I were an elder at this church or in some way responsible for this person, this leader, I would say, hey, this is indicative of a deeply malformed character. And that I think probably requires an extensive amount of time away from ministry at the very least. And not in a punitive way, but in a formative way. Like, it's just really hard to develop strong character when you are in the pulpit every week or you are in a leadership position constantly. And anyway, yeah, cautionary story too, for.

[Drew Dick]

Young pastors or people that are going into ministry. It's like, this wasn't something that people had to think about 20 years ago, right before the advent of social media. Yeah, but sometimes it's not a good place for people.

[Sky Jutani]

But yes and no, Drew, like, character has always been something that mattered in ministry. And arrogance and pride in a different way. Exactly. We now have a new platform through which it can be either hidden or expressed. But my goodness, Christian leaders have always dealt with it. This is what Paul said. A leader should be someone of good repute and reputation, not easily angered. Like, this is not. This is 2000 years old, but the fact that it now manifests itself in secret through burner accounts and social media. Okay, that's new. But we haven't changed. So.

[Drew Dick]

Yeah, and there's not just the hostility and the slander, it's the deception, too. Yes, Right. To hide.

[Sky Jutani]

And here's the thing. My hunch is if this guy is expressing this kind of anger and judgment and contempt through burner accounts on social media, he's expressing it in real life relationships as well.

[Drew Dick]

Right, right.

[Sky Jutani]

There are people in relationship with this leader who have seen this aspect of who he is and the fact and the Fact that that wasn't enough to remove him or second guess his role as a leader, that's concerning to me. It's not just the fact that he was doing it secretly. You know what I mean?

[Drew Dick]

Yeah, totally. Yeah. You don't hide that stuff from your wife, probably even your staff or. Yeah.

[Sky Jutani]

So, I mean, to go back again to the sexual immorality thing, you hear these stories sometimes of pastors who, you know, have a track record or uncovered some horrific history of adulterous relationships or immorality or whatever with women. And then you ask, well, how did he treat women generally in his life or ministry? And you go, yeah, I kind of objectivize women a lot. And, like, these things are not in hermeneutically sealed compartments usually don't come right.

[Drew Dick]

Out of the blue.

[Sky Jutani]

Exactly. And same thing here. He's not just probably keeping that anger and judgment and contempt hidden and buried secretly in these accounts. It's gonna probably leak out into other relationships in their life and. Yeah, okay.

[Drew Dick]

Out of the overflow of the heart, thumbs tweeteth.

[Sky Jutani]

Exactly.

[Drew Dick]

I think that's the. Yeah, I'm feeling convicted. I'm gonna delete all my anonymous accounts. I'm gonna stop attacking you online, Sky. I'm just gonna give it up.

[Sky Jutani]

You're the one.

[Drew Dick]

You're the one sending those nasty letters. All right, let's go to our next one. It's another depressing story. I'm sorry, but this one is basically how everyone is cheating their way through college. This is from New York magazine.

[Sky Jutani]

I saw this.

[Drew Dick]

You saw this? Yeah. This is crazy. Probably not a surprise to most folks, but. So, you know, generative artificial intelligence chatbots like Chat GPT, Grok and the like, are basically ruining the college experience because almost every student is using them to cheat on their essays.

[Sky Jutani]

Yeah.

[Drew Dick]

And the article was interesting, horrifying, full of bizarre quotes from college students, including one that said, college is just how well I can use CHAT GPT at this point. Man, I kind of Wish we had ChatGPT when we were in college. Sky, that would have been a lot.

[Sky Jutani]

Easier, but you wouldn't be the brilliant scholar and Christian thought leader that you are.

[Drew Dick]

Drew, I would have never been on this podcast with my scintillating insights. Oh, my goodness.

[Sky Jutani]

Did you happen to read the Ezra Klein piece this week or listen to his podcast in the New York Times?

[Drew Dick]

Okay, that's hilarious. You'd mentioned that. I listened to it this morning.

[Sky Jutani]

Yes. The one about education.

[Drew Dick]

Interesting. Yes. On this topic.

[Sky Jutani]

It's on this topic, exactly. And how not just college students, but kids of all ages are being impacted by AI and the impact it's having on education. So at the beginning of that episode, he talked about this data. So 1976, that's the year I was born. They asked high school seniors if they'd read any books for fun in the last year. And about 40% of high school seniors said they had read at least six books for fun in the last year. And only 11% said that they hadn't read a single book for fun. So this is 49 years ago and they redid that study and today the stats are basically inversed about 6. What is it? 40% of high schoolers are saying they've read less than one book this year. And that's not just about AI. It's just kind of all the cultural changes and technology and smartphones and on and on. But like, he also mentioned that Ivy League schools, like some of the most prestigious, amazing schools in the country, these professors cannot get their students to read a book and so they're having to dumb down the curriculum in order to try to educate. When you're the smartest kids in the country are not reading books anymore, what does that mean for the future of just humanity? Forget individuals, but collectively as a society, what are we going to become?

[Drew Dick]

It's not good.

[Sky Jutani]

No.

[Drew Dick]

Have you seen the movie Idiocracy that might be in the future?

[Sky Jutani]

I haven't.

[Drew Dick]

It's, it's hilarious. But yeah, but at the same time, and, and Ezra Klein touched on this, there's a real dilemma here too, right? Because students need to probably learn AI. It's going to be a big part of their career. And yet I don't buy using it.

[Sky Jutani]

I just don't. I do not buy it. And here's why, like, I'm not saying AI is not a big deal. I think it is a big deal and I think it will be a significant factor in the future. But like, this is really going back. I think I was like in third grade in elementary school and my parents signed me up, I'm sure it was my dad signed me up for some before school program at the elementary school where I don't know if they have to pay extra for it or whatever, but I don't know, 10 of us, something like that, would go to school early, one day a week and we'd sit down at these giant computers, these huge 1983 computers. I remember those with the green pixelated screens and the 5 inch floppy disks and all that sort of stuff. And the whole Point was like, introduce your kids to computers early because this is the future, right? This is the future. They need to learn how to use this stuff. That was totally pointless. It was totally pointless because the technology was changing so rapidly that whatever I learned about those computers in 1983 were totally irrelevant by 1986. Right. And certainly irrelevant today. And likewise, I remember when I was working at ct, I went out to Silicon Valley to do an article or some work with this Is Our City. It was a project we were working on about Christians and technology and found out that the executives at these various Silicon Valley firms were all sending their kids to this private classical education school that had zero technology and because they understood it. And I think it was in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs where he got an early look at an iPad before they were public. And Isaacson said something to Jobs like, oh, your kids must love this. And Jobs is like, I won't let my kids touch this stuff. And it was because you don't need to teach kids how to use an iPad.

[Drew Dick]

Right.

[Sky Jutani]

The technology is so intuitive.

[Drew Dick]

The interfaces.

[Sky Jutani]

Exactly. And so. But every public school is scrambling to get as much iPads and Chromebooks and technology as possible because, well, our kids need to learn, they don't need to learn it. I suspect that AI is going to be kind of like that. Yes, there's some technique that goes into how to utilize it, but this is such a new technology. It's sort of like, you know, me in third grade on those giant computers with people not having the imagination to realize that computers and our interactions with them are going to become so intuitive that you're not going to need to teach an 8 year old how to do it. They're going to know intuitively how to do it. And same thing with AI. So I just don't buy this.

[Drew Dick]

People were saying like even a few years ago, you need to learn how to code coding, and now they're saying don't learn how to code. Because AI is so much better at it hardly is in a way.

[Sky Jutani]

So I think what we need are people trained in things that we have always needed, which is deep critical thinking, the ability to assess an argument, to read a 400 page book on a topic and really immerse yourself in, in the nuances of and beauty of human emotion technology. Like we need that interaction with one. Like all the things you will never be able to get from Disincarnate. AI is still what we need. And that's what education ought to be providing. And I, I agreed with what Ezra Klein said on the show. But, like, I fear the future of really good education in this country is going to have to be private and it's going to be classical. It's going to be deeply analog and incarnational, and it's expensive, and it's only the wealthy who are going to have access to it. And that's terrifying because I don't think you can have a healthy, pluralistic America without really good, competent, healthy public schools. And it's scary to me that this is the direction we're going.

[Drew Dick]

Yeah, no, I agree. And especially when it comes to, like, in your formative years, you know, just neurologically, like, your brain is, is, is forming all these connections and to short circuit that process. Like, I mean, the other day I was talking to my son and he said, you know, the don't worry, this.

[Sky Jutani]

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