Lizzie O'Leary (3:06)

I want to dig into your reporting a little bit and articulate these two positions where they come from. So let's take the Silicon Valley folks first. Who are the leaders in Silicon Valley who are pushing this vision of artificial intelligence as holy and as a moral imperative?

Kira Butler (3:32)

So I think probably the most famous person who's doing this is Peter Thiel. Obviously he has been advocating for technology for a long time, and he is a, a very strong voice in the Silicon Valley Christian community. There are, you know, there's this kind of groundswell of Christianity in Silicon Valley, and a lot of that is because Peter Thiel has talked a lot about this. I think probably a lot of your listeners know that last year, Peter Thiel was heavily involved in. In this, Peter Thiel hosted a series of talks about the Antichrist. And his vision is that the Antichrist is somebody who attempts to stall progress, who attempts to halt technological innovation.

Paul Kingsnorth (4:32)

I think there is a lot in this runaway science technology that's pushing us towards something like Armageddon. And then there is, you know, the natural pushback on this is we will avoid Armageddon by having a one world state that has real teeth, real power. And the biblical term for that is the Antichrist.

Kira Butler (5:01)

So he is a big force in this space for sure. There's also Trey Stevens of Andoril. So he and his wife founded this Christian organization called Act 17 Collective. And really this is an organization that's dedicated to promoting Christianity in the tech space. They actually were a host of the Peter Thiel Antichrist lectures. They've also. They've done a bunch of other stuff, including a very long talk that Trey Stevens delivered about God and technology where he talked about the importance of what he called choosing good quests.

Trey Stevens (5:40)

You know, I'm like, literally an arms dealer. It's like, I don't think all of you should be arms dealers, but, like, that's a pretty unique calling. And so I think you have to, like, lean into your gifts and figure out what that quest is that you're supposed to be on.

Kira Butler (5:57)

This was a way that Christians could make a lot of money and, you know, be in this pro tech space and also feel good about being good Christians. Another character that I'll mention is Katherine Boyle. She is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and she has given. She's a Catholic, and she's very vocal about her Catholic faith. She's on on X all the time. She, you know, goes on a lot of podcasts. She writes op eds, often for the Free press. And she has made the argument that technology, and AI in particular, can be a boon to domestic life. You know, she's saying that AI can help take the drudgery out of the holy calling of women to be at home raising their families. So this is her kind of attempt to give AI a very kind of almost like a trad wife makeover, that

Lizzie O'Leary (6:58)

AI could, like, make my grocery list and also help me have a side business and do all those things while I'm doing school pickup.

Kira Butler (7:07)

Exactly. Or while you are, in fact, homeschooling.

Lizzie O'Leary (7:09)

You know, there was a thing that you wrote about in your piece when you mentioned Trey Stevens and this lecture, God and Technology, and he argues, and I'm going to quote this here, what our soul deeply longs for is progress in building a better future. And I don't think that's controversial. I think that's what everybody's soul longs for, right? Like some kind of contribution to the life of the world, whether that is through your children or your job or your works or your faith or what have you. And what I think is so interesting is the marriage of that universal human desire with something that is technologically driven. I wonder how the leaders in this space articulate that marriage of kind of deep human need for progress, however you define it, and building, executing, promoting a product.

Kira Butler (8:07)

Yeah, and I mean, it's a really good question because when you look at what Trey Stevens is actually doing, right, he's running Anduril, which is this company that is building drones for warfare. You know, these are autonomous weapons that he's building. So, you know, this. I think, you know, I mentioned this in my piece, but it's not an intuitive. It's not necessarily an intuitive fit, right? The idea of choosing a good quest, choosing a pro human quest, and essentially building drones for Robot Wars. But his argument is that with greater precision, drones can kill fewer people and be more effective and help America prevail. And this is something else that he considers to be a kind of a good quest, a godly quest.

Lizzie O'Leary (9:02)

One of the things I find very interesting about some of the argument here is that AI will create immense wealth for everyone, potentially creating universal basic income. That is something that has been talked about in Silicon Valley before, but I do find that at odds with some teachings of traditional Christianity. I think if you were to go to Sunday School, create great wealth. That is not what they tell you. How do they square that part?

Kira Butler (9:36)

Yeah, I mean, this is like one of the central tensions of Silicon Valley, right? And I think one phrase that people use is effective altruism. This idea that you should make as much money as you possibly can in order to do all the good that you can.

Lizzie O'Leary (9:56)

Very famously associated with Sam Bankman Fried, among others, correct?

Kira Butler (10:00)

Yes, that's right. And I think that that idea that there is an inherent good in accumulating wealth so that you can then do more good with your wealth, that is driving a lot of this in practice. How that actually plays out, Are we seeing all of this incredible wealth solve all of our problems? You know, I think that that's an open question, but I think that messaging, it's almost like a different form of the prosperity gospel. Right. This idea that Christians, you know, that you can ask God for, you know, whatever you want and God will provide and that, you know, being a good Christian will reap material benefits. This is sort of a different. It's almost a spin on that. And there's a long tradition of that in Christianity. And it's also a very, I would say, controversial or fringe part of Christianity. I don't think that you're gonna see a lot of mainstream Christians teaching that the accumulation of wealth is a good in and of itself and being a good human and being like a godly human.

Lizzie O'Leary (11:23)

One thing that I think is worth noting is that a lot of these people in Silicon Valley are very close to, particularly the vice president, J.D. vance, and to the administration. How much does their proximity to political power buoy their message beyond Silicon Valley?

Kira Butler (11:42)

Well, that's an interesting thing. I mean, there's polling right now that suggests that Christians are increasingly skeptical of AI and that, you know, that suggests to me that this message of the ultra elite in Silicon Valley saying that, you know, AI is godly, saying that AI can be part of their Christian faith, that this is not necessarily landing, you know, that you see that what we're seeing increasingly is people who are concerned about the idea of AI taking over their jobs and that they don't see AI as improving their lives. They see it as, I guess, detracting from their success, from their, you know, ability to take care of their families, from their ability to be in community. So I think, you know, that that divide could end up being a problem certainly for Vance's presumed presidential aspirations, but perhaps also even in the midterms.

Lizzie O'Leary (12:44)

Yeah, I mean, in that moment at the National Conservatism Conference, there's reporting about kind of the strain that was coming from the MAGA populists who were very skeptical of the tech oriented. Right. How would you describe the sort of, for lack of a better phrase, conservative Christian view on AI?

Kira Butler (13:10)

When I was writing this piece, I really wanted to articulate that exact question, the answer to that question. I wanted to give readers an idea of what conservative Christians believe about AI. And the writer that I thought articulated this the best is this guy, Paul Kingsnorth. He is an interesting person. He's a former environmental activist, a very lefty person who converted to orthodox Christianity and has.

Lizzie O'Leary (13:41)

Not that long ago.

Kira Butler (13:42)

Not that long ago. No, he's a relatively recent convert and he's sort of reoriented his whole worldview around his skepticism of what he calls the Machine. The machine is Technology. And he's very skeptical of all of it.

Guest Expert (13:59)

If you listen to the people in Silicon Valley and the language that they use, not all of them obviously, but a lot of them, they use very, very openly theological language to talk about what they're doing. And again, a lot of this is quoted in the book. These people say that when they're talking about AI, that they are building God, that they are making God. When Ray Kurzweil from Google, the great prophet of the singularity, was asked, does God exist? He said, not yet. So this is the vision that they have. There's a spiritual darkness to it, which everyone can feel. And it's one reason why people feel so discomforted, because it's not just about, oh, I'm using my phone a bit too much, I should probably put it down. There is something that feels like we're being unmade going on.

Kira Butler (14:42)

He, he, in his book, he describes like progressive leftism as compatible with the machine because they're both. And he writes, suspicious of the past, impatient with borders and boundaries, and hostile to religion. He says that both progressive values and the machine are in pursuit of a global utopia where the world will live as one. You know, this is this idea that the machine is compatible with communism.

Lizzie O'Leary (15:15)

I think you said Lenin and Lenin.

Kira Butler (15:17)

Yes, Lenin. Lenin and Lennon.

Lizzie O'Leary (15:20)

Yes, Vlad and John.

Kira Butler (15:22)

Yeah, right, yes. And you know, he has these very kind of out there ways of connecting the machine and culture wars. Like he sort of describes the struggle for transgender acceptance as like a step on the path toward permanently abandoning our bodies. So he writes, a young generation of hyper urbanized, always on young people, increasingly divorced from nature and growing up in a psychologized, inward looking anti culture is being led toward the conclusion that biology is a problem to be overcome. So he sort of thinks that like somehow the transgender movement is indicative of this lefty desire to completely abandon our bodies and, you know, upload our consciousness into the machine.

Lizzie O'Leary (16:22)

When we come back, the Pope, the

Narrator/Host (16:24)

Vice president and whatever that AI Jesus image was.

Lizzie O'Leary (16:34)

There is a parallel, I think, there. Go with me on this. If you look at say the attorneys general from red states who are suing tech companies, Roblox, meta, other companies, and really kind of looking at tech as a potential. And it's a really fascinating coalition of people because there seem to be people who are looking at it from a sort of child safety perspective, and some of that is about the traditional idea of the family, and then others who are looking at it as a sort of like, oh, it's godless. And I guess I wonder, how strong do you think the backlash to tech among Christian conservatives is?

Kira Butler (17:25)

Well, I mean, Christian conservatives are not a monolith, right? Like, you have your Paul Kingsnorths who are, like, you know, sitting in their house in rural Western Ireland without owning a cell phone and, you know, railing against, like, the transgender, I don't know, agenda of technologists or something. And then you have, you know, folks who are just trying to figure out how to get their kids not to play Roblox all day or be, you know, approached by predators on Roblox. You know, this is. These are questions that all of us are wrestling with to some extent. And I think, you know, the. The faction of conservative Christians who truly believes that technology as a whole is a demon or the Antichrist, that's probably not the majority.

Lizzie O'Leary (18:25)

I think this is particularly interesting if we sort of try to separate out what this might mean in the future. And I recognize that I'm talking a little bit about looking into a crystal ball, but if you take some of the rhetoric from Silicon Valley about the stakes involved in AI, is that what is driving the backlash from some conservative Christians who are objecting to it? Or are we just seeing a coalition that happened to come together to support President Trump actually taking a better look at one another and thinking like, maybe you and I have different goals here?

Kira Butler (19:08)

I think probably it's a little from column A, a little from column B. More broadly on the latter, I think that's something that's happening across so many different issues. And the MAGA coalition right now, technology and AI, that's one issue. But we're seeing so many fissures begin to grow. We're seeing fissures over Israel. We're seeing fissures over immigration. This is a coalition that did. They came together. And especially when you're talking about conservative Christians, you had evangelicals and Catholics. This is something that I wrote about in another piece. But conservatives and Catholics coming together to support President Trump, and even before President Trump over the issues of abortion and then gay marriage. And just like you said, this is a group that they're now taking a hard look at each other and figuring out that maybe they didn't have as much in common, or maybe they no longer have more in common than they have, as you know, than they have different opinions on.

Lizzie O'Leary (20:17)

I think there are sort of two instances that really illustrate that. One is the president posting this, like, AI image of himself as Jesus, though he says it was not as Jesus, only to take it down after starting to hear a lot of displeasure from his supporters. And then you also have the president and The Pope and J.D. vance in open conflict. Like, I keep making the joke that my long departed Catholic grandmother would just, like, spontaneously combust if she were around to witness any of this. But I feel like this must be a really big deal if you were a key part of this coalition and now you're presented with all of these different conflicting narratives about some of the most important teachings of the church. Yeah.

Kira Butler (21:15)

And I think, you know, it's so interesting because today politics, or partisan politics in particular, are so much a part of our identities. Right. They're a part of the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves in a way that, you know, a generation ago it wasn't, and a generation, it probably was the case that your religion was a much stronger identity marker than politics. And to have those two huge pieces of identity now in conflict, I think is something that is relatively new. And the idea that your church might be saying one thing and your political party might be saying another, I think that is creating a lot of tension.

Lizzie O'Leary (22:07)

It seems pretty clear to me that this administration is not going to slow its roll on AI anytime soon. And I wonder what that policy choice does with religious voters.

Kira Butler (22:24)

Yeah, I mean, I think it remains to be seen. This is, again, no crystal ball, but my guess is that if we're seeing people's jobs being taken away because they've been replaced by AI, that's not going to play well. It doesn't matter how much you try to give AI a Christian makeover. It doesn't matter how much these billionaires in Silicon Valley are telling you that AI is a tool for good and godly if you're not able to put food on the table for your family. So, you know, I do see that as being a potential conflict for a lot of voters.

Lizzie O'Leary (23:05)

I think the question has always been, and probably will continue to be for Trump voters, if you are not constantly thinking about religion. Right. Let's say you're not deeply Catholic, but this is culturally important to you. Has this risen to a point where you can no longer yada, yada, past the parts you don't agree with, where the pull of Trump isn't strong enough to go past the questions about AI and the questions about God, or is it still so much a part of identity now that people are willing to say, no, I'm still with my guy?

Kira Butler (23:43)

Yeah, it's really interesting. And I mean, again, Christians are not a monolith. Right. And just take Catholics, for example. You have on the one end, you have these social justice liberation theology Catholics whose values are very much in line with the political left. And then way on the other end of the spectrum, you have Candace Owens and you have J.D. vance, who's probably more toward the right, although certainly not as far as Candace Owens. But what we might see in addition to political realignment is realignment within these religions. And, you know, same kind of thing with Protestants. Like, you know, on the one hand, you have these kind of like mega church evangelicals in the style of, you know, Paula White Cane, this kind of charismatic movement. And then you have these very hard line reformed guys, these theobros who follow, you know, a Christian nationalist pastor in Idaho. You might see a realignment of folks along those lines as well.

Lizzie O'Leary (24:57)

Kira Butler, thank you so much for coming on and talking with me.

Kira Butler (25:00)

Thank you so much for having me.

Narrator/Host (25:04)

Keira Butler is a national correspondent for Mother Jones. And that is it for our show today. What Next? TBD is produced by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort. Our show is edited by Paige Osborne, who is also the senior supervising producer for what Next and what Next tv. Mia Lobe Bell is the executive producer of audio here at Slate. And TBD is part of the larger what Next family.

Lizzie O'Leary (25:26)

We will be back on Sunday with another episode. I'm Lizzie o'.

Narrator/Host (25:29)

Leary.

Lizzie O'Leary (25:30)

Thanks for listening.