Bible Chats with AI-Never a Good Idea

I need to preface this article by saying that it is a response to an article on Medium.com that may well have had noble intent, but the author was reporting on her “conversing” with a new AI platform that is “responsive” to human interaction. Please tell me you aren’t impressed and seduced by this “AI revolution”! It’s just another house of ill repute…”Sparkle someone else’s eyes.” (American Woman by the Guess Who.)

First of all, getting your understanding of the Bible and any personal revelation of God from any AI platform is a horrible idea! Unless of course, you don’t truly believe in God Who is revealed in the Bible… Then, it’s just another entertainment and a way to pass time.

ChatGPT is merely a collection algorithm which gathers a vast array of dispersed tidbits found throughout the internet and a myriad of other apps. There is not a hint of conversational give and take. But the whole of Humanity is sliding away from any kind of personal interaction, aren’t we? That new app provides that impersonal, inorganic construct. Void of any opportunity to challenge, doesn’t it fit perfectly into modern civilization?

Second, and I think because of its impersonal nature, it omits “salvation by grace through faith” and only guides readers down the deadend alternative of “salvation by works” that is, by one’s own efforts. It cannot discern the difference and mixes all items into a boiling pot of inedible stew. ChatGPT can give no alternate path. It is impossible for AI, because it cannot utilize creative thinking. It has no transcendent imagination. We are left with fundamentally one dimensional mathematically generated principles permeating the entire process, implying that a person can improve themselves through their own efforts while seeking some kind of accepting approval from God. Self improvement certainly can be a good pursuit, but leaving God as an afterthought and not really a part of the exercise makes the journey a short one, never leading to long-lasting and eternal prosperity. It is a passive acquiescence to intellectual stimuli, passing thoughts without internalization, no lasting changes to one’s inner self. But that’s one of the stumbling blocks, isn’t it? Everything reaches for physical and mental improvement and neglects the person inside the cocoon of our bodies, the spiritual self. We reach for perfection not knowing what perfection is, but then we set goals where can arrive at a place of self-approval.

AI can only yield onerous directives which leads down the wrong path- a disastrous one. It might seem the correct way to journey, but it is a dead end- and worse, it leads away from the new highway, having ignored the upgraded map. The old Bible road is the Law of Moses, in which a person can try to obtain a state of approval through one’s own efforts, producing a sense of self-satisfaction, is no longer the recommended route. The new Bible map shows the Highway to getting right with God. It is referred to as the Gospel of Jesus and at its core is that we cannot become anywhere near perfect, but need the cleansing power of Jesus and the power of the Spirit to provide the way to improvement: a new creation of the inner person. To be clear, with God , the relationship is really the only improvement our selves need. The goal is to get right with God so that He can make the changes inside us that we need.

Beyond that, leaving God out of one’s journey relegates the Bible’s wisdom to the same futile stew of words that ChatGPT produced. We will always have a hunger for transcendent truth, and certainly AI cannot provide such a nutritional feast.

Briefly, ChatGPT reveals nothing but the same old same old and is merely a computer generated regurgitation of widely accepted religious tripe which uses undefined “religious words and phrases” that have no familiar practicality, no conversational usefulness. Whatever value that AI has in other aspects- like research- no wisdom or particular insight can be generated. Computers are, after all, glorified copy machines.

People must rely on their own brains, not allowing rigor mortis to set in.

Unattached from real life, AI is merely a mathematically deduced composite… and regarding a movie reference to “The Terminator,” what happens when the AI machines take over?

With that in mind, I perceive reliance on AI as the downfall of Humanity, not as some presumed, some kind of strategy for Mankind’s salvation. It seems to me the essay oddly illustrates to me the principles in 2 Peter 2: 17–19, “These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. With lofty but empty words, they appeal to the sensual passions of the flesh and entice those who are just escaping from others who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to depravity. For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.”

I did say oddly illustrates… and so, here is how I apply its principles:

I want to take the liberty to paraphrase and expound on the same passage of the Bible: These manmade machines have nothing but empty promises driven by grand illusions. Deepest disappointment and gloom is reserved for those who depend on AI. With lofty but empty promises, AI algorithms appeal with the same titillating sensations as do all shiny objects, and they entice those who are just escaping from technological dependence, that is, others who have been beguiled by purely mathematical solutions. The promise is for personal freedom, but they are trapped in it. A man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

You see, in his arrogance Man has created a god that is supposedly superior to himself and which will think and act for him, making the brain an evolutionary functionless appendage. It’s a dumbing down, not an elaborate and sophisticated proponent of personal discovery.

It doesn’t matter if it will do your homework for you or give the correct answers on tests or compose book reports or write a doctoral thesis. That used to be called “cheating” and “plagiarism.” It does nothing for the advancement of individuals or for the entirety of civilization.

Try to remember the “A” in AI stands for “artificial.” It’s a false door. It is a horribly weak foundation for progress, let alone for moral transcendence. It is a road to oblivion. We need to avoid it and ignore its promises for our benefit as well as for the success of generations to come.