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AI--What do you think?
- Thread starter John of Japan
- Start date
The church where I serve started a 3-week Sunday morning session on Artificial Intelligence last week.
I've been using the AI aspect in Logos Bible Software for more than a year now and find in immensely helpful.
I believe that Logos has developed a responsible way to utilize the advancing technology.
Advancements in any new technology means developing new skill sets, laying aside old abilities and learning new ones.
If you are interested in investigating further Logos has a Help Center site with answers to many of the questions that have been brought up.
There are also blog articles referenced, specifically addressing how AI has been used in a pastoral or ministry setting.
Rob
I've been using the AI aspect in Logos Bible Software for more than a year now and find in immensely helpful.
I believe that Logos has developed a responsible way to utilize the advancing technology.
Advancements in any new technology means developing new skill sets, laying aside old abilities and learning new ones.
If you are interested in investigating further Logos has a Help Center site with answers to many of the questions that have been brought up.
There are also blog articles referenced, specifically addressing how AI has been used in a pastoral or ministry setting.
Rob
Haven't looked very deeply, but a quick look shows me nothing of what we forbid our students to do. You can use AI on the Internet to write an entire research paper, and that is what we are requiring our student to promise they won't do.
Here is a paper the AI Google wrote for me, even with a bibliography. All I put in was the topic, and it wrote a whole paper. This is what we are trying to prevent students from doing. I'm attaching it. It took me about five minutes.
Ascetic X
Active Member
Experts are claiming that AI agents will, in a few years at most, replace all humans who hold jobs involving thinking, writing, coding, diagnostics, planning, researching, teaching, organizing, advertising, creativity, and all other cognitive processes.
So forbidding students to use AI to compile research papers is a good idea, but one wonders what jobs these students will find when AI performs all intellectual tasks and robotics performs all physical labor?
Pastors will be obsolete when AI agents compose and deliver sermons, as well as counseling, to parishioners.
At least your students will exercise their minds, rather than have AI do their thinking for them.
As is often the case, the experts are wrong. The human element is essential in most if not all of these areas. As a college professor, I teach some of these skills, and believe it impossible for a machine to do.
Take teaching for example. I use the Jesus method (called the Socratic method in the secular world). What AI denizen would even know what to ask? Teaching takes skill in reading humans. You can't teach how to teach. It is a divine gift.
Pastors do far more than just these two tasks, and in fact AI could not preach or counsel successfully with true passion and compassion. You see, preaching and counseling are spiritual activities which must be led and helped by the Holy Spirit. They require a human spirit filled with the Holy Spirit and a human soul led by the Holy Spirit!
Other tasks of a pastor which are impossible for soul-less spirit-less AI: hospital visits, prayer for the believers, leading prayer meetings, exegeting the Word of God, knowing what to preach and when (by being aware of the believers' spiritual needs), chairing meetings (deacon, etc.), knowing the needs of the church plant, etc. etc.
I remember with blessing my pastor visiting me and praying with me in the hospital where I was several years ago for emergency surgery. AI doing that? Impossible! I remember in Japan visiting in the hospital a 92 year old man, machine gunner in WW2 with awful memories, and leading him to the Savior, Jesus Christ. AI doing that? No way!
Yes! That's the goal.
Right! And I would give the paper back to the student for footnoting. But the point is, a few key strokes and the lazy student would have their paper. A little rewriting, dressing up the footnotes and bibliography, and the lazy student is done in one tenth the time. Do we really want that for our students? A thousand times no!
AI simply scrapes information off web sites. It might be useful to tell you the best route to drive between two points. However, People will rely on it to tell them what is true. Sadly, people will rely on it to be a friend or more in the guise of an artificial person. The BBC recently reported on a woman that was going to lose her boyfriend because he only exists on an old version of ChatGPT that is being discontinued. It is reflective of a society that would rather feel good than know truth. This article has relevance;
Artificial Intelligence - Our New Best Friend
Many people flip a light switch and expect the lights to come on without any knowledge or consideration of the electrical generating plant or the distribution network that brings the electricity to their home. They may have some awareness that a light bulb has to occasionally be changed, but for all practical purposes flipping the switch is equivalent to saying an incantation to produce a magical effect.
Over fifty years ago I was working with others on a large computer system. Access to the system was through a terminal and keyboard. As a practical joke on one of the guys we changed the error message in the code to read “It must have been Joe who typed in that messed up message” When Joe sat at the terminal he eventually got a keystroke wrong and the message came up. He knew that it was not the computer that was teasing him.
Technology has advanced in the last fifty years. Now it is routine for people to talk to their cell phones and receive information. Since what is heard is usually taken as truth, those who control what is said have unprecedented power. Joe knew that it wasn’t the computer that was giving him a hard time. However today most people have no idea that the thing talking to them is constructed and programmed in a similar way.
Most are familiar with using search engines like Google over the last 25 years. Most understand that the search terms you use are a question that is answered by presenting samples of web sites that use terms similar to what was requested. Fewer understand that the responses are given based on who has paid the most money and that your requests are accumulated to build a profile of you that can be sold to advertisers.
The transition to cell phones has accelerated using voice to text and text to voice technologies that avoid the inconvenience of having to type on the tiny cell phone keyboard. This voice interface strengthens the seemingly “magical” effect of talking with a person.
In the past in order to manipulate someone through lying you had to actually talk to them. With mass media came opportunities like advertising which could be used to sway large numbers of people in whatever direction one wanted. However, advertising campaigns were limited in their effectiveness because a single message may not be as effective for everyone in a group. With microchips capable of synthesizing the human voice, the effectiveness of one person lying to another person can now be more fully simulated.
The effectiveness of a lie is in proportion to the trust one person gives another. Most people trust the information they get from a search engine or web site that always seems to be helpful. The trope of a country bumpkin being robbed in a visit to the big city has an application here. Being unaware of potential harm makes one vulnerable. Many people rely on physical “tells’ that can raise suspicion of lying or misleading communication. These are absent with AI.
There are additional vulnerabilities as each of us has peculiar idiosyncrasies that are deduced from the searches and inquiries we make. These are accumulated to build a model of us more in depth than a best friend would know. The obvious use of this information is targeted advertising as we can be moved in directions that will profit others. However, as many companies have shown themselves aggressive advocates for various political and social issues, it should be expected that those who control access to information will do so in a way that achieves their objectives. Customers become simply pawns to be manipulated to achieve desired outcomes.
In primitive societies a priestly class would arise that would declare the favor or disfavor of the gods. It was an interesting scam in that even if they made predictions that did not come true, they could blame the people for having made some failure. In this way whatever they said could be managed. These “priests” could live labor free off the productivity of those they manipulated. Manipulation was achieved by control of what people thought was true.
As a society we have already come to the point where a high percentage of the population actually believes men can become women and women can become men. This is a populace primed to be told what is true by machines programmed to lead the gullible. The solution is real truth which is getting increasingly hard to find.
Artificial Intelligence - Our New Best Friend
Many people flip a light switch and expect the lights to come on without any knowledge or consideration of the electrical generating plant or the distribution network that brings the electricity to their home. They may have some awareness that a light bulb has to occasionally be changed, but for all practical purposes flipping the switch is equivalent to saying an incantation to produce a magical effect.
Over fifty years ago I was working with others on a large computer system. Access to the system was through a terminal and keyboard. As a practical joke on one of the guys we changed the error message in the code to read “It must have been Joe who typed in that messed up message” When Joe sat at the terminal he eventually got a keystroke wrong and the message came up. He knew that it was not the computer that was teasing him.
Technology has advanced in the last fifty years. Now it is routine for people to talk to their cell phones and receive information. Since what is heard is usually taken as truth, those who control what is said have unprecedented power. Joe knew that it wasn’t the computer that was giving him a hard time. However today most people have no idea that the thing talking to them is constructed and programmed in a similar way.
Most are familiar with using search engines like Google over the last 25 years. Most understand that the search terms you use are a question that is answered by presenting samples of web sites that use terms similar to what was requested. Fewer understand that the responses are given based on who has paid the most money and that your requests are accumulated to build a profile of you that can be sold to advertisers.
The transition to cell phones has accelerated using voice to text and text to voice technologies that avoid the inconvenience of having to type on the tiny cell phone keyboard. This voice interface strengthens the seemingly “magical” effect of talking with a person.
In the past in order to manipulate someone through lying you had to actually talk to them. With mass media came opportunities like advertising which could be used to sway large numbers of people in whatever direction one wanted. However, advertising campaigns were limited in their effectiveness because a single message may not be as effective for everyone in a group. With microchips capable of synthesizing the human voice, the effectiveness of one person lying to another person can now be more fully simulated.
The effectiveness of a lie is in proportion to the trust one person gives another. Most people trust the information they get from a search engine or web site that always seems to be helpful. The trope of a country bumpkin being robbed in a visit to the big city has an application here. Being unaware of potential harm makes one vulnerable. Many people rely on physical “tells’ that can raise suspicion of lying or misleading communication. These are absent with AI.
There are additional vulnerabilities as each of us has peculiar idiosyncrasies that are deduced from the searches and inquiries we make. These are accumulated to build a model of us more in depth than a best friend would know. The obvious use of this information is targeted advertising as we can be moved in directions that will profit others. However, as many companies have shown themselves aggressive advocates for various political and social issues, it should be expected that those who control access to information will do so in a way that achieves their objectives. Customers become simply pawns to be manipulated to achieve desired outcomes.
In primitive societies a priestly class would arise that would declare the favor or disfavor of the gods. It was an interesting scam in that even if they made predictions that did not come true, they could blame the people for having made some failure. In this way whatever they said could be managed. These “priests” could live labor free off the productivity of those they manipulated. Manipulation was achieved by control of what people thought was true.
As a society we have already come to the point where a high percentage of the population actually believes men can become women and women can become men. This is a populace primed to be told what is true by machines programmed to lead the gullible. The solution is real truth which is getting increasingly hard to find.
Ascetic X
Active Member
Studies suggest that over-reliance on AI is reducing human cognitive abilities, particularly critical thinking and memory, through a process known as cognitive offloading. While AI acts as a powerful tool, dependency without active engagement can lead to "cognitive atrophy," where mental skills weaken due to lack of use.
When AI performs tasks like writing, coding, researching, organizing, or problem-solving, humans may lose the ability to perform these tasks themselves.
A Microsoft/Carnegie Mellon study found that relying on generative AI without questioning its output reduces cognitive effort.
However, AI can also be used as a helpful tool for enhancing reasoning, gathering data, and accelerating information analysis when used actively and cautiously, rather than uncritically and passively.
I suggest telling students to take what AI generates, then verify it, expand upon it, tweak it a lot, improve it, put their own personality and experiential wisdom into it.
news.harvard.edu
When AI performs tasks like writing, coding, researching, organizing, or problem-solving, humans may lose the ability to perform these tasks themselves.
A Microsoft/Carnegie Mellon study found that relying on generative AI without questioning its output reduces cognitive effort.
However, AI can also be used as a helpful tool for enhancing reasoning, gathering data, and accelerating information analysis when used actively and cautiously, rather than uncritically and passively.
I suggest telling students to take what AI generates, then verify it, expand upon it, tweak it a lot, improve it, put their own personality and experiential wisdom into it.
Is AI dulling our minds? — Harvard Gazette
Experts weigh in on whether tech poses threat to critical thinking, pointing to cautionary tales in use of other cognitive labor tools.
news.harvard.edu
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