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Words of Life: Weekly Christian Podcast with Testi... - Following Jesus in the Age of AI (Jason Thacker- Re-broadcast) · Life Changing Radio

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hi, from the Salvation Army, you're listening to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Words of Life.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Words of Life. If you've been following
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: the news, especially in the past few weeks, you've probably
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: seen growing concerns about the rapid and often unchecked progress
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of AI. If that leaves you feeling uncertain or even
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: fearful about the future, we want to revisit a conversation
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: we had with professor, author, and speaker Jason Thacker. Jason
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: offers a thoughtful biblical perspective on AI and what it
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: means for us as followers of Christ. We'll be back
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: next week with a brand new series.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Enjoy.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake, and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: we are privileged today to have back on the program
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Jason Thacker, our friend from 2022. Welcome back, Jason.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, guys, for having me. I really appreciate it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: We're also privileged to be joined by our very own producer,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Chris Benjamin, and as always, Chris Hoffer in the background
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: doing the record engineering. We love it. Hey, Jason, tell
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: our folks that might be new to the program who
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you are and what you're doing these days.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Since I was there last, I have transitioned to a
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: full-time professor job. So I teach philosophy and ethics here
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: at Boyce College and Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: serve as an LA elder in our local church and
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: been writing books and talking a lot about a lot
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  Speaker 3: of what we're going to talk about today, actually. But
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: my wife, Dori, we've been married for almost 12 years
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: and have two boys, an eight-year-old and a seven-year-old at home.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: And so Let's just say it is always a fun time,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: especially when daddy gets home.
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  Speaker 4: That's awesome.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: You know, when you were here in 2022 and talking
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  Speaker 1: about technology, it doesn't seem like a long time ago,
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  Speaker 1: but so much stuff has happened since then. It feels
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  Speaker 1: like it's been ages.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: We are glad you're back. When you were with us
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  Speaker 1: last time, you had the release, Following Jesus in a
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  Speaker 1: Digital Age. What are a few big things that have
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  Speaker 1: taken place in the tech space since we last spoke?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, kind of the biggest one seems to
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  Speaker 3: be what everybody wants to talk about. It's wall-to-wall media coverage.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, news stories, whether it's in education or work
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  Speaker 3: or in public policy matters or warfare, just the rise
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: of the kind of popular conversation surrounding AI. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: AI is everywhere. That seems to be what everybody kind
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  Speaker 3: of wants to talk about these days. And for good reason.
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  Speaker 3: I wrote back my first book back in 2020 was
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  Speaker 3: called The Age of AI, focusing on kind of artificial intelligence,
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  Speaker 3: how we think through the future of humanity. It's kind
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  Speaker 3: of a bold statement, but I do think that there
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  Speaker 3: are some kind of major worldview shifts that are taking
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  Speaker 3: place with AI, how it's shaping and forming us. But
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  Speaker 3: then also how it was already way back when, before
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  Speaker 3: we were talking about it in kind of popular conversation,
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  Speaker 3: already shaping really every aspect of our world. And I
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  Speaker 3: think we see that even more kind of a fever pitch,
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  Speaker 3: almost kind of a hype cycle. We're at the very
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  Speaker 3: top of it, I think, where everyone is talking about AI,
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  Speaker 3: how it's shifting and changing everything. And It's pushing along
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  Speaker 3: some really good conversations that I think really need to
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  Speaker 3: be had, especially among believers, to think about how these
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  Speaker 3: technologies are shaping our view of God, how it shaped
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  Speaker 3: our view of ourselves. I think that's one of the
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  Speaker 3: biggest questions we can ask today. What does it mean
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  Speaker 3: to be human? But then also, how do we engage
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  Speaker 3: the world around us and do so with hope amidst
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  Speaker 3: a lot of the technological changes of our day?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing about quantum computing, I guess, coming your way then, huh?
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  Speaker 3: It's behind the scenes. We'll just say that.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, you're listening to The Salvation Army's Words of Life.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick ad break, and we'll
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  Speaker 2: be right back. We looked back, and when your series
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: launched in 2022, that was in the summer of that year.
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  Speaker 2: And then November of that same year, ChatGPT came out.
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  Speaker 2: And that now, of course, every student... It's using chat
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  Speaker 2: GPT to get their degrees and that's a whole level
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  Speaker 2: of possible scary future doctors out there or something. But
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  Speaker 2: it is more of a household conversation. I mean, I
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  Speaker 2: think even just in 2022, there were a lot of
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  Speaker 2: things that you were stating that Bernie wasn't aware of yet.
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  Speaker 2: And now all of this is just common knowledge, it
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  Speaker 2: seems like.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you definitely see kind of a fever pitch, almost
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  Speaker 3: kind of a hype cycle. And that's what I like
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  Speaker 3: to remind my students. But even at times when I'm
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  Speaker 3: just traveling and preaching and teaching, it's really interesting. A
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  Speaker 3: lot of the questions I think we're asking today aren't
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  Speaker 3: all that new per se. We think of the novelty,
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  Speaker 3: all the changes, what technology is doing. And there are
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  Speaker 3: some new things and new opportunities and challenges before us.
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  Speaker 3: But I think as with all technology, I think AI specifically,
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  Speaker 3: we're asking a lot of those age-old questions. specifically who
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  Speaker 3: is God? What does it mean to be human? We're
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  Speaker 3: just asking them in light of some of these new opportunities.
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  Speaker 3: It's encouraging to me that there are many more Christians
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  Speaker 3: kind of engaging in this space. You know, a few
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  Speaker 3: years ago, you could count a few of us on
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  Speaker 3: one or two hands. And now it seems like there
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  Speaker 3: are more and more Christians getting involved in the space,
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  Speaker 3: which is really encouraging. And that really started from initially
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  Speaker 3: with my book and a statement of principles I worked
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  Speaker 3: on a number of years ago. We were trying to
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  Speaker 3: encourage the church to interact with the world as it is,
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  Speaker 3: not just the way we want it to be. And
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  Speaker 3: to prepare ourselves to engage some of those questions and
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  Speaker 3: to be part of the conversation as they're happening. Because
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  Speaker 3: it's interesting to me, no matter where you look, whether
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  Speaker 3: it's in academia or whether it's in the workplace or
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  Speaker 3: in government, and even in our own homes sometimes as families,
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  Speaker 3: we're asking some really, really important questions about the role
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  Speaker 3: of technology in our lives and specifically what it's doing
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  Speaker 3: to us and how it's shaping and forming us as people.
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  Speaker 3: That's what I wrote about in that Following Jesus book.
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  Speaker 3: It's also something that I think is really prevalent, especially
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  Speaker 3: in the AI conversation as well, just to slow down.
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  Speaker 3: I think in many ways, we as a society, it's
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  Speaker 3: always more better, faster, stronger. It's always efficiency and convenience
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  Speaker 3: at all costs. But I think from a Christian worldview perspective,
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  Speaker 3: we need to slow down at times, at least just
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  Speaker 3: to consider and ask questions like, what is this? And
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  Speaker 3: where are we heading? And what's it doing to us?
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  Speaker 3: Rather than just always rushing headlong into innovation for innovation's
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  Speaker 3: sake and uncritically adopting. Or for some listeners, uncritically rejecting
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  Speaker 3: these tools. I think we need to have a critical
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  Speaker 3: lens to engage, not to just wholeheartedly adopt or reject,
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  Speaker 3: but actually to step in with hope and especially step
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  Speaker 3: in with the fullness of the Christian worldview to address
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  Speaker 3: these really important questions and realizing the whole time, none
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  Speaker 3: of this stuff catches the Lord off guard, which is
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  Speaker 3: deeply encouraging to me. It's not like we made something.
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  Speaker 3: He's like, I don't know what to do with this
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  Speaker 3: or how do we think about it? No, he's God
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  Speaker 3: after all. He's the maker, the creator of everything.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And so he's given us certain principles to live by,
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  Speaker 3: even amidst changing circumstances. And I think that's kind of
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  Speaker 3: the place and the posture and kind of the demeanor
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  Speaker 3: that I hope listeners, but really Christians in general, really
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  Speaker 3: step into these conversations. There's some exciting things. There's also
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  Speaker 3: some daunting things and kind of serious questions that we
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  Speaker 3: need to be asking right now.
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  Speaker 4: I love what you said about the need to kind
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  Speaker 4: of slow down and consider and ask the questions. Because
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  Speaker 4: I think of 2007 when the iPhone came out and
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  Speaker 4: how like, Immediately, everybody who had the finances to buy
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  Speaker 4: an iPhone, we adopted that technology. And now, you know,
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  Speaker 4: here we are. There's barely anybody we know who isn't
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  Speaker 4: walking around with a phone in their pocket, social media.
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  Speaker 4: I think of just that generation that came up with
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  Speaker 4: that technology without us really asking all those questions of like,
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  Speaker 4: what is this going to do to us as a society?
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  Speaker 4: And you're just really now kind of seeing the ramifications
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  Speaker 4: of that, just blindly accepting this new thing. without slowing
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  Speaker 4: down to say, hey, this might change the world as
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  Speaker 4: we know it. So I think this is kind of
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  Speaker 4: that next, I don't know, inflection point. AI is that
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  Speaker 4: next thing that, yeah, we should maybe pause here before
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  Speaker 4: we just like accept it into everyday life.
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  Speaker 3: When we think about a kind of Christian engagement and
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  Speaker 3: a host of political, social, ethical issues, but not less
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  Speaker 3: than technology, is to slow down and ask some of
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  Speaker 3: those critical questions, to slow down to ask what's really
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  Speaker 3: going on here, what's the tenets of the debate, those
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  Speaker 3: type of things, to slow down and ask some of
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  Speaker 3: those to cultivate wisdom and virtue for engaging in an
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  Speaker 3: ever-shifting and ever-changing society. And so that's one of the
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  Speaker 3: things I encourage with all technologies, but specifically when it
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  Speaker 3: comes to AI. A posture that I think is really
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  Speaker 3: helpful for Christians is that we don't just see these
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  Speaker 3: things as mere tools that we use. They are tools.
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  Speaker 3: We do use them. but they also are shaping our
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  Speaker 3: perspective of the world. And so again, it's not like
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  Speaker 3: we're anti-technology. It's funny, over the years, people were viewing
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  Speaker 3: and reflecting and engaging with my work. We'll say, oh,
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  Speaker 3: in this book, he's so negative of technology. And you're like,
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  Speaker 3: that's not really what I'm for. I'm not pessimistic with technology,
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  Speaker 3: but I'm also not just kind of this utopian kind
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  Speaker 3: of vision of everything's getting better and look at all
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  Speaker 3: the benefits. And we just embrace innovation for innovation's sake.
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  Speaker 3: The goal is to really cultivate that critical lens, not
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  Speaker 3: critical in the sense of tearing down, but just being
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  Speaker 3: thoughtful and engaging these things. These technologies are good gifts
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  Speaker 3: from the Lord. We can use these for the kingdom.
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  Speaker 3: We can use these to build the kingdom. But also
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  Speaker 3: we'd be naive to think that they're not doing something
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  Speaker 3: to us and that the goal or the purpose of
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  Speaker 3: the technologies may not always align with that of our
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: stated goals and purposes, especially in ministry. And I think
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  Speaker 3: that's going to take a little bit more of that
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  Speaker 3: kind of critical analysis and slowing down rather than just
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  Speaker 3: kind of headlong innovation for innovation's sake, or for many
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  Speaker 3: of us, maybe just kind of sticking our heads in
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: the sand and act like it doesn't exist. I don't
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  Speaker 3: think either of those are actually a proper Christian response
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  Speaker 3: for how we engage and think through some of the challenges,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: as well as the opportunities before us in this age
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  Speaker 3: of AI.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: We pray that you're enjoying and being blessed by this conversation.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: We're going to take one more ad break and we'll
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: be right back. I want to talk about this article
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: that you wrote in May called You Are Not a
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  Speaker 2: Machine and AI is not truly like you. But in
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: that article, as well as your book that came out
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: in 2020, The Age of AI, in that book also,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: you talked about technology is not neutral. And when you're
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: talking about what does it look like when we just
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: jump in headfirst and how could these technologies be shaping
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: our worldview? I'll give you a perfect example of something
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: that concerns me. I had a friend who was telling
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: me that the way they use ChatGPT is it's in
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: their car and they will talk to it working through
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: some kind of problem. whether it's a work problem or
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: something like this. And it's feeding back information based on
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: what they're saying. And you're trusting that that technology does
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: not have any kind of agenda, that it is completely neutral.
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  Speaker 1: A bias.
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  Speaker 2: But who's to say it doesn't? And that it's not
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  Speaker 2: just a little, I don't have a better word for
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: it than just like little microaggressions almost from this technology
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  Speaker 2: that is shaping you a little bit differently than the
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  Speaker 2: person you were before you had really kind of enveloped
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  Speaker 2: yourself so much in it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And it's not just the information that it's feeding back
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: or the quote conversation. And I think we need to
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: be really clear. That's why I wrote that article for
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: NAE was to say, you're not a machine. One of
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: the most ironic things about this age of AI is
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: that we often, we have all these questions about AI
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: and it's powerful and the way it's quote thinking and
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: the way it's processing information. And it seems to take
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: on or at least mimic and imitate certain human characteristics
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: or at least characteristics that we long have assumed it
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: meant to be human, to be a thinking thing or
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: to having these kind of relational connections. But it's interesting
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: when you think about these, they're machines. There's a difference,
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: as one philosopher said, a difference between a subject and
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: an object. We are subjects. It's I and thou and
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  Speaker 3: me and you, and we have names. It's interesting though,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: with these machines is we often give them names, especially
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: in robotics. We give them faces. We have conversations about
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: AI agents, that's really popular in the tech space right now,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: these personas that the AI will take on that you
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: can interact with. There's rise in many conversations about AI
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: therapy kind of chatbots, not just for counseling and therapy situations,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: but especially even young people engaging in kind of relational
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: quote connections with these machines. And I think when we
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: start to blur that line to say, well, you're not
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: a machine though. You're not like that. It may look,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: it may imitate, it may reflect certain things, but there's
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: a fundamental difference. I think that's really meaningful when we
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: get into this because the ironic part is that we
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: often humanize these machines, treating them as if they're like us,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: wondering about if they'll ever wake up one day, kind
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: of that Hollywood thriller kind of movie plot about the
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: robots waking up one day and taking over We have
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  Speaker 3: all these dreams where we in many ways make these
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: machines kind of like us. We humanize them. In the
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: same respect, I would argue we're actually dehumanizing ourself. So
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: it's not simply that the content and the information, but
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: also what are these tools doing to us in the
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: way we interact with other people or the value we
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: see in other people? Or are we substituting and replacing
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: rather than coming alongside and kind of augmenting our work.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: And those are kind of fine distinctions, but I think
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  Speaker 3: they really matter in these conversations because what is that
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: doing to how we see one another as human beings?
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Do we see each other as just kind of a
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: sum of their parts, just the usefulness that they bring
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: to our lives, or we're starting to see really that
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: embodied community that God created us for? And at least
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: those are some questions I think we need to be
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: thinking through and addressing from a distinctly Christian perspective.
• 13:53
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• 14:34
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