Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Where AI Fails

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Where AI Fails · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Computers are growing smarter by the moment, so it seems
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  Speaker 1: they forget nothing. They seem to be learning how to learn,
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  Speaker 1: improving at a rate we will never keep pace with.
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  Speaker 1: So is artificial intelligence going to replace all of us
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  Speaker 1: by making our lives pointless? Answer? No, there are many
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  Speaker 1: things AI and robots can do and will learn to
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  Speaker 1: do better than us, but not everything, especially not the
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  Speaker 1: most important part of you. Today on aspestor John, where
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  Speaker 1: AI fails. Worship is our focus, and today we read
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  Speaker 1: Psalm eighty six together in our Bible, rating as we
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  Speaker 1: behold the beautiful picture of the destiny of humanity, that
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  Speaker 1: all the nations you have made shall come and worship
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  Speaker 1: before you, o Lord, and shall glorify your name, Psalm
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  Speaker 1: eighty six nine. That's where all of history is headed.
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  Speaker 1: Global worship from every nation on earth. And to start
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  Speaker 1: the month, we read Psalm seventy three, which is a
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  Speaker 1: psalm on the mind of Daniel in Richmond, Virginia. Pastor John, Hello,
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  Speaker 1: and thank you for taking my question. My friend believes
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  Speaker 1: that emotions aren't all that important in the Christian life.
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  Speaker 1: I completely disagree with him, and to do so, I
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  Speaker 1: point to Psalm seventy three verses twenty five and twenty six,
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  Speaker 1: where the Psalmist expresses deep affection for God, saying, whom
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  Speaker 1: have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing
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  Speaker 1: on earth that I desire besides you. How do you
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  Speaker 1: view the role of emotions in our relationship with God?
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  Speaker 1: I know this is big for you. So how would
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  Speaker 1: you talk to my friend?
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  Speaker 2: I suppose it would be honest of me to say
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  Speaker 2: that answering this question is like defending my life.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's everything.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, why would I devote the last fifty
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  Speaker 2: five years of my life to teaching that emotions affections
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  Speaker 2: in the life are not icing on the cake of commitment.
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  Speaker 2: They are part of the cake. They are not a
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  Speaker 2: caboose at the end of the train of obedience. They
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  Speaker 2: are in the engine. That's what I've been given myself
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  Speaker 2: to for all these years. So why are emotions what
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  Speaker 2: I like to call spiritual affections to distinguish them from
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  Speaker 2: the trembling of your hands, or butterflies in your stomach,
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  Speaker 2: or wobbling knees or other physical kinds of dimensions, That's
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  Speaker 2: not what we're talking about with emotions and spiritual affections.
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  Speaker 2: Why are they so important in the Christian life. So
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  Speaker 2: let me start with an answer that you're not going
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  Speaker 2: to find in any of my books because it's just
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  Speaker 2: too recent. So I thought, instead of just rehashing all
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  Speaker 2: the twelve or thirteen arguments I use over and over
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  Speaker 2: again when answering this question, here's one we've talked to
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  Speaker 2: about Tony, but hasn't shown up yet in any book
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  Speaker 2: because it's too new. Name it has to do with
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  Speaker 2: artificial intelligence. So let's start with artificial intelligence and what
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  Speaker 2: it means to be human, the emotional life of the soul.
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  Speaker 2: Let's be specific, The satisfaction of our soul in Jesus
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  Speaker 2: has everything to do with our own ultimate identity as
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  Speaker 2: human beings. This is a big deal, not marginal. Who
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  Speaker 2: are you matters right? What are you made for? What
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  Speaker 2: are you threatened by? And I asked that just because
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  Speaker 2: one could be threatened by artificial intelligence? Because if you
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  Speaker 2: think your most defining essence as a human being is
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  Speaker 2: the power of reason or thinking, or intelligence or speech
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  Speaker 2: or language, you're in trouble. Suddenly a machine can think
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  Speaker 2: and speak better than you can, better than I can.
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  Speaker 2: Is that threatening to you? Does it give you a
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  Speaker 2: sense of unease, or even maybe panic that well, maybe
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  Speaker 2: maybe we're not anything more than the accumulation of biological
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  Speaker 2: machine parts and the brains, nothing more than a computer
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  Speaker 2: put together by matter and time and chance. I think
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  Speaker 2: that would make me be afraid. Like if I thought
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  Speaker 2: that that my most essential identity was now done by
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  Speaker 2: a machine, I think my life would be just about
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  Speaker 2: ready to disintegrate. But I don't think that. I don't
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  Speaker 2: think it about me. I don't think about anybody listening
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  Speaker 2: to this podcast, and I don't think it about you, Daniel,
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  Speaker 2: or your friend that you're talking to. That's not the
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  Speaker 2: essence of who you are as a human being in
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  Speaker 2: God's image. The spiritual capacity of your soul to see
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  Speaker 2: and savor, savor, that's an emotion, as I'm describing it,
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  Speaker 2: It's an emotion of the soul. It's a capacity of
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  Speaker 2: the soul to delight and rejoice in and treasure. The
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  Speaker 2: capacity of your soul to see and savor the glory
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  Speaker 2: of Jesus is the essence of your uniqueness as a
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  Speaker 2: human being. When Jesus says to you at the end
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  Speaker 2: of the age, well done, good and faithful servant, enter
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  Speaker 2: into the joy of your Master. He will be welcoming
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  Speaker 2: you into the consummation of your human nature. This is
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  Speaker 2: what you were ultimately made for sharing the joy of
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  Speaker 2: your Master. You will experience the fullness of your meaning
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  Speaker 2: as a human being when you share in God's delight.
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  Speaker 2: In God, this is my beloved son, the Father says,
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  Speaker 2: this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,
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  Speaker 2: that is in whom I take great delight. And the
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  Speaker 2: son in turn loves the Father with a kind of
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  Speaker 2: love that finds its fullest possible enjoyment in the Father's glory.
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  Speaker 2: And when he welcomes us into the joy of our Master,
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  Speaker 2: we will see and savor God with the very joy
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  Speaker 2: that God has in God. And that will be the
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  Speaker 2: consummation of our humanity and the consummation of our capacity
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  Speaker 2: to glorify God. At the same time, no machine, no computer,
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  Speaker 2: no artificial intelligence will ever duplicate the spiritual reality of
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  Speaker 2: the soul's enjoyment of God. So that's my first answer.
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  Speaker 2: It is not marginal, it is huge. That's what I
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  Speaker 2: would say in response to the statement that emotions aren't
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  Speaker 2: all that important in the Christian life, good grief, How
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  Speaker 2: could anybody with a thoughtful reading of the New Testament
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  Speaker 2: say such a thing. They are, in fact, at the
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  Speaker 2: very core of what it means to be uniquely human.
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  Speaker 2: The soul's capacity to glorify God by enjoying Him forever
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  Speaker 2: is the essence of what it means to be human.
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  Speaker 2: Now here's my second answer. This one I've said before,
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  Speaker 2: but it's I choose. It's the only other one I'm giving,
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  Speaker 2: and I choose to give it in answer this question,
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  Speaker 2: just because the older I get, the more significant this
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  Speaker 2: issue is becoming at desiring God, the ministry, and in
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  Speaker 2: my life, namely, what the emotions have to do with suffering.
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  Speaker 2: The New Testament teaches that to be a Christian is
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  Speaker 2: to suffer, no getting around it, and that no one
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  Speaker 2: can suffer properly as a Christian without finding his supreme
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  Speaker 2: satisfaction in God. That's the answer. If if you're a Christian,
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  Speaker 2: you're going to suffer through many tribulations, we must enter
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  Speaker 2: the Kingdom of God. Acts fourteen. Whoever would live a
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  Speaker 2: godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted two Timothy three.
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  Speaker 2: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself
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  Speaker 2: and take up his cross and follow me. Matthew sixteen.
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  Speaker 2: We are fellow with Christ provided we suffer with him
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  Speaker 2: in order that we may be glorified with him Romans
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  Speaker 2: eight seventeen. Every Christian must must suffer. There is no
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  Speaker 2: other way to heaven. And therefore how we suffer becomes
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  Speaker 2: a prominent, not marginal, prominent theme in the New Testament.
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  Speaker 2: And what we find is that none of us will
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  Speaker 2: suffer as we ought if we are not finding our
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  Speaker 2: supreme satisfaction in God, that is, if our heart felt
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  Speaker 2: spiritual emotions are not awakened by the fact that the
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  Speaker 2: steadfast love of the Lord is better than life Psalm
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  Speaker 2: sixty three, verse three. Over and over again, the New
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  Speaker 2: Testament tells us what our emotions should be like when
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  Speaker 2: we come face to face with suffering with Jesus. Romans five. Rejoice.
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  Speaker 2: That's an emotion in our sufferings. We rejoice in our sufferings,
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  Speaker 2: knowing that the suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character,
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  Speaker 2: and character produces hope. Second Corinthians seven. In all our affliction,
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  Speaker 2: I am overflowing with joy. James one, count it all joy,
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  Speaker 2: my brothers, when you meet various trials of every kind
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  Speaker 2: x five. The apostles left the presence of the council,
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  Speaker 2: rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for
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  Speaker 2: the name Matthew. Five. Blessed are you. And others revile
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  Speaker 2: you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil
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  Speaker 2: against you falsely on my account. Rejoice, emotion, Rejoice and
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  Speaker 2: be glad emotion, for your reward is great in heaven.
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  Speaker 2: Second Prindians twelve. I will boast all the more gladly emotion.
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  Speaker 2: I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,
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  Speaker 2: so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
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  Speaker 2: Hebrews ten. You had compassion on those in prison, and
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  Speaker 2: you joyfully That's an emotion. You joyfully accepted the plundering
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  Speaker 2: of your property since you knew you had a better
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  Speaker 2: possession and an abiding one. First Peter four. Rejoice in
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  Speaker 2: so far as you share Christ's sufferings. Second Corinthian six.
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  Speaker 2: We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. I ask you, not you, tony,
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  Speaker 2: but I asked the world. I ask you. Could a
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  Speaker 2: person possibly read those nine texts and say that the
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  Speaker 2: emotion of joy in the face of suffering is unimportant.
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  Speaker 2: I'm at a loss I could give at least a
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  Speaker 2: dozen other reasons like these two. Why the affections of
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  Speaker 2: the human heart are essential to the Christian life we
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  Speaker 2: must be born again, But I will leave it with
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  Speaker 2: these two. Our experience of the emotion of heartfelt satisfaction
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  Speaker 2: in God defines the essence of our humanity and the
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  Speaker 2: Christian path of suffering.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the capacity of your soul to see and savor
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  Speaker 1: the glory of Jesus is the essence of your uniqueness
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  Speaker 1: as a human being. Amen, Pastor John, thank you for
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  Speaker 1: that meditation. Because without deep God centered emotions forged in
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  Speaker 1: the path of suffering, we humans lose our core identity,
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  Speaker 1: We lose our destiny, We lose what it means to
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  Speaker 1: be authentically human in something that no bot can replace,
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  Speaker 1: authentically our worship. So then, how do we avoid intellectualism
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  Speaker 1: with the Bible? Not just reading the Bible with our minds,
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  Speaker 1: but with our hearts. That's the other side of this
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  Speaker 1: discussion as well. How do we not become robots in
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  Speaker 1: our Bible reading? Do you want more on how to
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  Speaker 1: avoid intellectualism with the Bible? See the Aspectial GM book
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  Speaker 1: on pages twenty five and twenty six for more on
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  Speaker 1: that well, speaking of affections and Bible reading and the
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  Speaker 1: things that AI can do. Next time when we meet,
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  Speaker 1: we'll get to be talking about the one Corinthians thirteen
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  Speaker 1: Love chapter, so be sure to read that in the
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  Speaker 1: readings in our Navigator's Bible reading plan. Be sure to
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  Speaker 1: read it before we get back together to talk about
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  Speaker 1: how a spiritual gift plus that gift put in action
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  Speaker 1: minus love equals nothing. A spiritual gift put into action
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  Speaker 1: minus a motive of love equals nothing. It's a haunting text,
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  Speaker 1: but an important one. We need to look at it
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  Speaker 1: next time. I'm Tony Rank. You see you on Monday