Latest / Provoke & Inspire Podcast / Episode 497: Is ChatGPT and AI Turning Atheists Into Christians?

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Episode 497: Is ChatGPT and AI Turning Atheists Into Christians? · Provoke & Inspire Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I think what we need to be experts at is recognizing these perceptions that people are starting to have and say yes, you're right, the central unifying thing about life is love.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're right, art is essential to who we are.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: And being able to see that happening in people and recognize that it's not going to necessarily look like a verse in the Bible, but it's going to look like a secular person discovering a truth about God embedded into the very fabric of reality.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Provoke and Inspire podcast learning how to follow Jesus in a post-Christian culture.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: My name is Ben Pierce, I am the host of the show and joining me today are David Pierce, chad Johnson and Luke Greenwood.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: What's up, guys?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hello, fam.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Provoke and Inspire is an official Stiger International podcast.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Stiger is a worldwide mission organization that mobilizes followers of Jesus to reach young people who would not walk into a church.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: For more information, resources and how to get involved, you can go to stigerorg.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: The set list for today is short and it's sweet.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: We just have two things, of course.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: We have David's random story.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It's a short tale of intrigue and wonder derived from the daily meanderings of David's life Meanderings.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: meanderings, no meanderings, is very pejorative.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: It's not a nice thing, I think meanderings is neutral at best.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: And then we have the main topic, which is is chat GPT going to kill art, love and the very soul of humanity, and how should followers of Jesus feel about it?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: And, most importantly, what should we do?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: So that's what's going to happen.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: We're going to break that all down, so stick around.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But before we get into it, I just want to bring to your attention a recent review that we've had, and I want to solve a bit of a mystery.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: David, you know, week to week is like why aren't you reviewing our podcast?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Why aren't you giving us a rating?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Well, as it turns out, statistically speaking, more and more of you are listening on Spotify, which makes sense.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: If the horse is Joe Rogan, the cart is everyone else following him into the promised land.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So many metaphors.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: We're going to begin consuming more of his, like brain alpha power, correct.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah gummies too.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: It's going to be great.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Anyway, as it so turns out, you can't leave a written review on Spotify, so our rating numbers have gone up a lot, and so I think that's a little bit of where the lack has come from, and that is what's really been hurting David in a deep place.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Well, I've had a lot of what do they call that dark?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: What is searching the soul of the night?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Well, anyway, to bring a little bit of levity into David's life, I will read what is it?
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Dark night of the soul.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had a lot of dark nights of the soul.
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: That's my constant state is the dark night of the soul.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, can I read this review or not?
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Read away, read away.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Jay Paluski writes solid five stars.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: This podcast is consistently encouraging, challenging, interesting and entertaining.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I've gotten a lot out of it personally and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to dig into what it means to represent Christ in culture.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Good work, guys.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: And then he gives that half saluting emoji Anyway.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So we appreciate that, jay Paluski, and for those rating us on Spotify, thank you.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Continue to do that.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Even if we can't call you out by name, we really do appreciate it, and that's it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: We're going to salute him.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: See now, that's why he used the emoji.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: That's true, I didn't think of that.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: All right, let's move on.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: David, you ready?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: We'll see David's random story.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: So one of the things that's a value of mind and of our mission is to support the local church Right Luke.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, the local church?
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: We don't give him money, but we support them.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: I don't know what you mean, but yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: We don't give you money, but we support you.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: So that means, like, sometimes, like you go somewhere to speak to be a support, and I was wanting to do that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: So this pastor invited me to come and speak to it in his church and I wanted to go, you know, because I thought I want to be like Luke, I want to support the local church Go on.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: Well, I don't know.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: That's good.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: I like to pick to your painting.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: That's good.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm a bit worried about where it's going, but I put on my nice shirt and everything, and I defy to this particular city.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say the name of the pastor or anything like that, because that wouldn't be good.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: And you know how it is, Luke, right, when you fly to somewhere and then the pastor's there to greet you right?
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: Yes, so I'm really worried about agreeing with everything you're saying what.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Like he's setting me up.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: It's so Don't fall for it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Stay strong.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: You got this.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: So the pastor's there and he's all happy, but he wasn't.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: It was a happiness, but inside there was like this struggle.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Like he didn't really want you to be there.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, kind of we go to this breakfast place the whole time.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: I'm like, dude, we're going to be late and he goes.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I got locked out of my church and I'm like what he said?
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I went to the church this morning to get ready and they changed all the locks.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, so you're not gonna be speaking this morning, but I had this whole talk prepared.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: Yes, that's what you were thinking of when the pastor got looked out of the church.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: He's got five.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: A talk, well, yeah, of course.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: So I thought, do I give my talk just one person, right, Right?
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: So then I just kind of gave kind of a summary of my talk.
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: Or to the pastor, yeah, or to the people in the cafe, like in the breakfast place where you were.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: No, just to the pastor, and I think he liked it.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: If the story's running out of steam, feel free to lay in the plane.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It's okay, just go for it.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So then.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: I gave my talk, and then we went out for lunch a few hours later, and then I flew back home.
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: Wow, I mean, what if the church was waiting for you, like they didn't want the pastor, but maybe they wanted you still to speak?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: How do you know that they kicked you out Right?
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: What if they only kicked him out?
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, that's a very good point, because they didn't say that they kicked me out, did they?
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So maybe he you know what is the expression misery wants company.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe he just lumped you in with his indiscretions.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Well, let that be a lesson to all of us.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: You know, keep two sets of locks or at least one of those bolt cutters in your car if you're gonna invite a speaker.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, let's move on.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: All right, main topic today.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: A few weeks back we talked about Nick Cave and his blog, the Red Hand Files, and for those of you that have not listened to that episode, I'd recommend you go check it out.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: He's a very interesting guy, not a Christian, but very deep, very philosophical.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: He's an artist and actor and he basically had this open forum where he invited his fans to ask him anything and he would do his best to respond.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And recently one of his fans wrote him this I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around chat GPT.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I was talking to a songwriter in a band that was using chat GPT to write his lyrics because it was so much faster and easier.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I couldn't really argue against that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I know you've talked about chat GPT before, but what's wrong with making things faster and easier?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: So this fan writes him that post.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Then Nick Cave writes this very eloquent, very dramatic response, and the place where I actually found this was on a YouTube channel called Letters Live, and the basic concept is actors and influencers will come on and read letters that other people wrote, and in this specific case, the British actor, Stephen Fry, is the one who reads Nick Cave's response to Leon, the guy that wrote the post about chat GPT.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Now, Stephen Fry is pretty famous for being an outspoken atheist, so if you combine the fact that Nick Cave is not really a Christian and that Stephen Fry is definitely not a Christian, the fact that they would pair up to contribute this piece of writing to the world is pretty fascinating.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna play the whole audio of Stephen Fry reading this letter by Nick Cave to Leon in response to the ills and dangers of chat GPT Sounded confusing.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: It'll make more sense.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Check this out.
• 8:07
  Speaker 7: Dear Leon and Charlie, in the story of the creation, god makes the world and everything in it in six days.
• 8:16
  Speaker 7: On the seventh day he rests.
• 8:19
  Speaker 7: The day of rest is significant because it suggests that the creation required a certain amount of effort on God's part, that some sort of artistic struggle had taken place.
• 8:33
  Speaker 7: This struggle is the validating impulse that gives God's world its intrinsic meaning.
• 8:39
  Speaker 7: The world becomes more than just an object full of other objects.
• 8:45
  Speaker 7: Rather, it is imbued with the vital spirit, the pneuma of its creator.
• 8:53
  Speaker 7: Chat GPT rejects any notion of creative struggle that our endeavors animate and nurture our lives, giving them depth and meaning.
• 9:04
  Speaker 7: It rejects that there is a collective, essential and unconscious human spirit underpinning our existence, connecting us all through our mutual striving.
• 9:15
  Speaker 7: Chat GPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanizing the imagination.
• 9:25
  Speaker 7: It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary.
• 9:33
  Speaker 7: That songwriter you were talking to, leon, who is using chat GPT to write his lyrics because it is faster and easier, is participating in the erosion of the world's soul and the spirit of humanity itself and, to put it politely, should fucking desist if he wants to continue calling himself a songwriter.
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: Chat GPT's intent is to eliminate the process of creation and its attendant challenges, viewing it as nothing more than a time-wasting inconvenience that stands in the way of the commodity itself.
• 10:22
  Speaker 7: Why strive, it contends, why bother with the artistic process and its accompanying trials?
• 10:31
  Speaker 7: Why shouldn't we make it faster and easier?
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: When the God of the Bible looked down upon what he had created, he did so with a sense of accomplishment and saw that it was good.
• 10:43
  Speaker 7: It was good because it required something of his own self, and his struggle imbued creation with a moral imperative.
• 10:53
  Speaker 7: In short, love, charlie.
• 10:57
  Speaker 7: Even though the creative act requires considerable effort, in the end you will be contributing to the vast network of love that supports human existence.
• 11:10
  Speaker 7: There are all sorts of temptations in this world that will eat away at your creative spirit, but none more fiendish than that boundless machine of artistic demoralization, chat, gpt.
• 11:26
  Speaker 7: As humans, we so often feel helpless in our own smallness, yet still we find the resilience to do and make beautiful things, and this is where the meaning of life resides.
• 11:40
  Speaker 7: Nature reminds us of this constantly.
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: The world is often cast as a purely malignant place, but still the joy of creation exerts itself, and as the sun rises upon the struggle of the day, the great crested grebe dances upon the water.
• 11:59
  Speaker 7: It is our striving that becomes the very essence of meaning.
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: This impulse, this creative dance that is now being so cynically undermined, must be defended at all costs, and just as we would fight any existential evil, we should fight it tooth and nail, for we are fighting for the very soul of the world.
• 12:27
  Speaker 7: Love Nick.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: So there you have it.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: That's captivating, even though I've listened to that many times.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: So to me, I mean, there's many places that we could go with this and, as I said in the intro, I think that there are conversations here that followers of Jesus should care about.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: There are real threats to humanity that we should be concerned about, and also, I think the kinds of conversations that this whole thing is producing are actually opportunities to talk about what matters, what's true, what it means to be human, why we make art, why we feel this sense of connection when we make something, and so is this much a do about nothing.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Is this just a dramatic person making a dramatic defense of the need to rid ourselves of this evil, or is this just another tool at the disposal of creators to augment or amplify what they already do?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Because I've seen a lot of arguments back and forth, and maybe that would be a simple place to start.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it actually takes me back a little bit to a conversation that was happening.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: I don't know how long, maybe quite some time ago now, but when the idea of music streaming first came about, there were a few artists that were aggressively opposed to it, and Metallica, I think, was one of them.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the old Napster band yeah yeah, so it reminds me a little bit of like the Metallica versus Napster.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I have the details right, but it feels like it was something along those lines where essentially the creators or the, you know, those people who are most creatively wired, are most opposed to what it is that's changing around them, and especially as it relates to technology.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: But now, you know, as we kind of like look back, it seems almost funny or foolish that there would even be such a conflict, because who isn't streaming music now?
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: Who isn't streaming podcasts or any, I mean, who isn't consuming?
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: And it's made people listen even more to music.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: I was just hearing on the news today about how it's increased music consumption because of that.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: So I guess for me you know my experience with chat GPT was that I tried it for myself and I was very, very impressed at one, how quick and, two, how thorough of a job.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: It sort of provided for me as a starting point.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: But you know, had all I done was read the outline I asked it to write for, whether AI was better than you know my natural human talents, it'd be pretty obvious to people.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: I think that I was just reading something, but it did kind of it sort of sparked the context for this conversation.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: So I don't know, I think that Nick Cave does a phenomenal job of writing and communicating his perspective.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: I wonder, though, if, like five or 10 years from now, we're going to look back and be like, oh man, that's so funny.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Is that just because, like frogs in a pot, we've just it could be?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: We've just come to accept what now feels ubiquitous and irreplaceable you know, what I mean, because that doesn't mean even the streaming argument, and I haven't gotten to deep detail about the pros and cons of streaming.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But even you know Nard, the guy that does a lot of the video work in our studio here we were talking about streaming and how you know it's.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: It is a very strange idea that, as a musician, I will spend hundreds of hours writing a song, all of the hours of revision, all the technical musicianship that goes into it, all of the producing and revisions and the mastering and all of that, and then whoop, I just plop it onto this free site where it's like here you go, take nine people in 200 hours of work and just click a button and don't, you know, don't contribute anything.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: It's not worth anything other than just you know your 0.002 cents I get for you streaming that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: So I don't know that.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I guess to say as a parallel here and, david, I know you're going to jump in just because we get used to it, just because it's going to get so good.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily answer the question, though, whether this is going to replace something fundamentally human.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that it's making us dumber and dumber.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I found this quote.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: What's happening is we're doing this cognitive offloading.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: We are outsourcing part of our intelligence to technology and when this happens, our own intelligence atrophies.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: If this plays out several generations, some foundational intelligence will be lost for most humans.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: That is the problem.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: You know we've talked about this before how it's hard to focus because of the internet and it's degrading my ability to problem solve.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: So it's not just about creativity, and I completely agree with what Nick Cave said in his letter.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: I think it's super profound.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: There's no comparison between that and the streaming idea.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: This is quite scary and I think it's going to make human beings less and less able to think and to process and to create, let alone understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Now there's even AI Jesus, where you can go to AI Jesus and you can ask him what he thinks about baseball.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: I think where this is all going is really, really bad.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's just another technology that we have to get used to.
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: There's this fascination right now around AI and around technology and the advancement of technology, and it's on the news all the time, it's in the movies.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: We're always, you know, trying to figure it out, and I think one of the most interesting questions that it's raising and this Letter touches on that from the artistic perspective, but it's kind of a general question everybody's asking which is how does this affect us and what does it mean?
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: How does it compare to humanity?
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: So, people that you know, how does AI compare to us?
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: How does AI compare to human intelligence?
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: And it's making people think through from various angles.
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: What does it mean to be human and so, okay, well, if we can make a machine that does the same things we do, is anything that makes us unique and you know lots of things that we thought made us unique suddenly feel like, oh, actually technology, could, we could make a technology just does that.
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: So, you know, some people might have defined humanity by our intelligence and our ability to obtain knowledge and create, and that's why this is really challenging us.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: So, you know, I don't know Even how useful my view would be on, you know, whether AI is good or bad.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: I think it's really interesting to think about the questions.
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: It's making us ask, and I think that letter does a really good job of that, because it's making us ask okay, well then, what does it really mean to be human, and what is creativity?
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: And that is relevant to everybody.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: And that's something that's opening a door for conversations and for digging deeper and it's making I think it's another step Of building spiritual hunger.
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: In my view, it's another.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: It's another thing that's making people go, and is there anything out there that's not material, that's not just this technological?
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: thing.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: You know it's interesting.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: You say that because I mean literally, I have written down line for line.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I think the more interesting consequence of the emergence of AI Is the conversation that sparks about what it means to be human, because for me I've been reluctant to bring this subject up or talk about it on this podcast because I'm not a tech expert like I have, you know, very superficial opinions about it.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I know even within the world of AI itself there's a lot of complexities and nuances I don't understand, even about the way it's being developed.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I have my own instincts.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And even to David's point about the impact of technology on our brains and our development, there's truth to that.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: The shallows by Nicholas Carr Is one of my favorite books on this, where he he talks about more the emergence of the Internet because his books about 10 years old now, as opposed to chat, gbt or AI, which I'm sure he'd write about now and his basic premise, as David alluded to, was, as new technologies emerge, we offload parts of our brains ability.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So he talks about the transition from oral tradition to written tradition and how there's all this raging debate back then where people were saying if we write everything down, will have no longer a need to memorize anything, and they've done studies that have shown, or you know I don't know exactly how they've done this, but basically that parts of the brain that were devoted to memorization have considerably atrophied because we don't have to memorize anything anymore, like we used to.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I don't even know my wife's phone number.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: You know like, think about that even in our own lifetimes how little information you have to remember directions, recipes, people's names.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know who you goons are there's probably a Craig among you but this is probably another level of that right that we will sacrifice some part of our cognitive ability in the name of convenience.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: That's a part of this conversation.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Looking at the specific situation, what makes this so fascinating to me is that we have Nick Cave, who's using God as his central metaphor to make an argument that chat, gpt and AI is a massive threat to not only art but what it means to be human.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's pretty crazy, considering that both Stephen Fry and Nick Cave don't really believe in God, at least not in the sense that we do.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: So, chad.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: What do you make of that?
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Why is that significant that they would use that kind of metaphor in response to this kind of threat?
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean, it almost is so extreme that you could say that the technology behind chat, gpt, is forcing someone like Nick into the prospect of God and the idea of God, because the way that he seems to draw inspiration in his story, in his analogy, is that God to him, and the story of creation models, is like the highest level of art form that we have as a human culture that we can reach to, and that also not only represents the art form but also the artistic struggle which I think is what he's trying to point out.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: It's actually extremely intriguing that he would like why not?
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: Pick any number of other areas that wouldn't potentially bring up, you know, spiritual connotations.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, super encouraging, especially by way of conversation with him and with others who may now have seen this, and just, it's just another kind of easy way in which to spark conversation points.
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: There's two different angles here that I think are really interesting.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: As followers of Jesus, how do we interact with technology?
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: How do we keep what is right and good and pure and how God has made us in light of all these changes?
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: And then there's this whole other side of the conversations that opens up with non-believers, and you've pointed out how Nick Cave is a sacred guy, but also for me it's just fascinating here, Stephen Fry, because he's somebody that I've followed a lot and as far as I understood, he chose that letter to read.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: Stephen Fry is like a great example of the progression that society has made in the area of faith, because he went from being this antagonistic angry against a church guy kind of in line with secular humanists and using comedy and acting as another outlet for being anti-church, anti-Christian to reading this letter, which to me is a sign of where society is at, which is a lot more decentralized in terms of who decides who God is and what faith is, but a lot more open, and this ties way back to the last episode we had about the open closed.
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: So there's just different angles of how does this affect us as humans and all the conversations we can have with people about it.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And I think, as followers of Jesus, obviously, first and foremost, we want to be faithful to God and have that intimate relationship with him, and then we want to be a witness to the world, and so the reason why I think this is important to bring up is that we know how the world is, we know what reality is, we know that we were created, we know that there is meaning to our lives that is given to us by God, because we are not only His creation, but we have His unique image inside of us.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: We know that love is the central unifying spirit right, that love in the form of Jesus coming to earth and giving his life for us.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So, as followers of Jesus, we know all of that, and I guess what I'm trying to encourage myself to do and those of us listening is, as people in real time outside of the church are discovering these things about life, as threats are causing them to discover them, or their own longings or suffering, or curiosities, or love of art or whatever it is.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I think what we need to be experts at is recognizing these perceptions that people are starting to have and say, yes, you're right, the central unifying thing about life is love.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Art is essential to who we are, and being able to see that happening in people and recognize that it's not going to necessarily look like a verse in the Bible, but it's going to look like a secular person discovering a truth about God embedded into the very fabric of reality, and that, as they do that, I want to come alongside that person and say you're absolutely on the right track.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you about the one who made it that way.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: That's my core motivation in this is because I'm excited by the idea that Nick Cave is coming together with Steve Fry to find solace in the arms of God as a way to distance themselves from this pernicious invasion of Chad GBT, and that's why I get excited about this topic.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And illustration I've used a lot about this pastor that I spent time with, who wanted to see a revival in his church.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: And you know, he didn't know what to do and he spent a lot of time praying and asking God about it and he felt like God spoke to him and told him that he needed to shut his church down for a while and just invite all the neighbors in for breakfast just relationship.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And so he did that and he told everyone in his congregation to have all their neighbors in for breakfast on Sunday morning.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Hey, 11 o'clock Sunday morning, come and have breakfast with us, you know, and just that's all.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: It was just inviting people in to have breakfast, and he saw a revival in his church.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: I think it speaks to the fact that we want authentic, real relationships and everyone is getting sick of the artificial AI kind of experiences that we're having more and more and I think it's breaking everything down more and more.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: I mean it used to be with Jody, my wife Jody.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, we're going to watch a movie together, so we would go to blockbuster video and buy a video and watch it together.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Well, now that was super fun to go through the aisles pop pop not experience to, but now we don't do that, you know, because I just want to watch football and she doesn't want to just watch football, so she's in another room watching what she watches.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: So even I know it's not AI, but it is.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: It's new technology is the point right, and this is even another step, but it's like it keeps separating us and separating us, so that just to watch something together with your wife is becoming more and more rare, because now we can all watch our own separate things, right, and this is to me just another example of that, on a much more dangerous level, I think.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a consequence again of technology, which is an absolutely relevant conversation.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: But to tie it into this, I would say, as people begin to feel the pains of the loneliness that technology is producing, how can we use that as an opportunity to say we are living in a way that's out of alignment with how we were created?
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: That's kind of again the fundamental question, not just the analysis of the consequence, but the way that this starts to produce resistance in people like whoa, wait a minute, is this how I was meant to live?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Is this really what it's about?
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: As it starts, as we start to, the spirit inside of it starts to revolt against what technology starts to do in us.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: As followers of Jesus, we should be right there to say you're absolutely right, this is not how we were meant to live.
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you're right, Ben.
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: I think that this is I get excited for the same reason you described before of like, okay, this is kicking, this is sparking a conversation that they're digging deeper because of the reaction to the technology and to the AI.
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: And it's funny because I think the letter Nick Cave wrote is a great example of how we could be and should be as followers of Jesus, joining the conversation and expressing faith and what's interesting, he did it for us.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: And better than we could.
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: So you know, here's a lesson in evangelism with Nick Cave right here, but I think the thing that he did that struck a chord with people was it's really a deeply thought through, searching and it's communicated in a creative way, and that's made me think that society is at a place right now where there's room for that, and I was just thinking about that as we were preparing for this episode.
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: I was just thinking about man.
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: It's like we've gone on a progression where society went from Christianity being the cultural norm it's this respected thing, this respectful way of life to then a period of antagonism and deconstructing and anger against the church and against, and we haven't really fully left that.
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: But what I am seeing a lot more of right now is people forgetting that, leaving that anger aside for a bit, and a lot of kind of the younger generation who've never even really experienced that or don't know what's, what's all the problem about, and they just don't know.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: They've just never walked into a church, they've never had anger against the church, they just what's all the fuss about?
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: They're just whatever about it, you know.
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: But they're reacting to a materialistic world that now has added onto it this crazy idea of artificial intelligence that could substitute so much of what we do and think, and they're like what does that mean then?
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: What does it mean to be human?
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: Who am I?
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: And is there anything more?
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: And, as you said, there's this cry of like.
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: I think there's more.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: I think there's something about creativity that a machine can't do, and I think there's something about relationships that a machine can't do, and I think there's some so it's that something, it's creating that hunger for that something, and so I think our way of sharing the gospel really needs to dig into that.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: We need to go deeper in having those deep conversations.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: What is that something?
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: And getting creative about bringing that up.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: And I think, to be honest, that's why, when I look at it kind of just across the board, I mean we've been experiencing in our mission in Stygur a really amazing, fruitful time of a lot of people in cities all around the world going out and creatively sharing the gospel and having amazing conversations and seeing people open, seeing people respond, seeing people get baptized and come to Jesus, and I think that part of the reason is something God is doing right now in society is there's this openness, there's this desire to talk, as long as it's in an environment where you can go deep and you can connect and you can ask questions, and so I guess for me this is an encouragement.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: It's like we've got to do this more, we've got to get out there more, we have to engage in these conversations more.
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: Ai has only brought opportunities in that realm, as well as all the damaging stuff that I do agree it brings to.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Could you imagine trying to navigate any of this without God, without that core understanding of reality and who we are, man?
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: This world would be very confusing if you didn't have that stabilizing worldview right, and that's where most people are.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: So our hearts should break Chad.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: How do we engage someone in a risk taking sense with this topic, Like what would you say to someone who maybe is an artist or someone into technology or just anyone?
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: How would you go from this kind of weighty philosophical conversation we've had to a very practical response that any one of our followers or listeners could take in the realm of this kind of conversation?
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: I was thinking about that, because it is easy to appreciate and to be really surprised and even impressed by the fact that two seemingly non-followers of Jesus are using or even celebrating a biblical story that we find as the beginning of everything we believe about God and about the world.
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: So it's pretty shocking.
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: But I do think it's an opportunity to introduce our story.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: The big picture story of what Nick Cave does there, and then the smaller picture, relationally with our friends that don't know the Lord yet, is just like, well, how can I share with you how I relate to this story as someone who, spiritually, has dedicated his life to the teachings that were birthed from that starting point?
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: That's really the starting point of my life, my real life as a human, as the most fulfilled, most raw, most unbelievable journey of my experience.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: Can I share that?
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: I think maybe there it's like making it a more personal connection point and just us being aware, the fact that we would talk about it here, the fact that we would know about it and that that, as believers, that we would be clued into what other people are talking about, who are especially not yet believers, but where we see there's an
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: openness.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Our stories are crucial in this, I think, maybe redefining success in the form of asking just really simple, good questions, recognizing that people are more curious about this than you might think and that the leap from this conversation to God, as Nick Cave and Stephen Fry have proved, is not that far.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: So you ask someone especially an artist, but I think anyone questions like why is their art, why do we make art and why does it matter?
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Or is there something uniquely human about art that AI will never be able to replace?
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: If so, what?
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: What is uniquely human?
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: You ask these kinds of questions and I think you'll end up being in a very awesome spiritual conversation with someone, because it's whatever one's thinking about already, and it's very natural and logical to say well, if art is something that is not just reducible to molecules and ink and sound waves, then what is it?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Why do we care?
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Why does it matter?
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Why is it not better to replace it with something that can do it Quote faster and easier?
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: And I think you kind of have to ground that, as they had to, in a metaphor they may not even literally believe in, for lack of better options, and so I think you can definitely have some great spiritual conversations with this topic.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: I was thinking that as well Been a really good practical step that anybody can use is like what are some good questions to ask around that?
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: And I think one of the best is what you asked.
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: I'd kind of phrase it like can AI substitute us as humans?
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: Do you believe that?
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: What do you think about that?
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: And to then have that conversation about is there something just unique about us being made in the image of God?
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: Is there something about the life that God has put in us that you just can't deny?
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: Especially when you look at all of this, you can't deny it anymore.
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: It's like there's something there, there's something divine, there's something spiritual about us and that points to the reality of God, like our teams around the world will often do a lot of street actions and they'll use creative questions to engage people in conversation, and I think that's a cool one to start bringing in.
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: Like, bring in an AI-based street action and start asking those questions.
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: Do you believe AI could substitute us as humans?
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: What's the difference between an intelligent machine and you?
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: And I think that's a great question to start engaging people on.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, any final words of wisdom, david, before I give people one last little practical thing to sink their teeth into.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I think that one of the greatest things people need now is authentic relationships.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: This is a good conversation that we can have with people about what makes us fully human, and we should have those conversations, but the thing that we also need to be doing is forming real community, and I think the more we do that, the more we're going to see the walls break down, because people are so alone, and now this new technology is making people even more isolated.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: It's even taking away more of our contemplation and thinking about deep thoughts, about anything, and I think people are so empty, and so I think people want something authentic, and I think not just having conversations about what do you think of AI?
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: But also, hey, let's go out for a coffee, come to my house for a meal.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Getting involved in people's lives and breaking out of our own ghettos, I think, is one of the biggest things that we need to take away from this.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and we've developed a tool called Spiritual Conversations for the Non-Religious.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: If you go to stigerorg spiritual conversations you can find it here, full disclosure.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: We're doing a lot of work on this in the next few months to really improve it in a million different ways.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: But if you go here, you can sign up.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: But you can also look at the various videos that we have.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Two of the videos that I'd actually recommend are Are we Animals?
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Part one and two.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: You can grab those and you can share them.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Just send them to someone and ask the question, because it talks about that whole question of what are we?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Is there something unique about us?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: And that's a little bit of a different angle than this whole AI angle, and we might need to make a video specifically related to that.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: That could be really cool.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: But again, do something practical and let us know how it goes.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: If you follow us on Instagram, you can DM us otherwise provokedandinspireatstigerorg.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: We'd love to hear how your conversations went this week when you talk to someone and you ask them the question can AI replace you and I?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear how that conversation went and how you're able to take that from that place to the gospel, because that's ultimately what we're doing All of this for is we want to be faithful for Jesus outside of the church.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: We want to be doers, not just hearers of the Word.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: So that's why we have these discussions.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Hopefully this was encouraging to you.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I really think maybe we missed the heart of this topic.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I think this will really resonate with Chad's heart, so we're just going to close Chad GPT.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: So are you guys ready for what really is the heart of this topic.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: I'm ready.
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: All right, here we go.
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: Life is extra surreal for French speakers right now because in French phonetically, chat GPT sounds exactly like cat I farted, chat GpT.
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: Everywhere on TV and the news people going cat I farted over and over with a straight face.
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: Is cat I farted going to steal your job?
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: How are schools dealing with cat I farted?
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: Lawyer caught using cat I farted.
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: That's incredible.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Did we just miss the whole thing?
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: We have to start this podcast over again.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: Round two.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: I think you need to edit that out.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: This is coming from the guy whose random story last week was about not sitting down when peeing so you don't get an infection.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: That was a medical thing.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: What's that word I'm looking for that starts with H and ends with Ipocrite?
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I don't really remember Summon a piece of the other, for me, potamus.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hippopotamus.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: All right, that's it.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: We love y'all.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Leave us a rating and review.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Luke, you know, go take a shower.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: You look nice Peace.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: If you enjoy this content, consider leaving us a rating and a review on iTunes.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Got questions for the guys?
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Send them to provokeandinspireatsteigerorg.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.