Artificial Intelligence: Technological Marvel or Tool of the Antichrist?

I believe that artificial intelligence is a tool and like any tool, it's morally neutral, but it can be used for good or for evil.

Now, the term artificial intelligent intelligence covers many things, but you're basically essentially talking about computer programs. Um I do think artificial intelligence already playing a significant role and will continue to play a significant role and we as Christians can use it as a tool. So think of it this way in very simple terms. Artificial intelligence is simply computer programming that takes advantage of the rapid advances in technology where computers can uh can actually make trillions of calculations in seconds. And so what would be tedious and take years for a human say say a complicated mathematical problem that literally would take years to calculate by hand can be done almost instantly.

Same thing playing chess for a human to calculate all the potential moves of chess and pick one out. Well, you could take, you know, years to uh to actually look at that or or hours. But a computer can analyze the whole situation in an instant. So things that problems or or actions that are highly aminable to this rapid calculation well artificial intelligence can do very well and even far exceed what we can do and so it's a good tool. So, for example, in the medical field, uh, and I'm certainly not an expert in this, but there are programs now that can take complex symptoms or pictures like such as X-rays or or or scans and they can compare it with millions of other pictures and instantly discern a pattern and come up with a diagnosis.

So, um, a human doctor who's had years of experience may also intuitively having having seen many cases and read many cases and seen many X-rays and scans might be able to instinctively do that. But even he is going to be limited by his experience and there may be some rare cases that he's never encountered. But that computer could have it all stored. So you can see how that for some things a computer could recognize a pattern that humans can't see uh or could make comparisons and come up with a solution. Now even there I think the best results are pairing the artificial intelligent with the human intelligence because humans still have intuitive ability to recognize something an instant and cut through.

You know, a computer uh uh organizes things logically, considers every answer methodically, and so its power is because it can go through trillions of calculations. Although I will say there are some modern programs that do try to imitate the human brain by taking shortcuts. Um but I think the best thing is to see it as a tool and to pair it with humans and for humans to doublech checkck it. Uh so for example, chat GPT can be an amazing tool, but I played with a little bit and it's s susceptible to what's called hallucinations because if it doesn't, you know, it it's not intelligent truly.

It doesn't think although it's hard for humans not to imply motives to it because when it when it responds in a way that we're used to thinking only humans can respond, we attribute motives and personality. Of course, it's just blindly going following his program. But the program becomes so complex that no human could even follow and predict the outcome. But this chat GPT, it uses um you know millions of points of data to predict the next word of a sentence and it it sound amazing and incredible and many times it comes up with the right word that you're struggling to find. Um and so you think, "Wow, it's smarter than I am." But that same ability can lead it blindly into a track.

So if it can't come up with the exact answer that you're looking for, it will make up the next best answer. Well, in some cases, the next best answer might be good, but in other cases, it's a lie. And so you have to double check it because, as I said, they call it hallucinations. It will come up with something non-existent. This has particularly come uh to pass in the courtroom where lawyers will use chat GBT and they will say you know find me a case that stands for such such a proposition because that can be very tedious and timeconuming and you still might miss it going through hundreds of cases to try to find one that's relevant to the point that you want to present to a court.

Well, what has happened is that chat GPT or its equivalent has come back, you know, John Doe versus state stands for this proposition and it says what you want to say. And so the lawyer puts it there brief, presented to the court. The judge gets his uh clerk to research it and lo and behold, that case doesn't even exist. It's completely made up. Or it may actually say the opposite. And so lawyers have actually been uh reprimanded and even disciplined for basically putting false information that they got in all sincerity from artificial intelligence. So you talked about dangers. That's one danger. Another danger is these programs.

They have to consume masses of amounts of data. So they're only good as the data and the data is so massive that they actually run out of data. Another thing is there might be using copyrighted data. So, if you're going to use artificial intelligence to write something, you have to be careful that you're not in violation of copyright law, uh, because you don't know where it's gotten the stuff from, and it may be actually copying somebody else that's copyrighted. Um, or, uh, if you if you load up stuff that's proprietary to you and now that information is going to be shared with whomever makes similar requests and you'll lose your copyright protection.

So here at world headquarters we have experimented and we can use so to write some blogs or to write some articles often artificial intelligence you you give it parameters and the more parameters and specific information you give the better the results are. So you say I need you to write me an article on this is it subject such and such such it could come up with something pretty pretty good and and so we allow that but we say the human has to verify it. So any facts must be independently verified. Of course, the text must be edited and proofed. And we also have to make sure that we're not violating someone else's copyright.

We off also have to make sure we're not using material that our authors have copyrighted and expose it to uh easy access in violation of copyright. So there got to be a lot of safeguards in place. Now the bigger question is artificial general intelligence that is and that is the what some of these programmers they're really their goal is so what I've described it's just basically a tool it's a very advanced tool a very complicated tool but actually just a tool and you can explain how it does what it does although you can't always predict what it's going to do and and by the way there's a danger there some of the programs are so complex that even the programmers cannot follow.

How did that computer get to that result? You know, a simpler program, you could go back and line by line, you can say, well, this leads to this and this leads to this, this is this. But these uh AI programs are so complex that people can't even verify. And there's the danger there. Let's say you come up with a diagnosis that nobody ever came up with. Well, that's great, but how do you know that's accurate? So what you would traditionally try to do is go back through the pro program and see step by step the logic by which it got there and say well yeah it's got to be the right answer because you know step by step by step we would have never figured it out but it figured it out.

But some are so complex you can't do that. You just have to trust it. So you have to have some independent means uh and maybe it depends on the results. maybe use it in a safe way and see if it produces what it claims to produce. But the real issue is artificial general intelligence which they're trying to mimic the human brain. Uh I personally feel we will never reach artificial general intelligence in the full sense of the world of replacing humans for two reasons. One I believe humans are more than computers. uh the you know sometimes we've compared the human brain to a computer and that that is an analogy that works to a certain point but it breaks down at a certain point.

It doesn't take into account that humans have a soul. The soul uses the brain but the soul is not equivalent to the brain or the mind maybe we should say. Uh the mind employs the brain so that if there is a damage to the brain it affects the ability of the mind to function. But the mind is more than a brain. uh the mind is integrated consciousness, a firsterson experience. So I can describe to you how color is formed by the wavelengths of light, but I can't describe to you what the what it's experience of seeing red or green. I can't describe how one painting affects me emotionally in a certain way and maybe you don't even like that same painting.

So I don't think uh uh AI will ever get to the point of of being the equivalent of a human being. I don't think it's possible because the human mind and the human soul transcends computer program. The the human brain doesn't work like a computer. There's intuitive connections uh that exceed anything. There are more possible states of the brain than there are particles in the universe. So it's no matter how complex the computer is, it can never be built to to equate the possible states of the brain when I mean that all the neurons and the possible connections there. Uh but also I think there's a theological reason even if we could approach that which I don't think we can.

I think God would draw the line at some point because you see in Genesis the Tower of Babel God says you know they're imagining all these things and at some point nothing will restrain them. You know they will they they will implement whatever they want. So I'm going to stop that from taking place. So, I think when it comes to people playing God, at some point God will say enough is enough. Uh, just like he did with the Tower of Babel, he's going to be consistent with himself. Uh, at some point he's going to say, "I'm not going to let the human race go any further." I don't know when that will be, but when it comes to genetic engineering, when it comes to artificial general intelligence, when people try to create life or when they try to create human life or when they try to control human life to that level, things like cloning and and genetic engineering, I think it's God will only let it go so far.

And that may be an indication of of when the coming of the Lord will be. So, but in the meantime, uh I think we as Christians can use artificial intelligence as a tool. We're already doing that in many ways. And what was considered revolutionary cutting edge artificial intelligence from a few years ago is now just considered a computer program. Now, just considered the internet, now just considered a Google search. We don't even think of it as artificial intelligence. Although from past generations, that would have been artificial intelligence. It's woven into our society and culture. So I do think we can use it as a tool.

Um I think we got to be very careful and have ethical and practical safeguards so that remains a tool and that humans remain accountable for the product and the outcome. Uh but yes, I do think uh in the prophecies of the book of revelation, the future coming of this man of sin, the beast, the antichrist, I think all kinds of computer technology, including artificial intelligence, will be a big part of how he's going to be able to control the world. He won't be completely successful, but his attempt to gain control of the world economy and the world political system and the world religious system will heavily depend on various forms of technology, including artificial intelligence.

But that doesn't mean it's evil in itself. That doesn't mean we have to ban or bar use of it. Uh because he's going to use video. He's going to use uh you know transportation uh airplanes and and and cars. I think we just have to be uh uh responsible users, but we also recognize the uniqueness of humans created in the image of God.