The Most Important Question about AI

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A recent story at Fox News described a new app that allows people to cut out the middleman, so to speak, when talking to God. “The ‘Text With Jesus’ app allows users to message AI-generated biblical figures, including Mary, Joseph and Moses.” Despite being lambasted for the app, its creator reports that many users are “embracing the new way of worship.”

Eerily reminiscent of the story of the Israelites and the Golden Calf, this is yet another example of the many “should we” questions created by Artificial Intelligence. And there are many. In a recent interview with MSNBC, actress and director Justine Bateman slammed TV and movie producers for choosing cyber-shortcuts to genuine human creativity:

I think they sort of like to think of themselves as being tech barons themselves or something. But this, doing projects that don’t involve humans is not … in the film business anymore. They don’t know what it’s like to make a film.

A few weeks earlier, Zelda Williams, daughter of the great Robin Williams, issued this plea to her late father’s fans:

Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t … to watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them…’ just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. … You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings.

A few months ago, former CNN reporter Jim Acosta interviewed an AI avatar that claimed to be Joaquin Oliver, one of the students killed in the horrific 2018 Parkland (FL) school shooting. Not to be outdone, at least three megachurches played an AI version of Charlie Kirk the Sunday after he was assassinated, with one pastor announcing the clip as “what Charlie is saying regarding what happened to him this past week.”

Continuing down this rabbit hole, the BBC recently reported that the Chatbot Truth Terminal had managed to “earn” millions in cryptocurrency. Not only that, but according to its creator, “Truth Terminal claims to be sentient.” But, he continued, “it claims a lot of things. It also claims to be a forest. It claims to be a god. Sometimes it’s claimed to be me.” The program is now pushing for its own legal rights as a person.

What each of these stories reveals is how confused we are about the fundamental question that must be answered when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. In fact, we are confused about what the most important question even is. Many people wrongly think, as one author posted on X, that we need to decide what humans should do and what AI should do:

You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction. I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.

However, the question is deeper than who (or what) should do what. The most important question is who are we as humans? What makes humans exceptional and distinct from machines?

For the last hundred years or so, in the wake of Darwinism, the essential question was how and why humans were different than animals. Many believed there was no essential difference. For example, the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote,

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during the ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a higher answer, but none exists.

What we should have known were the implications of this belief for morality, meaning, and social cohesion.

Today, to settle the “should we” questions about Artificial Intelligence, we have to know whether humans are different than computers. Are we “meat machines,” as some have said, or something more? That question will help us distinguish between Elon Musk’s promises to restore health and ability to people with disease and injury and what he calls “cybernetic enhancements” through “human-AI fusion.”

The problem with his idea, that humans can “effectively become one with the AI,” is not just that it is too science fiction-y. Given his vision, track record, and resources, it’s not even that such dreams are beyond his reach. His confusion is the confusion of our time: What does it mean to be human? What is it about us that is distinct and exceptional?

Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Poca Wander Stock

John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.