I don’t know about you, but I am getting countless emails per day about AI. These emails are coming from Christian forums and non-Christian forums, about how to use it, if we should use it, when we should use it, and everything in between.
And here I am, adding one more to the list.
To be honest, I have mostly ignored these emails. My thinking has often been: There is too much happening in the world right now to worry about AI—I’ll deal with it later. Or, The loss of jobs caused by AI is likely to affect the minority world more than the majority world, so it isn’t an urgent concern for me. Or even, We are still trying to help people adopt Zoom, Salesforce, and other digital tools; AI is pretty far down the priority list.
But a connection (thanks, Bob Crow!) to someone in the AI world changed my thought process on this, and last week Emmanuel Okaalet (a Kenyan, living in Texas, and working in AI) spoke to our Global DML team about the issue. It was a good conversation, and we quickly realized that a one-hour teaching/discussion was not nearly enough time to cover the issue. He asked three questions of the DML team relating to AI: 1. What should we welcome? 2. What should we resist? and 3. What should we help shape?
These were helpful questions to gently guide us into some of the realities concerning AI. These were some of the takeaways:
- AI is already here and people are using it, even without knowing that it’s called AI. This includes Google Maps, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms. Avoiding AI at this point is not possible.
- We need wisdom, not panic or fear. Wisdom to understand that AI, like money, is a tool. It cannot be good or evil in and of itself. It is how we act on it that makes a difference. For too long, we have heard (directly or indirectly) that “money is the root of all evil” rather than “the love of money is the root of all evil.” That has led people to choose lives of poverty and struggle rather than learning to use that tool in a Kingdom-focused way. The same is true for AI. It can help us to achieve good things. It can help with cleaning up text, translating materials, researching, sorting, planning, and more. But there also needs to be wisdom in how we use it. In itself, AI is powerful. But it cannot be wise. That is where we come in.
- Responsible AI talks about “reducing harm.” We were challenged to go further than simply reducing harm with AI, but rather use it to “restore good.” Simply avoiding it leaves a huge gap in information that WILL be filled by those who are not telling the Grand Narrative of God. AI searches and AI research will gather information from that which has been submitted to it, and if we aren’t contributing to the conversation, we will lose our voice as ambassadors of God. We need to help build or shape AI for the common good, which we believe involves a Biblical Worldview. We also need to help build or shape AI to have voices that go beyond the minority world and do not leave out or leave behind the majority world. AI will reflect bias and prejudices if certain groups are underrepresented or misrepresented.
- We need to understand the environmental impact that AI has on the world. AI data centers require an enormous amount of electricity and water for cooling. An AI search uses four times the amount of electricity as a regular search. We therefore need to minimize AI usage for simple tasks.
- We need to set personal and corporate guardrails. For example: Don’t outsource discernment. Don’t confuse speed with wisdom. Decide how you will use it to improve your God-given abilities, not to replace your abilities or do the work for you. Decide what will never be delegated to AI.
Because of this session, DML is creating its own AI policy, and we are encouraging each individual to do the same. As the systems theory teaches, you can’t just do one thing – there is a ripple effect that goes out much further than we often imagine. Therefore, we need to proceed with wisdom and be informed.
I’m off today for Cameroon for two weeks, having the opportunity to speak to leaders of twelve Presbyterian denominations. Please keep this in your prayers!
Blessings to you in this next week.