If this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.
SPEAKER_00When we think about AI ending humanity, we picture movies about killer robots taking us down.
SPEAKER_02But the question seems to be how much of this could soon be fact. That's the hilarity to me of the people behind AI. When you interview them and say, just how powerful is AI? And then people working in the companies are like, well, I don't want to panic people, but it is so powerful that literally the planet is in danger. What? And can can we use this? Such power is available to us. Well, it can be. Honestly, to me that I find that hilarious. Like if you ask people working in the companies how powerful this is, and they'll be like, it is so powerful! The outcome of that is massive, massive media attention, government attention, people attention. It isn't that powerful!
SPEAKER_03Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus, including the issue of AI. Is artificial intelligence ushering in a dystopian hellscape? Uh we talked to Reverend Dr. Paul Blackham about it. Uh Paul, thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Hey no, thank you. Yeah, it's always great to be on with you.
SPEAKER_03You have a very refreshing take on AI. I think uh when a lot of people think of AI, they they kind of think of Skynet and Terminator and the end of all things. Uh, including there is a video on YouTube called the AI Dilemma. It was made by uh people who made the social dilemma, which has been seen by a hundred million people, about how social media is a technological advance uh that is a very mixed blessing in the world. And they've used that same kind of skepticism to look at the AI issue. They have a very alarming statistic. They say that 50% of all people involved in AI think that there is a 10% chance that AI will usher in an extinction level event. How on earth can we welcome this dystopian hellscape, Paul Beckham?
SPEAKER_02Well, what I like about that statistic is it's the sort of statistic you would expect from people who are marketing something as being very powerful. I'll give you the same thing that happens. When um Sony or Microsoft produce a new console, they've been doing this since the um original Xbox. I remember they did it with the PlayStation 2, because when the new console arrives, it appears to be something. They're like, oh, the power of this. Unbelievable. It's something that should be illegal. It's so and so they usually have press releases that indicate that it is illegal. I remember they did it with the PlayStation 2, where they said this is something which would be illegal to export to Russia. This is when they did it at the time, because it is such a powerful computing device that it breaks treaties about the exchange of cutting-edge technology. Or they did it with another one where it was like this device is like, but it's the most powerful computing device that's ever been allowed into domestic situations and things. And so you're like, oh what? I ha can I buy one? And it's like, well, okay, but you've got a pre-order. That's the hilarity to me of the people who behind AI, where you interview them and say, just how powerful is AI? And the people working in the companies are like, Well, I don't want to panic people, but it is so powerful that literally the planet is in danger. What? And can can we use this? Is there such power is available to us? Well, it can be. I'm gonna say, to me, that I find that hilarious. Like, if you ask people working in the companies how powerful this is, and they'll be like, it is so powerful that humanity itself is threatened by it, and then it's like, oh well, then and then because the outcome of that is massive, massive media attention, government attention, people attention, consa it isn't that powerful. It isn't that powerful, it's it's something like I was talking to someone just yesterday who is a sort of um analyst of it, and they said the thing is the large language models is the biggest hype event uh that they've ever known because the the perception of what people think it can do compared to what it can actually do. You know, like the the the the imagination that it can like first of all, even the metaphor of artificial intelligence I I I find uh very unhelpful, and we might get into that if you want.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Um but that's my initial reaction to that sort of statistic. It's just a marketing ploy, it's not it doesn't correspond to reality, it corresponds to a marketing hype, like the release of a console.
SPEAKER_03And so that's interesting because computer games um have often been thought of as very dangerous, and and I guess a kind of an 80s and 90s scare was about how violent video games were and how they're kind of rewiring the brains of the very impressionable youths who are using those computer games. That's interesting to think that actually the computer games manufacturers themselves um quite like being thought of as dangerous. That's quite interesting. And we do think back to the 80s and 90s and those sorts of scares as uh as I I I tend to think of it as they were on to something. Yeah. There is a a a loss to having a generation of people who might be captured by computer games when they when they could be doing you know other things. Uh that that is not to be anti-computer games, it's just to say that there's a cost to anything that has benefits with it. But I think we probably recognize that the scares over computer games in the eighties and nineties have not really eventuated. And I mean, even even you know, some very prominent shooters back in the 1990s in in schools, that was kind of laid at the the feet of computer games by by some critics. But I think even now, kind of 20-30 years on, we sort of recognize that here was a sort of a technological shift, it had an effect, there were positives and there were negatives, um, but it wasn't the end of the world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and I think yeah, what you say is very helpful in that the real uh analyst thing, the or analytical um the best diagnosis, Neil Postman's, you know, amusing ourselves to death, where he's like, it's not what you do with screens that matter so much, it's just using screens. It's like you could be researching the Bible on your screen or or watching sermons, or it doesn't matter. You are in this position of this passive reception in front of a screen. It doesn't matter really what you're doing with it, you know, or the medium is the message kind of thing. The medium is a screen, a technological device that is doing something, mediating reality to you in a way that is you where you're relatively passive, and uh all the rest. Neil Postman's stuff is the real big danger in this year of games, TV, films, computer, all of that. He's the he's put his finger on the really big threat, what it does to us to be in that relationship to a technological device or a medium machine. That's the thing. What we do with it much is not so important, I think.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and that change has already happened, right? Yeah, that's done. That that boat has sailed. I remember um seeing a uh Gary Larson comic, you know, the Farside guy. And uh he had this this family, and sort of the the two kids were sort of lying on the carpet with their you know chins on their on their fists, and mum and dad were on the sofa, and and they were just all looking at a blank space, and the caption just says the years before television. And I thought that was that was kind of what was quaint about that is that at least television sort of united the family. I mean, it united the family in a very passive way, and they they could have become just you know dead-eyed consumers of amusement and distraction, but at least they were doing it together. Um something about modern technology is that now those those two kids are up in their own bedrooms, and mum and dad are probably infinitely scrolling on Instagram, and we we've utterly been blown apart. So, in in a sense, the the effect of screen technology has already gripped us, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_02It has. The uh but if I could also like say, on the other hand, yeah, there was that sense in which that little family are like glued to the television in that passive way together. But um now, like you and I are interacting in in two different cities, and uh throughout the week we will interact with people maybe all over the world. I mean, I do that nearly every day, interacting with people who are all over the world. So, not that I regard that as an unmitigated good, because I ru you know I I don't. I see that there's enormous complexity to that globalization, and it leads to not an increasing diversity of thought and culture, but I find it has a kind of homogenizing effect. So it doesn't lead to like what people thought it would lead to, it really hasn't led to. It's led to a kind of almost a tyranny in in some ways and a closing down of thought, uh that, but so that's all a thing in itself, you know. That's about internet and what the effects of that are. That's perhaps a different conversation, but it does create a different kind of social engagement that um, you know, it it's less of one but more of another, and and it's not a that's not an unmitigated bad either.
SPEAKER_03Right. And so we need to be wise to what the benefits are as well as the the cons. Um, I mean, and and technology continues to rewire us. Um, it will continue to change not only our interactions with one another, but actually change the way we process the world. And it's it's worth being aware of that, not not as a kind of a catastrophizing thing, but um even just being literate rewires you. Like the technology of reading and writing means that if you are a literate person in the world, not only can you read, you can't not read. Um and that technology has has rewired you um uh to it to a degree that it shows up on brain scans, to a deg to a degree that you can do psychological tests with people, and if you're a literate person, you find it very difficult if the word red is written in front of you in green letters, and if you're asked what colour are the letters, you find it really difficult to say green because you your your brain has been rewired by a technology that's called reading and writing. And you might spend your whole time wringing your hands saying, This is dreadful. The human person has been altered by a technology, um, but that ship sailed several millennia ago. And then you might think of other technologies like the printing press, which sort of pumps out literature and changes not only the wiring of the brain, but changes, you know, the ways in which communities interact with one another and changes the way in which church is done. Or you might think of, you know, the the motor car. So Carl Truman um you know says, you know, what one of the m most massive changes to church life is the fact that now with a car you can drive past twelve other churches before you show up at the at the one that has the the the coffee that you like. And if you're excommunicated from that church, it doesn't matter because you've got a car. And off you go to the you know, and it and so the technology that has already happened has already shaped us in in some quite significant ways. And so I I guess I I'll I'm sense-jecking from you, I I guess AI is the sort of technology that will change us and and will uh uh take us in in fresh directions, um, but that that is not a new thing. The technology is always doing that to us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and um again, AI, like I don't like the type the title AI because it's part of the propaganda of the people selling it, because it creates the metaphor of an agent who is intelligent, and people then imagine this this is kind of consciousness out there, so you know, doing things. Whereas I don't know, I've tended to, in my own little way, I I think of it as a kind of helper, um, assist uh even the word helper or help, help assisting in language operations, like halo, halo, help assisting in language operations. So we have had this halo um assisting in uh help assisting in language operations, a halo for a long, long time in even just when whenever you search for something in uh a browser, that is going on. Like your what your search term is looked at linguistically, analyzed, and then help is provided with this language operation. And that has been something that we say for 20 years at least has become a completely integrated feature of our life, so that we do not even notice that help as as as an uh what would be behind that is is what we would call AI, this helper assisting with language operations. Um, and yet it's become invisible, it's it initially it was. I remember when the first time that was available to do things like that, even in the 90s, when there was very, very simple thing, and it was quite my and the concept of it, the and the I and and back then you were very aware in those initial months and years of how it was done, and this idea that there is a catalogue of all the websites and what's on them created as a database which then can be searched, and then you can be referred to a finding from a dead, but now the idea of knowing how it's done, nobody knows, nobody thinks how it's done, that there's a kind of cataloging process that's a vast database is provided and things like that, and then these are uh searched, you just go it's it's almost invisible to us, almost like a car. Like when you've initially dri learned to drive a car, it's a very steep learning curve because you're like, whoa, how could you ever manage all these different things? Because this tool of travel and transportation of items and things like that. Oh my god, like how can anyone handle this? And yet you, you know, you if you've helped someone to drive, you're like, honestly, all of this will become invisible to you. It will be a kind of uh easy tool that you don't even think about using one day. Then it does. There is eventually a time when it's it's just completing that and and that I think is the is the good and is a good analogy because a car is a kind of exoskeleton of transport and uh transport as it in travel and transport, the ability to move things around. Um and I think this kind of AI or they help us uh help us a thing in language operations is an intellectual exoskeleton or even a creative exoskeleton, which initially, when you put it on, you're very like, whoa, what's going on? And it's unwieldy and you're nervous of it. Like when a person starts to learn the use of a car. Sometimes they're so scared of driving it because they're like, but the capacity for damage, you know, what if I run into somebody? What if I did, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, let's learn how to use it well. Let's like go through a process of learning one, how to just operate the thing, and then and also how to operate it well, safely, productively, so you're benefited and others are benefited. That sense of learning how to use it. I think that is the way to understand this. Because what people do is ask, um, they'll say, Oh, I've got into Chat GPT, and I asked it to do this, and it uh it sometimes it produces a result that was better than they expected, maybe, but mostly it doesn't. It produces something quite naff or odd. Like there was a really funny one recently. My son Jonathan and I were here, and um we were I produced a document that was really going massive on Jesus, and it was like titled like Jesus at the center of everything, and it was like Jesus is brilliant, kind of thing, and then we just sort of said uh to this we sort of what would happen if we gave this little document and asked it to generate an image appropriate for this, and what it did like the language model went, Oh, big on Jesus, you can't have too much Jesus. So, what it did, it produced a kind of Jesus, a bit like that one there on the shelf behind me. Yeah, and then he was holding a little Jesus just the same, a beard, with a beard and everything, and it was obviously the the analytical models like you're gonna love this, like not just one big Jesus, but a little one.
SPEAKER_03He's holding a mini Jesus, yeah, mini me. Yeah. Mini Jesus.
SPEAKER_02And it was we literally for 10 minutes were helpless because it was it had like analyzed the god the other because we'd we'd given it poor instructions, actually. We we were like it's like we were driving the car and we we handled it badly. We just sort of like switched it on, pressed the accelerator, wham, and it's a bad result. Actually, it it uh using this um you know help assisting language or operations requires quite a lot of skill. Uh or a certain not a lot, but initially it it seems very difficult, or difficult because you've got to specify and give examples and what uh what areas do you wish it to draw from, what are parameters and all this kind of thing. And so you might actually, instead of just saying, give me a picture about Jesus, you might have to write two or three paragraphs specifying what you want with uh limits and operations, and then you might get something that you actually want that is assisting you usefully. But I think at the moment people do use it in just a ludicrous way, making because they imagine it to be an intelligent consciousness that kind of knows things and thinks, whereas it's not, it's just a a language analyzer, and what you say is what it will do. You'll give it you must give it like like instructions that are meaningful and it can do something with that, anyway. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I love that, and we'll we'll return to the fact that actually AI is not an intelligence, but it requires a human intelligence to actually make sense. Yeah. To actually make sense of it. We'll return to that and all that that implies about the human person and about consciousness and all that sort of stuff, because I think that's fascinating. Yes. But let's press into a fear that people have, because if the analogy of it's just like a car holds, I think someone um who is more critical of AI will say, ah yes, but this becomes a self-driving car very, very quickly, and agency is handed over to the car and it becomes kind of automated, it becomes a runaway technology that kind of has an agency of its own. And wasn't there even a Doctor Who episode in which sort of sat nav, like your GPS system, kind of took over the car and actually drove you into the river um against your desires? And one of the big fears of, you know, whatever this catastrophic event might be, this extinction level event, it is that AI uh, you know, we don't understand it. You know, that that even the people who are in charge of AI don't understand the very algorithms because AI itself has generated some of these algorithms and and and it becomes then a runaway technology that if it wants to survive, then all of a sudden you've got a Darwinian mechanism. Kind of baked into it. That suddenly this AI is told to survive. Well, survive at all costs? Well, maybe. And maybe the programming kind of takes it out of our hands and it runs away and it becomes kind of like the self-driving car that runs you into the river. That's that's the fear.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, and then it creates like uh cyborgs to protect itself. No, okay, I get the I get that that is the idea because people overestimate its capacity. Um you just switch off the computer and it's uh and it's gone.
SPEAKER_03You know, it has no override that left you know how how will not be switched off, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's right, and it can it would have to produce cyborgs that uh operate um like power plants and things and all this, and you're like, yeah, it's gonna do it. And it's like, okay, let's settle down. Um not really, not really. Because the but I think you're right to say that that the central point about if you sus when you get help, that's why I I want to think of it in terms of that help, assisting in language operations, and it's this halo, you know, oh I want a halo to protect me. I like a h- I like help. And you're like, yeah, you like help, but one of the things, help, in all but one exact in all but one case, really, help is uh complex. Because getting help from in in in in particular from sinful humans and in a sinfully human can be costly because it's yielding up uh power control possibilities. It's like um someone we we knew several examples of people uh over the past years that they got the help of say a mobility scooter, and it was a good help, but it made it so that once they could walk, and then because of a reliance on this help, they lost capacity until in the end they had to use the mobility scooter, whereas originally it was an option for them, but because it was such a nice help, it became something that incapacitated genuinely incapacitated them, and they felt there was no way of returning to capacity because this help had been given, and I think that is the threat that what happens is it's like the let's go back to the Google search or as it once was Yahoo or there were other kinds of search engines ones archaeologically. Well, if you look back in the archaeology, you find remnants of search engines that once existed. Um look upon them with fear that they are and but they are gone, Ozzy Mandas, the uh the search engine. Yeah. Um but we now like um don't I have encyclopedias on the shelf behind me for a reason to tell me to look things up, research things actively, and as much as possible, I don't search for information. If I can find it in the encyclopedias, I will force myself to do that because I refuse that help, because that if I constantly just get quick, easy information that is curated for me in a in a kind of digestible globalized form, it's taking capacity from me. I know that, because then my ability, one, I don't retain information because I'm like, I don't need to remember that, because I can just look it up anytime I want. And I noticed the effect of that, that once I I retained information, like actively, purposefully, because I wanted to know and recall and remember all these things, and then I found I wasn't even doing that anymore. So no, I don't need to remember that because I can look it up whenever I need it. And I was like, No, no, like I need to be that's that's taking capacity from me. It's like the mobility scooter problem. So even the search engine, we that this is an old uh from I think about 1971, but we have one like uh we have several of these big sets of encyclopedia in that in our home to push us to refuse that kind of help. Or you're not you can't do it completely, but is you know, to just to be saying, no, no, I wish to retain capacity.
SPEAKER_03But you're very rare, you're very rare in that pool. And yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, what's interesting to me, like you mentioned Neil Postman, so he begins um the whole idea of amusing ourselves to death with a comparison of 1984 and Brave New World, as these two kind of dystopias, um, you know, in the early 20th century, one of them was about an authoritarian regime that sort of s you know cracks down with hard power, 1984. The other is um a dystopian future in which we're just fed what we want, and that is no good for us either. And he his whole thing was, yeah, probably Brave New World is what the future is rather than 1984. And that that's not that's not in one sense preferable to 1984. And what's interesting with the AI thing is the 1984 version of AI is Terminator and Skynet, but the Brave New World version of AI is Wally, isn't it? And you've you've got these incredibly fat people who are just you know slurping calories into themselves completely. So and and that and if if we are with Neil Postman, that ought to frighten us as much as Terminator 2 frightens us.
SPEAKER_02Or I actually think more so, because the Terminator 2 uh outcome would in that there's the possibility of human beings being this cool resistance force and fighting back and like, oh come on, let's uh let's be a cool resistance force and fight back and switch off the machines and all that kind of thing. The other one, nah, yeah, that never happens. There is no point at which resistance is mobilized kind of thing, not on a grand scale, because you know, it really doesn't happen. And that's why that concept of help I use, because and one of the little phrases I have written here that I remind myself of in with when I'm handling this, um what uh what this language model thing does, AI, it gives us what we want, not what we need. I'd written that down. It gives us what we want, not what we need. So in in in it will do that from uh trivial levels to quite serious levels and to perverse levels. Like give it perverse um adult in adult industry, if we can call it that, which isn't you know a terrible name for something that's horrible. But it will do all of those things, give us what we want, and yet we're not what we need. And that's why that concept of help, like the book I wrote on salvation, I just called it help because the con we need help, and we are vulnerable because we desperately need help at a on at a deep ontological existential level because of the crisis of the fallen world and mortality and everything. We desperately need help. We need to cry out to the only one who can help us, but we won't uh do that. What we do is grasp at help in any and every direction, and this is a very powerful helper that will help us and give us what we need and make us feel empowered and helped, and it genuinely kind of does help. But I I looked up so many scriptures about the kind of help that God gives. You know, the Lord's on my side, he's my helper, Psalm 118.7, Psalm 54 4, God is my helper, the upholder of my life. Whereas we've seen that these other kinds of help do not uphold my life, they have a tendency to help, but diminish my life or take capacities from me. But the divine helper, and we want to say, because what's powerful about the AI things is I'll ask questions and ask for help, and instantaneously there's this kind of all-knowing, all-present helper that's there to go, here, this is what you want, this is what you need. And it's like, no, there's only I can't I why do I not speak to the like you know, is it in Jeremiah? Or is it Jeremiah where he says, Why are you asking for help from dead things when you can ask for help from the living one? The living one, and it's like that sense of saying, He will help me, not mostly, it's not exactly what I wanted. It's mostly something that isn't quite what I wanted, but it is what I need, and sometimes it's the last thing I wanted, but it is what I need, and he says, come, this is where we're gonna go. And it like the Pete Peter's like, No, Lord, not that, not that. That's the last place we want to go. And he's like, No, no, Satan's telling you no, because Satan doesn't care for you. It's like Steve Levy uses that example of uh like a you if you've got a car that you love and you care for it, versus, say, some boys who steal it and they will use it and smash it and destroy it, whereas you care for it and you like keep it all cured for and that's the difference. Like, Satan doesn't care for you, he will use you and pretend he's giving you what you want, but he's destroying you as the helper. Like, he he actually gives you hard things in a way, or what you perceive to be, but he's helping you because he's looking out for you for an eternal dimension. So that concept of help, what is the help we want? What is the help we need? And this thing is a helper, the AI, it is a helper, but it comes with dangers because it's a helper, and we are vulnerable to a cry for help. That's deep. We can't help but cry for help. And if this helper is so available and so helpful, how susceptible we are to being manipulated by the providers of it. By ourselves! By ourselves, I'm my worst enemy, particularly when it's like, what do I want? Like, do you know Babylon 5? In the old Babylon 5 series, and the the sort of what were the sinister um the forces of chaos called? I can't remember. There were the Vorlons and there were the shadows, the shadows, that's right. And the guy who who is the representative, the question he asks people representing the shadows, the that he would just ask someone, what do you want? And they would sometimes give a flippant answer, and he's like, No, no, what do you want? And force that, and then that was we all got to realize that's the worst thing! That's the worst thing once you get once you give that over to them, they will give it to you and utterly destroy you and control you. I know that's an extreme example. So for me, I'm positive about AI in many ways, but because of the human heart and the driver of of this tool, so it's a very powerful tool, it's a very helpful tool, it's a leveler of a tool, and I'd like to talk about the way it levels and who why creative and intellectual people don't like it because they're like, oh, but it will take power from us and make it available to lots of people. Yeah, that's true, that's true. So it is a leveler in the way a car is a leveler in terms of travel and transport and things like that. That's all true. So it's a powerful tool, it's a helpful tool, but because of the driver, the user of it, and our capacity to destroy ourselves and each other, that's the danger.
SPEAKER_01Hi, Thomas Thorgood here, media producer at Speak Life. You might recognise my voice as the guy who does the filler bits on the podcast. I'd love to invite you to our online community, the Speak Life Discord. It's a great place to interact with the Speak Life team and other Speak Life followers. And if you are a regular giver to the work of Speak Life within the Discord, you can get access to bonus content. So why not go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash Discord to join today. We'll see you there. Okay, back to the podcast.
SPEAKER_03So how do we how do we mitigate that danger? Um let's let's get practical now. Let's not let's not wait till the end of the conversation. Let's get practical now. How do we avoid the WALL-EM future where we are just completely de-skilled? You know, I I I found myself using like sat nav, you using my GPS on on my phone in order to, you know, to drive like a 15-minute journey that I've driven many times before. And I just told myself, because I want to know where the traffic is. But I I just wondered to myself, would I actually be able to read a map nowadays?
unknownProbably not.
SPEAKER_03Probably not. Do I know where I am at any one time? No, I just I just rely on Google Maps to to do that. Um you you've got the um encyclopedias there behind you. Um you could talk at that granular level, but you could also talk um uh at a at a more macro level. What are the what are the sorts of things we we need to do in order not to just surrender ourselves to what's easy and to actually engage in the difficult struggles that the Lord might want us to engage with?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I do think like on a societal level, that's why I want to talk about that's why I talk about that help issue. Because I don't think I think if you're not a Christian, it's very, very I don't know what I don't know what what's the point almost. Like, like it's you you do need help, and the help you need is Jesus. And and in and if if AI isn't gonna be the thing that that destroys you, something else will, because you're refusing the one help that you really need. So if you're not a follower of Jesus, I'm like I I I don't know, it doesn't really matter whether the government regulates it or not, you're you're in you're in an incredibly hopelessly vulnerable position anyway. So, but if you're a follower of Jesus and you are like trying to say, no, no, my help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth, or I lift up my eyes to the hills, look, I'm looking up, help's coming, and all that some all of that. I I just think that let me say the fundamental thing we must do as followers of Jesus is that sing, that thing, to kind of at a at an existential level realize the help I need every day in an incredibly basic way, is that help. And so that's why Jesus just says every time you pray, our Father in heaven, just like orientate yourself in that way. Because I find that makes a big difference to me to think I need I want because I want so just at a big level, it's a kind of existential thing. Then you get down into the granularity of it, and I don't know, it's something I think your point, like the television point, gathering together to do something. Church is so countercultural because it is a gathering, like, and that that's what ecclesia really means, and it's this word that's used all the way through the scriptures. Moses talks about the you know, this that when gather the community together, gather the community, it happens so often, like gather everyone together, this gathering together of a community which is like dispersed but gathers in order to connect, to worship together, to see one another, and that the face-to-faceness of that the Lord, of course. Let's just say um he knows what we're saying, he knows what we're thinking, even if he's in the highest heaven, the divine emperor knows all that, and yet there's that strange thing is in the Bible, isn't it, where he says, I want face-to-face, and he comes down and with Moses it's a face-to-face encounter. Why bother? Why bother? He's got zoom, he's got cosmic zoom, but he's like, and like, or whatever, you know, but he's like, no, no, no, I want to have a face-to-face connection, and that's and there's something deep in the DNA of church that you can't just do online church. It's a kind it's possible to as a remedial thing where a person cannot get to church, and so in that circumstance, you go, okay, that's a kind of help, but it can't actually be that, just as it's a kind of just as romantic intimacy, it's the equivalent of that watching other people doing it, and that's like a perverted thing to do. You think, no, no, that's not what it's for, it has to be skin on skin to be a real thing. In the same way, church has to be kind of skin on skin, face to face, and that way church as a kind of countercultural movement to go, whoa, hang on, this is where we learn to be human. That's why I always define church as what how, not were, because it's not a place, it's a way of life, but it's church's how we learn to be human, and I'm just tell myself that so that that way there's this impulse to say we gather for face-to-face, skin on skin, and that business about greet one another with a holy kiss, and we would say, you know, reasonably, a holy handshake. Let's not get silly. Um, but it is a skin on skin thing, it's a skin on skin thing. It's like it's that that particular instruction has become more important to me. Like the more this sense of like. Five times in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_03It's hard, it's hard to think of other commands that are repeated five times in the New Testament. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, isn't it? And that's like it's as if they know, as if whoever wrote this knew that there was gonna be a problem with this. Like saying, no, no, you've got to get together in such a way that you can have skin on skin, face-to-face contact, because that is the revolution. So instead of the Skynet thing, and the revolution is these kind of guys with guns and jeeps and things like that. No, the revolution and the revol like ministers are revolutionary leaders, like leading the resistance by saying we gather, we have skin on skin, face to face, we gather and learn to be human and share what we have together in not just our possessions, but definitely our possessions and money, definitely that, but not just that, our joys, our sorrows, our trials, and we get help. The greatest help we get is from each other. We help each other, and that's so that's the revolution, and that is educating us. It's educating us in like the okay, encyclopedias do that a little bit, but really fundamentally we're being educated as we gather as church on how to be a human being, and in such a we're not losing capacities, but gaining them.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And therefore, relying on one another. Um just as you you know, you want to force yourself to rely on an encyclopedia when you could Google stuff. Um, I think there's there's all sorts of examples in church life where where we ought to prefer relying on one another, even though we're an imposition on other people more than what we would be otherwise. Um, in in the same way, you might be able to afford uh a removalist company coming and you know moving you from one house to another, but it might be even better to actually rely on your your friends in the church, you know, brothers and sisters to um to actually do that. And oh, is it more of an imposition um than okay, we'll just we'll just we'll just bung a few hundred pounds to to a removalist company and it's a lot clean you know, cleaner and simpler. I think there are a lot of examples like that where um ease is actually a a community destroyer when when
SPEAKER_02difficulties come it's actually a community builder because then you can rely on actual people and take up their actual time in actual space and and lean on each other in in practical ways that's that's kind of what church is for really brilliant point and one of the things we found in church planting situation uh lots of times guys younger men particularly don't feel needed in church at all because all the tasks that they can do are outsourced and not required but once we once we locked onto that we found that if we needed anything done pay I mean this is a this is a mildly sexist comment but we've just found this to be true like if we wanted like walls knocked down and painting done or re-plastering or tiling and things like that if you say we need this done who can help guys like to show up for this stuff or mo or lawns need to be mowed or things like that guys like respond to that and say I can do that. I'm not so good at like I don't know what other other things that are flower arrangements.
SPEAKER_03But they kind of suddenly should we should we go should we go full full bore into gender stereotypes? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There we go but it just seems to be a truth that you no and then furnace women show up too to do these things but there is this like proportionately on a curve you know a lot of guys like like to do that and they and you seem to see a guy's face light up when he's asked to do something if you go oh you know like Bill I know that you you you've got you know you you do that you're good at carpentry or something could you help us do this and literally the sense of like wow I'd love to do that kind of thing and that that's the kind of way in which church is is reprogramming us re the the Neil Postman thing it's reprogramming us in learning to actually depend on each other connect with one another be physical and all of that yeah that anyway yeah like what you're saying I think that's why church as not something where you learn information so much there's a bit of some of that but it's essentially not that what church is learning a how to it's a technology in a how to rather than a skientia and understand the I think there's far too much emphasis on the knowledge thing you come to gain some knowledge there is a bit of that but think of like Jesus with his disciples a huge amount what he's doing with them is a how-to stuff is how to and then I love his his leaving command you know go preach the gospel make disciples of all the nations teaching them how to obey the commands and that how-to-ness of it that's the thing that resists because we we have to help we have to be helped and help but there's a right way to do it and then there's a disabling way to do it and the day that's what I think the problem of AI is how to use it in such a way that it doesn't disable us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah use it for the things that it's good at I mean interestingly we we've mentioned the driving thing a number of times um I'm not aware yet of an app that is superior to sitting down with dad in the actual car and having to bunny hop down the road you know or with with with an actual driving instructor. There are there are some things that that this technology is just no good at skilling us in and yeah make making sure we use it for what it's good for and not letting it de-skill us in in the things that that we ought to be embodied for. So you mentioned Paul about the leveling ability of AI to bring people's language abilities up and let's let's compare two different technological shocks that have happened in the world. There's sort of Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian monks and they were harnessing the power of water and water mills and that sort of thing in order to lift people from the toil of drudgery and so instead of grinding the grain uh they could let the water mill grind the grain for them and that elevated the monks and and those involved in those communities in order that they could devote themselves to prayer and to one another and so there's an ennobling ability that comes along with technology. Technology prizes the human at least in Bernard of Clairvaux's vision it it enobles the human lifts the human from the drudgery of toil so that the human can work because work is a good thing um toil is not but we can still work and we'll work in the new creation and that's wonderful. And so technology enables people to be free of drudgery in order to work and it puts the human at the at the heart of things in order that the human can pray and the human can be involved in those human relationships. There is an ennobling technological shock. The Industrial Revolution is another kind of technology in which um power is put at the heart of all things. And that has an incredible um effect on GDP and obviously profits go up as power goes up and um people are in one sense lifted out of poverty. But there's a different kind of technological shock going on in the 18th and 19th centuries. I I remember Matthew Bolton uh is quoted as as saying he was a partner with James Watts um in in sort of being a forerunner of the Industrial Revolution and of course bringing the steam engine and he was asked you know what do you bring to the table Matthew Bolton and he said something like I offer to the world what everybody wants power. And of course when the Industrial Revolution happens what you get is uh a real sense of um dislocation and societal upheaval and the mills just sound atrocious in terms of the the the conditions that are happening and so like technology sometimes can be the Cysturion thing and can sometimes be the Industrial Revolution thing.
SPEAKER_02Okay so let me just make a proviso that Bernard of Claveau and they that approach to technology is deeply grounded in church life a Christ centered you know Bernard all his Jesus hymns oh we love them I can't even sing them without bursting out crying because there's a Jesus man and then so for him technology is is made to genuinely assist in a way that keeps the helper at the centre of attention and all that. Love it love it. But the Industrial Revolution if I can just put this proviso in so what happens between him and say the 19th century is an abandonment of that foundation on which technology would sit culturally civilizationally so that now why like to have machine like machinery and technology that ennobles and enables human beings to spend more time doing what is faithful that is people focused in serving other people and engaging with other people faithful and fruitful what we're designed to be for that isn't what happens with technology in the 19th century. What it comes is the technology becomes a servant and then a master of profit progress um wielded the opposite of Bernard's view Bernard's like let's have it so that this is for everybody what it becomes is a power an elite driven system that chews up millions like in me from the north of England the Industrial Revolution and on my mum's side I remember visiting um grand like people grandparent in Preston who uh were could remember serving in cotton mill you know cotton factories and things like that that was a tough very very tough life and you would go back a previous generation or two to that and there'd be life expectancies very low because it was it was driving people into the drudgery and burden the very things that Bernards would say no that's what technology is supposed to prevent and now it's created it because anything no matter how good it could be once it's disconnected from Christ you would say you know love and sex how could that go bad that's probably what Jesus was thinking in Eden this can never go bad this is so good and well and then of course we're like well it can only go bad maybe and he's like and no food how could food go bad food can go bad but you know it's a tremendous problem there's nothing that once it's disconnected from Christ at the center won't be bad so technology is the same it is it can be good it can be a uh uh lead to faithfulness and fruitfulness when it's sitting on a on a on a on a a a safe foundation or useful foundation when it isn't it bec it can just no matter how good it capacity is no matter what possibilities for good are in it few of those will be realized and bad things will be realized okay so the industrialization of the 18th and 19th centuries are all about progress and power and profit um so bring us now to AI and here's another technology that is a great leveler and we can talk about the ways in which um everybody can now be upskilled and use language to the level that some some of the most gifted orators and word users use language.
SPEAKER_03And so now now we're all kind of on a level playing field because of AI is that technological development is that more like a Cistercian water mill or is it more like kind of gradgrind's mill in hard times from Charles Dickens is it is it more uh a a utopian vision or is it a more dystopian vision? Um tell us about some of the ways in which AI can help and some of the mixed blessings that that might be as we all level up in our language abilities.
SPEAKER_02So having made that proviso you know like technology is safe if it sat upon a foundation of Christ because then it's it's it's it's possibilities for good can be realized. Without that it's possibilities for evil can be realized but it is a leveler and that it what it innate like what particularly this one the Halo thing the help for assisting in language operations is that for lots of us we are for most of us we're not that skillful we're like language is this gift from the Trinity to us language is eternal it's always existed the Trinities and then given us language not uniquely angels have it too and so on but we are given this and but in our fallenness there's you uh particularly we're our cap uh and and particularly if we are disabled in in language use for all sorts of cultural reasons we're very limited in our language capacities to be able to do things with language and here we're now talking language in a big sense language in visual arts as well you know the language of a picture as well as poems and prose and so on. What it enables is if you are if you are given a little bit of training like a car user a little bit of training in using this tool it enables this enormous capa extra like the exoskeleton thing that lots of people are now capable have within themselves the capacity to produce lots of language output creative output that they couldn't have before and levels it. So okay there is still like the power users of it there's a few people who are very very skillful at using like a Formula One driver driving a car. They're insanely good at driving cars and then they're like this like there's a tiny number who are insanely good at using this or even don't or just are so good at creative output and language that they're still like that. Okay there's a few but they're not relevant to this conversation in a way that's just like a a a C that's like a kind of a a a special tiny group but for most people this does have this capacity to make it possible but that means that there's a sense of threat to that. Just as the weaver of the 18th century is deeply threatened by the arrival of something that can do what they can do they're brilliant at doing something. And now it doesn't matter whether they're brilliant at it or not here's a m here's a technology that will do a thousand times what they can do in a single day. And so that does have a huge impact on their skill their skill like to be able to weave brilliantly nowadays it's irrelevant nobody cares. But once that was an amazingly useful thing similarly I suspect there will be quite a lot of that in 2030 years time that lots of people who are making money and careers out of being fairly good at language and creative output they it won't be it they won't have employment in the same way anymore. It just isn't necessary that it just like the Weaver.
SPEAKER_03Yeah I mean it's it's it's already happening at the moment isn't it I mean we we run these uh intensives down here at speak life and we get together people who are into creative communication and so if you love theology if you love mission if you love creativity we kind of want to sit at the at the heart of that Venn diagram and teach people how to you know creatively communicate Christ and so we've got all sorts of graphic designers and illustrators and artists and that kind of thing. And you know and and in one sense um we we have already um leapfrogged over some of those creators because when we run our 321 course for instance we've got AI generated art and animation. And um you know some of the artistry that we use in our creative communication um is not you know designed um from the hand of a graphic designer who maybe spent three years at university and has been playing their trade for 10 years. And I think we're we're already um at the stage of just as in the Industrial Revolution, you know, leaving behind a a whole class of people um potentially and could not the AI revolution be just as disruptive or perhaps even more disruptive than the Industrial Revolution which led to all sorts of social upheaval.
SPEAKER_02Yeah absolutely the social upheaval is at that level so again it's the weirdness when people say the threat is Terminators and Sky and so no no that's not the way to be thinking about this the fet is the one disabling thing that we've thought about but also this social disruption that we've built a society a modern Western society one global society that that where certain kinds of intellectual linguistic creative skills are very lucrative and loads of employment opportunities and they are going to mostly be lost mostly lost there will be a few very good people like the Formula One driver style thing who still will have that but for the vast majority of the weavers the 18th century weavers today the the language creative design people they are good they're on the precipice of an industry that is like an 18th century or the the the agricultural revolution any of these revolutions or even like coders isn't it isn't it interesting that like 10 years ago learn to code was kind of a pejorative you know phrase that was bandied about on on the web because coding was a job that you'll always need because the future is technology and now ai codes far better than the vast majority of of humans.
SPEAKER_03So even even in industries that you might think were safe from being um you know disrupted by tech even even jobs within tech are being disrupted by tech this this is an incredible upheaval.
SPEAKER_02Yeah that that's that's this huge revolution that and will will be extremely disruptive more than perhaps uh people currently realize it will impact education as well all kinds of things that weigh the intellectual and creative tasks. Like I always think there's a guy at St John's Leighton Stone who is retired now but he used to work at the BBC and he says in the 70s video editing was done with it was plastic you know these plastic um strips on which the film existed as an analogue physical thing and it was splicing them cutting them very and it was an incredibly difficult skill and would take and it was like a manual task it was a like it required manual dexterity to do this and how long he would say it would take to do these sort of one minute sequences would be an entire day of his team and they'd be doing and then that like to be very good at doing that now it's like whatever dude nobody requires that nobody requires that and it and and that's displaced by video editing software which is now even video editing software is like what are you using that for why are you manually doing that we're already you don't need to do any of that sort of thing and it's that sense of displacement which we've hardly experienced so lots of like changes in employment patterns and new employments arise which are hard to anticipate now but new employments arise that require very different sets of skills and possibilities.
SPEAKER_03Yeah yeah and you know so Karl Marx was writing about the the horrors of industrialization and what he was saying was not wrong about the the horrors of you know women drugging their children because they had to take them to the mill to work these 14 hour days and and so what did they they drugged children so that the the mother could you know make pins in the pin factory or whatever it was and and the upheavals that led to revolution um all came out of this technological shock. And so so you're not you're not saying we're safe from that. You're saying we're we're safe from the no we're safe from how we're safe from Skynet possibly probably yeah um but we are not safe from our own desires enslaving us and and we're not safe from the the social upheaval.
SPEAKER_02Exactly and the con technology always has a cost no technology is uniformly is an unmitigated good is no of them like even they might say oh well planes traveling around the world it makes the whole world accessible okay but there's I mean climate change people go oh that's terrible you know uh fuel expenditure okay but even leaving that aside there there's a kind of culture uh dilution of the a becoming a global village where the distinctiveness of cultures are under threat and people feel threat that's a whole nother conversation about that that that sense of uh a global village doesn't is not costless there it there are threats and problems even the spread of disease on a global scale rather than a local scale there are always costs to every technology same with this like help assisting language uh operations the halo it's okay yeah but as we've seen the the what but what is the weird thing is what people think the danger is and say no the dangers that are being said to me there's something almost weird about the the what people are saying are the dangers because they're not the dangers the dangers that are real and and happening the disabling and the social disruption uh are happening without being examined properly and being that where if people are trying to say how are we gonna defend against Terminators I'm like oh forget that forget that but how are you gonna defend against things that are now yeah yeah and I I think let's let's finish with this because I I I do think as we face whatever technology is happening whether it's the technology of the written word or the printing press or water mills in Cistercian monasteries or the Industrial Revolution or computing or social media or AI I think two questions all often come up in my mind and
SPEAKER_03And that is how how do we preserve the human and how do we preserve hope? And let's not let's not have the hope that is just what the industrialists of the 19th century had, which is just that you know GDP will go up and and we'll make more profits. Um but uh a hope that actually um might require something of us in the short term in in terms of you know sacrifice and other centeredness and leaning on each other in community and but having gone into you know the way of Jesus, the way of the cross, there there is ultimate it's it's ultimately gonna be okay. You know, an extinction level event is not going to happen because of AI. Okay. The Lord will return when the Lord returns, and that is a hopeful event for the people of Christ. Um so hope is something that's that's that ought to be um ought to be sounded as a note in all of what Christians say about technology. What whatever there is. Um it there might be a down, and it will call forth from us a lot of sacrifice, but there is ultimately uh a good future that the Lord is bringing us towards. But also the human, you know, we need to preserve hope and we need to preserve the human. And this is why I appreciate you not calling AI artificial intelligence, but uh a helper for the human. Because whatever technology shocks happen, and whether it has environmental concerns, um, great, let's let's have creation care that puts the the human as something that the Lord has placed on planet Earth as a little lower than the angels, um, and has crowned with glory and honor in the Lord Jesus. And the the you know the the human has a future, and so w whatever we say about uh AI, whatever we say about the environment, um let us have a vision for the human that is as positive as the Bible's vision of the human. And as we bring that to the world, I think we've got something very distinctive to say about this technological development. We are not we are not heading towards a post-human world. Um post-Christians might think in very post-human ways, but that only goes to show that it's Christianity that gives the true vision of the human. And so I would say that Christians have a real contribution to make now as as AI is being developed, to to put the human front and center, wouldn't you say?
SPEAKER_02I love what you're saying. It it's like people worry because a lot of the people who are investing and hyping AI, as it's falsely called, are transhumanist people. We know that. And I always want to call them subhumanist people because everything that they aspire to is subhuman, not they're like, we're going to go beyond humanity, and I was like, in what sense? And he's like, we wish to be disembodied. And I'm like, whoa! Like, that's incredibly subhuman. That's like you've gone under, not over. Like, that's a ludicrously poor thing. Like the living God, like, um designed the universe in order to become flesh in it, and he's like the living God from all eternity is striving into the very thing you're trying to get out of. Like, what absurdity! Like, in order to understand what it is to be human, we look at Jesus like as it's Psalms that you know, the Psalm 8 Hebrews to the look what we we do not see all that humanity is designed to be, to rule over the heavens and the earth, to be kings and queens of creation, to strike through the stars for all eternity and ru. But we see Jesus, and it's as if keep your eyes always on him because that is what you are, that's what you that's your destiny, because he has become you in order that you can become what he is, and all of that sense of like don't try to compete with the capacities of these language large language models. And people say, Oh, but it diminishes us at humans because there's you know, this thing can draw pictures faster than I can or better than no, no, don't try to compete with that. That's not your uniqueness, even if you lose the capacity to s of speech entirely, you are no less human, you are no less human, you're more most loved and treasured and destined for this never-ending story in Jesus. And no matter how good this like computing device can analyze language and produce outputs, it cannot be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms and live and reign with him for and to and it's not designed for that, it's designed to do these kind of this worldly little tasks as a tool. We, every one of us, is destined and designed for that. And whether we accept our destiny and design, that's a tragedy in itself. But we that's what it is for, and that way in which uh we love to say in our church plants sometimes, um, when we turn to prayer, we'll say we're gonna turn to prayer now, and the significance of this is this unbelievable, impossible miracle. And in the highest heaven, the third heaven, and at the highest level of all reality, there are these four living creatures that are so insanely amazing that if you see them, you would just start worshipping them, even though you know you shouldn't. And yet they cannot approach the very throne of God and are given wings to protect themselves from the presence of such a thing. And yet, what we are about to do is invoke the name of our brother and friend and helper Jesus, and they will step aside and say, Please, you go through. This is your place, not ours, not ours. We are gonna do that now. We're gonna pray and we're gonna try this sense of like, wow, any human can do that, and regardless of language capacities, just even the groaning that cannot form words, language things, is something that if he hears even the raven when it croaks, it hears with this this the throne of heaven, he hears us, he hears us, and it is not the angels, even the angels who are uber technically competent, uber technically competent, but that but us he he comes to be one of us and aid and help us that is the helper, the maker of heaven and earth. I mean, and and just on the tech thing, if I can just say this, there is technology in the new creation. If you look at the descriptions of the new creation, there are things that are evidence of technology uh there, even just architecture that's there, and it's that sense that the there's technology itself, like you, I like your hope point. We, everything about us now is this like complicated thing, full of blessings, full of curses, and that technology, you might say, Oh, this is the future of humanity, or people put their hope in it for salvation, or they fear it's the damnation, the extinction event. And say, no, no, no, no, none of those things. The the the the destin the the world ends when he returns. When he returns. That's the end of the that's the end of history. That's the extinction event of this present order. Him, him. We take him seriously and fear him. Fear him, his return. And then the whole world will tremble, you know, and every eye will see, and they'll be aghast that they'll look upon him whom they have pierced. That is the thing to fear in terms of extinction level event, but not then to be in to transform from the fear of him uh or fear to run away from him, but have that fear that loves him and run to him when he appears out of joy and look on him who I you know, the the pierced one and look on those glorious wounds kind of thing. But that to have that the hope that no, the that you know I know who holds the future, and he and he guides me by his hand, the eye of the Lord is on us to guide us and so on. So I always want that tremendous hope, and not to take these technologies that seriously, not that seriously. The thing that we take really seriously is as we were saying, we gather as church and do something that is outrageously impossible. Join in with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, and go beyond that, like the angelic company of heaven, and seat with Christ on the heavenly throne and participate in the divine nature and drink from the fountain of life. And be like, wow, what why what is all this nonsense compared to that?
SPEAKER_03Right, right. Yeah, a great note to finish on. Uh, yeah, putting the human at the center. If post-Christianity is post-human, it just goes to prove that Christianity was always the original true and only humanism. And yeah, the the hope of the Lord Jesus is uh what we set our hearts and minds on, even in the midst of this evil age, in which, yeah, there are blessings and there is technology to use, and uh it can dignify people, it can enable people. Uh yeah, we need to watch out for our own desires, which might enslave us. Uh we might be we need to be very sensitive to uh the social upheaval that is all around us. But this uh this technology has been with us for some time, and it's something that we can negotiate in a Christian way, and that actually our Christian distinctives as we lean into one another in church community are a huge attraction to uh a society that has no hope, that has no real grounding for their intuitions about the the human and who is enslaved uh to its its own desires. And so here we hold out the word of life, we lean into one another in embodied community, and we really do have the answer in Christ, if the world will uh turn and listen. Uh Paul, thank you so much uh for sharing your wisdom on this. If people want to keep up with you, I know you've got a wonderful podcast that people can listen to. Uh tell us about the podcast and tell us other ways that people can keep up with you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the the the podcast is the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. It sounds like a ludicrous title, but it kinda is the only thing I could come up with that covers the range of what's on that. I also run a thing called the Bible School Show, Bible School.show. That's just a collect like Bible study, church history, and theology week by week. And then, of course, book by book. I all the book by book Bible studies, which you've been on. You are a wonderful guest on the book of Job, which I've just been enjoying this last week. Uh yeah, we do books of the Bible, produce TV programmes, study guides on that. That's it. That's me.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. I hope people uh catch up with uh Paul in all the ways that they can. Paul Blackham, thank you so much for being on the channel.
SPEAKER_02Thanks so much, Glenn.
SPEAKER_01Well, there we go. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Speak Life Podcast. And as always, it was an absolute privilege and joy to have Paul Blackham on the show and get his insights. Thank you so much for listening, and do subscribe to the Speak Life Podcast on your podcatcher of choice if you haven't done so already. And we will be back with another episode soon. God bless.