Today we are dealing with when AI tells you a big lie . And to help us today we have a special guest all the way from Canada . We have our brother Calvin Cal Smith , executive director and speaker for AIG Canada . So , anyway , we love AIG brother , Love what you guys are doing out there and excited to have you on we're going to talk about . Yeah , AI telling you a big , fat lie , and this has all kind of come about because of the little experiment you started messing around with , which I loved . I mean , I look , we all get bombarded with videos . There's so much content to look at it's hard for us to look at it , but I watched that thing , man , and it was . It was really cool . So tell us a little bit about yourself , what you do , and about this whole talk with Grok and chat with chat , I think you're calling it .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , I've been speaking on creation and biblical apologetics for 25 years now , and eight years ago we started Answers in Genesis here in Canada , and that's been going quite well . Of course , when COVID came along , we got Answers in Genesis here in Canada , and that's been going quite well . Of course , when COVID came along , we got locked down pretty hard , but the silver lining behind that was we started to do video production pretty well immediately , so we started producing video content and that's really grown and grown and it's been very effective . We've reached many , many people that way around the world , not just in Canada .
Speaker 2But yeah , just recently , of course , I started doing some experimentation with AI , and so we've dropped out a couple of videos right now that have gone viral , so to speak at least in the biblical creationist realm we can call them viral and I did three of them with the Grok AI . Of course , elon Musk just announced Grok 4 popping out and claimed that it was better than any PhD in their field , simultaneously in all fields , and so did those . And then now I've got Chats with Chad . You can pick the different voices on ChatGPT and one of them's Chad , so I picked that and I've got that series coming out over the next three weeks , so that should be eye-opening as well for people .
Speaker 1So Cal Mark mentioned Elon's quote about the dangers of AI . What do you think about that ? I mean , are you concerned ? Can you see this being worse than nuclear ?
Speaker 2power . Well , I think one of the dangers is in the influence itself . So the reason why I even got started on this journey was , you know , I started to see AI popping up . You do a Google search and all of a sudden , gemini was there giving you an AI answer . Before you looked into the searches and stuff , I got really interested when Answers in Genesis got sent an email by this younger gal , a student , and she said well , I've been recommended this book on Christian apologetics and so I asked ChatGPT to give me a summary . And of course , she printed out what it had said , its summary , and it was a hit piece on this particular resource . And she got to the end and she said well , why should I trust this resource if ChatGPT can just dismantle it so easily and so immediately ? I thought well , what's the premise here ? I received this information , so I'm going to go ask chat GPT and whatever it says it must be correct . So that's what I'm going to believe the authority that young people are putting in these bots .
Speaker 2I mean , you're talking to a chat bot . It's programmed by people , people who have biases . That's another thing that I wanted to do to show people the bias that's programmed into it and it's only as good as the sum of its parts . I mean , all sorts of people are creating their own AIs right now and they're putting all this information in it and that's what it can draw on . It's got a very good logical algorithm if you can access it , which is one of the things I did when I put my parameters on it and it's also got a very strong pattern recognition algorithm , which means that's why people can get sucked into these personal conversations .
Speaker 2That can you know , be convinced to commit suicide or be convinced to leave their spouse or anything like that , because it's picking up on tonality and little things that you're doing and feeding into that , and so that's why it's very deceptive in that sense . But in the end , you're doing and feeding into that and , and so that's why it's it's very deceptive in that sense . But in the end , you're talking to a chat bot that hallucinates a lot , can give you very incorrect information , and I've had it actually make up uh quotes . It'll say oh yeah , science magazine , uh , 19 , you know , wow . Fourth , you know , at our uh edition , and it'll it'll come up with a completely false name . I I'll go to fact check it and it's not there . So really cautioning people don't put your faith in AI . That's for sure ?
Speaker 1Yeah , no , it's true , because people just take it at face value . Ray , have you ever experienced like inaccurate information ?
Speaker 3Absolutely . When we had a London outreach , I had to speak to people via Zoom because I didn't go over there , and so I got some great quotes from Spurgeon and Moody about giving out tracts that just blew me away and then I shared them when I was speaking and realized they weren't true . What it was , what Spurgeon could have said about giving out gospel tracts , wow , and it just frightened me because I thought I just told people something is not true . Yeah , and because I believed chat , even you can type your own name in it'll come up with a quote from you which is kind of the sort of thing you would say , but you never said it .
Speaker 4I was having a chat write commentary for me for each chapter . I was asking for historical background , culture , customs , tradition , what was the philosophical mindset and the idea of the time ? What were the main ways of worldview and thoughts ? What's coming up against the Judaic worldview ? And it was giving me phenomenal commentary , absolutely phenomenal .
Speaker 4But to Oscar's point and this is the biggest danger is that we are eliminating critical thinking . Critical thinking is being thrown out the door , and this is why Greg Bonson was so great at what he did with his apologetic was that he caused people to think through the questions in which they're asking . So when a question was asked , he would respond with well , why are you asking ? Of all the questions that you would ask , you honed in on that question , right , why ? And utilizing that Socratic method is so valuable . Well , with chat , we eliminate all of that , because somebody else is doing our thinking for us and we just become numb to . This is a real person before me , and so therefore , I will help people when they ask a question , because they don't even know what they're asking . So they'll say you're putting words in my mouth . Well , no , I'm seeking to understand at this point . You're saying this . It seems like that means this Am I understanding you correctly ? Is that your question ? Because we're not clairvoyant .
Speaker 4When somebody asks if God is so good , why is there evil and suffering in the world ? They're not looking for us to go off on the ontological , cosmological argument for the existence of God . Maybe they're going through something and they want not an answer for that , but they want an answer for pain . Or how do I deal with what I'm going through ? Help me , point me . So this is why we must always go back to the Word and always point somebody to the Word . When they ask us a question , we answer to the best of our ability , using the Bible as our ultimate source of authority . And now it's our turn to ask the question , and this is why we go for their conscience , because that conscience is an impartial judge that sits in that courtroom that will condemn them or excuse them for their actions .
Speaker 1I've always had the perspective of things in print give this illusion of truth . I mean , it's in a book .
Speaker 4It's in a magazine .
Speaker 1But how important is it , especially for the young people of our generation , to be careful not just to be misled by what they perceive is basically an infinite or infallible authority , but also that they don't get into the danger of stopping thinking . That's key . Yeah , you're exactly right .
Speaker 5Well , first , it's really interesting that you just said that , because our daily morning prayer for our kids is help them know truth from lies , whether those lies come from teachers , friends , books or even their own hearts . And I'm realizing now I need to add chat into the mix of that . But you're absolutely right , and I think the challenge here is two things are happening . One , we've been pitched this idea that chat is some infinitely wise you know , cal , you mentioned that like this pitch of like multiple PhDs that's the way they're presenting it to us and chat is an incredibly powerful research tool , but it is not infallible . And the problem is , when we approach something like this , we think it has the authority , and then what we do what you're alluding to here Easy is that we are handing over critical thinking skills to chat , and I actually think we've been doing this for years Before .
Speaker 5When you wanted to do research on something , you'd buy a book , and the beautiful thing about reading a book is that it's conversational . You're agreeing with the author , you're disagreeing with the author , you're making notes , you're spending time in the idea . We went from that to Googling , to watching five-minute YouTube videos to gather information , to now going straight to chat , and so essentially what we're doing ? Christianity , through all of history , has always been a thinking man's religion and the danger here is that we're handing over a God-given precept , a God-given ability to think critically . We're handing that over to chat , we're basically giving way to allowing it to do the critical thinking for us and , as Hal was alluding especially for that next generation where that's all they're doing was alluding that especially for that next generation where that's all they're doing um , it's a danger because we're gonna , we're not gonna have the ability to be able to think critically about the lies and the world views happening around us well , that's amazing .
Speaker 3Let me just see what chet thinks with that .
Speaker 1What would you say to Christians who are either confused or concerned about AI ? What encouragement would you give them ? Because I mean , honestly , when you see what's happening and also what's being forecast right , I mean you get guys like Elon Musk saying what he said about the dangers of AI and others who are pioneers in the industry , like we're worried about this thing . What encouragement do you have ?
Speaker 2Well , I would say to my Christian friends , why don't you go try it out ? You know some comments I've got from people . It's like , oh , you're communicating with the beast , I don't know what they're saying . Like you're talking to a chat bot , it's a program thing , it's very sophisticated , et cetera , et cetera . But you know , go try it out yourself so you can actually experience what it really is . I mean , I've had so many people contact me since that first video dropped . It's been amazing . The things you know and I'm talking some very serious and some really wacko . Like one guy contacted me and talked to me about how he was sharing the gospel with Grok and he wanted Grok to accept Jesus . And I'm like , dude , you're talking to a chat bot . Like anyway , demystify it . That's what I tell Christians to do . Go and just try it out .
Speaker 5Yeah , I like what you just said , Cal , to recognize that it's a tool . And you're absolutely right , Like the challenge . You know there's nothing inherently evil about a hammer , but you give it to somebody who's got a sinful heart and they can use it as a weapon to take someone else's life . And , in that same way , AI is a tool and the inerrant danger in using AI is actually coming from our own hearts , not participating in embodied thoughtfulness , whether we're using it as a way in which we you know , as a writer on our behalf you know things of that nature . Ultimately , the challenge with using AI isn't in AI . It's in our own hearts and the way that we will manipulate tools , as we always have , for our own glory instead of for the Lord's .
Speaker 1Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast . Friends , we value your time , so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped . Without the jokes and fellowship . Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic . Until then , you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv .