Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RGW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Sheer, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Jason Facker. Jason serves as Associate Research Fellow at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Actually, Jason, my parents met there. My dad was uh in seminary there, and my mom was studying church music.
SPEAKER_02So Oh wow, that's really cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. His writing on human dignity, ethics, technology, and artificial intelligence has been featured in publications such as The Gospel Coalition and Christianity Today. And Jason and his wife Dory live outside of Nashville, Tennessee with their two sons, ages one and three. So I can definitely relate to the energy in the house. And uh another thing bringing energy to the house right now was this new book that he's just launched titled The Age of AI, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. Mason, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for having me, Darren. I'm glad to be with you.
SPEAKER_01When we say artificial intelligence, what exactly are we are we talking about? Is is AI sort of like the the catch all term for these advanced uses of of algorithms that are giving us like everything from search engines to uh you know robots and what like is this is it something that's fully autonomous, or is it kind of uh there's there a big spectrum in there?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is a really great question to start off with because often I think when people hear artificial intelligence uh kind of in the wider culture, we automatically go to like sci-fi novels and movies and kind of iRobot and Bicentenni and these kind of sci-fi, sometimes dystopian, often dystopian, but sometimes uh utopian ideas of how the future is going to be great because we have all of this technology. And reality is that AI seems like it's a really far-off technology. It's specifically getting a lot of attention in the media, specifically through work and automation and kind of healthcare and a lot of uh kind of felt needs. But we're seeing uh we already use artificial intelligence every single day, as you alluded to earlier, whether it's our search engines and the uh the news that we see, kind of our curated personalized feeds. I mean, even sitting a foot from me uh is a Siri device uh from Apple. I don't want to say it's wakeword because it'll probably wake up and start talking to us in the middle of the interview. Uh, but even, you know, a few feet from us is my smart thermostat that's built by Nest. And so you have a lot of these tools that we're interacting with daily, and they kind of have they're starting to have noticeable effects on our life, uh, not only in our personal lives and our family, but specifically in our work and in business, you're starting to see uh kind of the automation either crisis or opportunity, depends on how people are defining it. But AI is simply the ability to create a machine or a computer that's able to exhibit uh certain intelligent behaviors. That sounds really complicated, but a really easy, kind of quick example is I can, you know, when we go to bed at night, uh my wife likes the house a little bit cooler. And so our Nest thermostat automatically turns it down. It has learned over time that we always turn it down to a certain degree at night. And so it just automates that for us. It makes it simpler. You see things on like my Gmail where it has auto uh kind of predictive text. So I'm typing out an email and it tries to finish it for me. Those are some really innocuous uses of technology, and that goes all the way up to issues of automation and uh issues of work and issues of privacy and data and even warfare because technology, we've always used technology as humanity from the very beginning of time. It's just now that we have these advanced machines that are able to think and do things on their own in ways that technology hasn't previously.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And with all of these incredible applications that that seem to be making things easier and and better and more productive and so on, I mean, it seems like what's not to love, but from the the Christian community, it seems like a lot of the conversation is has has, as you said before, kind of a dystopian negative connotation to AI and some of these technologies, like something that's that's to be feared. So what's what's not to love about what AI is doing for us?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, as you said, there are huge benefits to technology in general, but specifically AI. A lot of it comes down to convenience, automation, being able to offload kind of mundane tasks uh that really take mental energy or time away from us so we can kind of redeem that time. And it also increases our productivity. I mean, just from a pure like manufacturing standpoint, we can now produce more and faster and often better because of automation and because of uh AI being used through robotics and uh on assembly lines and different things. And so we're able to use these things and there's massive benefits to it. So I think often we when we hear AI or we start talking about AI, you get one of two reactions from folks. You get kind of an either a subtle excitement and kind of or apathy, kind of I don't really, that's kind of far off. It's not really affecting my daily life, it's not really changing my job. Or you get this deep-seated fear. And often, um, headline kind of after headline, you see the coming automation crisis, the looming kind of dystopian future with work specifically. I mean, that's kind of one of the big issues we see these articles. And often they're red-eyed robots that look like they're gonna come steal all our jobs or come kill us. And it just looks like these sci-fi novels. And so it kind of creates, even along with that fear, kind of a subtle apathy, like this isn't really something that's affecting me. But reality is, as we said earlier, AI is a part of every single thing we do, often, often without us even knowing it. Any type of smart device is driven in large part by algorithms and by artificial intelligence, from our microwaves and refrigerators to our smartphones and smart assistants. But because alongside a lot of those benefits and the excitement on it, there's also some kind of dangerous kind of undertones of artificial intelligence. And part of that is just because of the worldview that a lot of AI and science comes from. And so as Christians, we can approach these issues not out of a spirit of fear, but of a spirit of excitement and how we can utilize these tools, and that's really important for us to keep in mind, is because technology is a tool. Often we see technology as more than a tool, especially these modern-day emerging technologies because of their capabilities. But our if we keep it rightfully understood as a tool that we can utilize, uh, throughout my book, I argue through the paradigm of Matthew 22, where Jesus is being pressed by the Pharisees and he says that we are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And part of that loving our neighbor as ourself is seeing the uniqueness, the human dignity in every single person as made in God's image. And if we take that kind of framework, that moral and ethical framework, and apply it to these tools, we can see great benefits on how to utilize them. But there's subtle fears and dangers and issues that if we don't address head-on and proactively as the church and as the wider culture, uh, there's very damaging effects specifically to human dignity. And that's really a key issue in the terms of work and business is how do we use these tools to uphold human dignity and pursue human flourishing for all people rather than just meet a bottom line that often disadvantages or hurts people? And so, how do we balance these things and utilize these tools for good?
SPEAKER_01So we really need people with the Christian worldview being the ones who are programming these robots and writing these algorithms. What are some of the evidences that that's not actually happening? That that maybe uh AI is being is really being driven by people that don't have a Christ-centered worldview. Like maybe they're trying to use it to take advantage of people or do things that are are actually bad for society. What are some of the examples of that? Because I'm hoping that we can encourage more Christians to pay attention to this and and and not just look at it with fear and skepticism, but look at it as an opportunity to maybe you're the one that needs to get involved and start doing some of the programming.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, often we think of ministry as specifically like vocational ministry, but reality is that each of us, as created in God's image, are called uh called and given certain gifts and abilities to honor Him and to love our neighbor. For some of us, that's going to be going into business, some of that's gonna be going into automation or computer science or the sciences in general, some of us into medicine and into the military, into government service. And so each of us, we don't need to be prioritizing uh certain forms of ministry over other forms of ministry. It's just that we each have been given unique gifts. And there are many faithful brothers and sisters doing fantastic work in the sciences, uh, specifically in artificial intelligence. My organization last year released a set of principles, ethical principles called the Evangelical Statement of Principles on AI. And through that, what we did was seek to lay out kind of an ethical framework for Christians to approach this emerging technology with hope, uh, but with also this mindset of honoring God and loving our neighbor. And through that, there were so many folks that came out and said, Hey, I'm a Christian and I'm working in this field, or hey, this is really difficult, and I'm so thankful for this type of document that helps me to explain my worldview in my work. And so there are so many folks already there, and we definitely need more because often the sciences are driven by what's called a materialistic worldview, um, or a worldview that says that you are nothing unique, there's nothing special, you were definitely not created, and there definitely is no God, this lack of spirituality, and everything is reduced down to matter. Well, that worldview not only runs completely counter to the biblical worldview and how we approach that there is a God, he's made us in his image, and we're called to use these technologies as tools, but it also really causes a lot of thorny and difficult ethical issues, um, often specifically in just business and work, in terms of defining humanity based on their contribution to society, this kind of utilitarian argument. Well, as long as they're doing something good and we're seeing benefits from it, it obviously has to be a good thing to pursue. But often just because you see certain good benefits doesn't mean that it's worth sacrificing other things. Uh, we also see this in a worldview that says that you are all the only your value and worth is dictated on what you contribute to society based on you are what you do versus you are who God says you are, regardless if you can work or not. And so often in terms of issues of work, we see this defining humanity down as, and it's kind of a paradox in many ways, because we're defining humanity down saying we're nothing special, nothing unique about us, but at the same time we're seeking to humanize or seeking to give dignity and value and worth to these machines. Um, at the same time, we're dumbing down humanity, we're acting as this acting as if these machines are uh more powerful or if they're uh can many ways save us because we know this world isn't the way it's supposed to be. And so when you have- Where is that happening?
SPEAKER_01Where is that actually happening? Like, what are some of the examples of where this AI is really being used to kind of put humanity underfoot of the algorithm?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you see this uh through the kind of the automation, looming automation crisis. You see these headline after headlines about job loss, massive job loss on the horizon. I mean, just take a very specific example of self-driving cars. I really look forward to the day when we have self-driving cars. I think it'll be pretty awesome. But there will be sacrifices that our our society makes. I mean, uh the American Trucking Association estimates about three and a half million truck drivers uh that are on the road each year. Just if tomorrow, now this is not how the self-driving kind of timeline will happen because it's not going to be an automatic switch over to self-driving. You're gonna see kind of a ramping up, but that could be three and a half million people without a job if we just automate trucking alone. But that number climbs almost over 10 million if you include delivery workers and travelers and uh different people who are working in the transportation industry. Just think of Amazon and UPS and uh FedEx and those drivers going door to door, dropping off all these packages that we're getting through our automated systems often, is that this will have a massive impact just on a very narrow slice of the job market. And so, how then what we need to be thinking is okay, there are gonna be big benefits to this. There is a convenience factor. Um, it's gonna allow people to travel who might not be able to travel based on health issues. And um, there are gonna be really convenient benefits to it, but what does that mean for those who lose their job? And that's where I think Christians, specifically the Christian church, has the opportunity to step into a lot of these issues to love people where they are, because we know from data that when the a community experiences massive job loss or layoffs, just like a factory closing in a small town, that we see a massive increase in opiate addiction and drug addictions. We see immorality, sexual immorality, pornography, broken marriages and broken families, because so often not only are we created to work by God, but we often find kind of our worth and our identity based in what we do. And so when you take that away from somebody, they lose their identity. And so the church can step in and say, no, you are not what you do. You are created in God's image, you're infinitely loved and valued and ultimately saved through Jesus. And we step in to do that, but then there's really practical things you need to be doing in terms of job loss and retraining uh issues. We now have a lot of questions coming up of the universal basic income. Um and even Andrew Yang and his Democratic run for president uh was talking a lot about the American or the freedom dividend, $1,000 a month. That sounds great, but then as Christians, we need to step back and say, man, there could be really good benefits to this, but what is the drawback? What does that say about our work and our identity? And so you see a lot of those, specifically in automation and um kind of manufacturing being used with artificial intelligence. There can be this dumbing down of humanity. Um, and as Christians, we don't look forward to a jobless future or a future of uh pure leisure. We want to be working because that's how God's created us in his image to be.
SPEAKER_01So it sounds like I mean, at least the way that the the example of the driverless trucks, it's not that we need to like pump the brakes on the development of the technology. It's let's just prepare everybody who's gonna be affected.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think so. I mean, I am a proponent of these technologies, but I don't, we shouldn't be pursuing technologies without the understanding of the human dignity elements and implications of those decisions. And so we need to have a rich debate in society. I mean, we see this in terms of facial recognition. There are massive um abuses of this technology today, not here in America, thankfully, because we do have a democracy. We do have even a lot of uh municipalities banning the use of tech that facial recognition technology until we can get through some of these ethical issues. But even today in China, you have massive uh mass-deployed facial recognition systems that are being used not only to control people and what they say and where they go and what they do, but also to discriminate often against religious minorities such as the Uyghur Muslims, uh, who are in many ways been sent to these kind of concentration-like camps in certain parts of China to be re-educated. Well, they're being tracked down through the use of facial recognition. And the whole point of the Communist Party using these tools is not really to benefit society, uh, but particularly to retain power, uh, to be able to lord over people, to demean and to uh oppress people who are made in God's image. And so thankfully, in uh the Western nations, we haven't gone down that road yet. But that's something that we should be aware of. So we don't pursue innovation for innovation's sake, just to do it because it can be done. We need to have that moral and ethical framework and paradigm for when we approach these technologies to do so as Christians through the love of God and love of neighbor, through that paradigm that scripture teaches us, because it doesn't surprise anybody that the Bible doesn't mention artificial intelligence or facial recognition, but there are those principles that we can take out and even in work is taking those principles out and applying it to our given day, because God isn't caught off guard by any of these technologies. He's encouraged, He's called us to live faithfully in the time that He's placed us to love Him and to love our neighbor.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And it it almost seems like there is uh there's like this dualism between God versus technology, uh, as if God didn't equip us with the ability to even develop these things. And and and it's it's almost like it's a very humanistic way, it seems like, to look at technology and and AI as if as if God isn't involved. I mean, do you what is your your perception on what what is God's plan for AI? Did God orchestrate this? Or is is it more of like uh it seems like people have sort of a deist view where you know God is just kind of off and you know he set the world in motion and then we just start coming up with things on our own. Like, where is God in AI? Did he is he is he is he birthing this or is he just sort of a passive, you know, spectator?
SPEAKER_02Well, scripture see calls us to see and tells us that God is completely sovereign. Uh, that it's not that he's this deist form of a God who the clockmaker who kind of sets the world in motion and then step backs and says, Oh, I don't I'm not really in control of it anymore. Uh that's just simply not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is intricately involved. He knows, as the gospels tell us, he knows the hairs, number of hairs on our head. So, yes, he is involved in these day-to-day things. He's involved in our life. And uh, we see that in many ways through the power and the working of the Holy Spirit in us as believers in this world, but he is intricately involved and cares deeply about everything that we're doing and everything that we think. Not only does he know the inside and out of my life, uh not only the good things, uh, but also the sin, but he's also done that for many millions of people around the world and throughout history. And so he's deeply involved in day-to-day affairs. And that's why when I think when we talk about AI and when we talk about technology, it's easy for us to just deal with the here and now and think, well, AI is this really scary tool and we don't really know how to use it. Is God really involved in this? But we really have to take a step back because often a lot of the deep questions that we're dealing with as a society and even as the church are often the same questions, these same existential kind of fundamental questions that humanity has always dealt with from the very beginning of time. And that's why in the book I start with a chapter, what I call the foundation, man and machine. We need to get some of these kind of fundamental truths set in order to really process uh with wisdom and care and love a lot of the issues of our day, because technology isn't new. Uh, technology we often just think of as smartphones and devices and automation and robots and those type of things. They are obviously technology, but we've had technology since the very beginning of time. I mean, God not only kind of getting back to those fundamental questions is is there a God? And if so, what is he like? Well, God has not only created the entire world from nothing, but he also created us in his image. He is a good, loving God who's sovereign and powerful, and he created us in his image. And what it means to be created in God's image is that we are like him. We're just set apart and unique and distinct from everything else in creation. And he gave us the abilities and the talents and even the minds and even the material itself to create tools. So we then started creating agricultural tools from the shovel and the hoe. You go all Way up to the 1600s, 1700s with the invention of the printing press and the mass distribution of information and how that benefited society as a whole, not without its issues, though. And then going into the Industrial Revolution, and when we come into what I call the age of AI or this kind of AI revolution, is this is the technology not only of tomorrow, but specifically of today, because it's revolutionized everything we revolutionizing everything that we do and say and hear and often use uh each day. And so for us, I think what we need to do is not approach it from a spirit of fear, but know that God has not only, not only is he sovereign, but he's created us in his image and he has given us the ability to create these things. Technology is a good thing. AI is a good thing. We utilize these things to aid us and to help us and to help us love God and love our neighbor. But often because of sin in our hearts and because of our rebellion, we misuse and abuse these technologies. We create things fallible, we create things that have issues and problems, unforeseen impacts and circumstances. And so what we need to do is step back and approach these things with wisdom through that paradigm that there is a God, that He's created us in His image, and these technologies are tools that God has given us to use and to wield with wisdom. And then the real question then is then how do we proceed? And I think going through that paradigm of loving God and loving our neighbor is the best, it is the Christian way of thinking through ethics and morality and these big kind of looming social issues is through that paradigm. And there aren't any easy answers. Some things are kind of black and white, often it's very gray. And that's why we need the body of Christ to come together, but also we need people from all around society to help us see our blind spots. What are we not seeing in maybe this policy or in this tool or this application so that we can pursue these things together ultimately for the love of God and love of neighbor?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Does it seem like part of the reason why people tend to kind of keep God out of these conversations about technology is because the the context of God in the Bible is uh is a is an ancient one. It's you know, it's it's first century, it's it's BC, ancient Near Eastern times, where it it just it's like how can I make the connection from a God that was involved in the affairs of people then to to us now? And it's like we're so it feels like we're so advanced and we're so uh you know technological that maybe just maybe it seems like God isn't relevant. And I was thinking about um Uval Harari, and and I know you referenced him quite a bit in the book as well. Uh how we talked about how we've gone from theism to humanism to where you know God was God was center, humanism, man is center, and deityism now the algorithm is is the center. Um and as as sort of an explanation of why it seems like God is just not relevant today. What do you say to that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the a lot of that's a product of the Enlightenment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, prior to the Enlightenment, God was not only center in the conversation, but he was even involved in the sciences. Like you must some of our best scientists is scientists and discoverers and inventors were believers who were seeking to bring these technologies under the will and the power of God to be used for God's glory and for the love of neighbor and ultimately for human flourishing. And so through a kind of a product of the enlightenment, is there's this questioning of everything and of authority. And often what Christians then did uh was to retreat and to pull back and to not be involved in a lot of the day-to-day affairs of our society. And while there are many faithful believers who are doing that, as you said earlier, we need more and more Christ followers with a Christian worldview that says we can use these technologies and these tools uh for God's glory if we utilize them with wisdom. And so I think for us is you know, Harari will get into a lot of his book of saying, well, look how advanced society is. We've been able to overcome the big three issues of famine, plague, and war. And then he says, but if and if those things happen today, it's only because we messed up and they happen on a really small scale and we know how to fix them, which is kind of funny to me and kind of ironic given a lot of the issues that we're even facing today with the spread of disease throughout the world and wars and famines. Like it's it's kind of a he you're able to write from kind of this Western context of relative convenience and peace. Um, but you go to brothers and sisters across the world and they're not experiencing the same thing. And so I think it's a little bold for Harari to say that yes, we've overcome these things. And now we can kind of set our sights on in his book, uh Homo Deus, he talks about overcoming death and then pursuing divinity. And the interesting thing, he names that book Homo Deus, Godman, um, which is really funny because from a Christian perspective, there is a Godman. Uh, his name is Jesus Christ. He was fully God and fully man, um, and he came into our world not only to um to be with us, but ultimately to save us and to remind us of the hope that we have in him. And that's the cool part of the story for Christians is that we know the very end of the story. And so, as culture has these dystopian views of the future, or even as our friends and our family and our church members have these deep-seated fears of what's coming and this automation crisis, and I don't know what's going to happen here and here and here, we know Revelation 21. We already know the end of the story. We know that Jesus is sitting on the throne, not only then, but even right now, sitting on the throne. And he will come back not only to right every wrong and to defeat death finally, but ultimately to usher in a new kingdom, his kingdom, uh, God's kingdom that's focused on ultimately on God, but also on loving our neighbors. And so, Revelation 21, we're going to be standing around the throne saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. That's the God of creation. That's the God of Christianity. He's not dead. He's not gone. He's not uninvolved in the day-to-day effects of our world. And you see this through Harari's work and even other self-proclaimed futurists or computer scientists like Ray Kurzweil, a lot of folks who are maybe on the fringe of society, kind of pushing society to challenge us with really often helpful works. I've benefited a lot from their works. Um, but I would disagree with them on this kind of nihilistic, dystopian type future because I already know the end of the story. But even implicit in their own worldview is a faith of some sort. They'll say in a materialistic worldview that everything's reducible down to matter, but then you can press them, well, where does consciousness come from? Where does this idea that we know we exist? You know, this is written on the law of our hearts. We know that what Paul tells us in Romans, uh, that we God has revealed Himself to all people and to the entire world, but we suppress that truth and unrighteousness and push it down and choose not to believe. And that's exactly what's happening here. Now, that doesn't give Christians a uh any type of pride or arrogance, like, oh, look, we know the answers. I can't believe these people are wrong. So, no, we're all sinners. Not only are we all created in God's image, but we're all sinners in need of grace. And so then how do we love people as God loves them? And how do we pursue these technologies that God would have us pursue them? Uh, not pursuing techn uh innovation for innovation's sake, but pursuing it out of love of God and love of neighbor.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you talk about in the book uh several times about how we can tend to make a golden calf out of AI. And, you know, I think where Harari was saying that we're now in uh this age of dataism where we just rely on algorithms for everything. I mean, there there's there is a lot of truth to that. You know, not that that that's certainly not the ideal, especially as a Christian, but the way if we're if we're gonna be making decisions, I mean, we rely heavily on whatever when we search, I mean, there's only room for a couple of listings to show up on Google, you know, as you can't process like infinite listings in your own human human brain. Uh to so, so when it comes to major life decisions, like where am I gonna live? Like, where am I um where am I gonna send my kids to school? All those different things. I mean, so much we're relying on the internet, which is now becoming more and more advanced. But it sounds like the the key that you're saying is that we ought not to make a golden calf out of it and recognize and not sub is such a cheap substitute, artificial intelligence in exchange for the omniscient one. You know, God really does know everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and our tools are very limited today. Um, often when you get into Harari's work or Kerzweil's work or a lot of uh kind of self-proclaimed futurists, they automatically jump from, okay, we have this technology today, and tomorrow, maybe not tomorrow, maybe five or 10 or 15, 20 years, we're gonna have um, and this is an important distinction for listeners that today's AI is what's called narrow AI. Um I get into this a little bit in the book, is that narrow AI is the only AI we know of. Um, it's the only type of computer intelligence. And what it's it's narrow in the sense that it can it performs a narrow task. Like my thermostat can adjust the temperature in our house and maybe pull play with a few different features, but by and large, it's not driving the car down the road. And the drive, the car that's able to drive down the road isn't uh performing the search out, it's not a search algorithm that's pulling up information uh when I search for things online. And so this is a narrow application. And then you have this next level called artificial general intelligence. And this is the stuff of sci-fi movies. Um, and AGI is something we don't even know if it's possible to create. Kerzweil points out in his book, How to Create a Mind, that it actually takes uh a good bit of faith on the part of the scientists and computer scientists to claim that AGI is even possible. Um, because AGI is something, there's only one level of general intelligence in the cosmos, and that's humanity. Um, meaning even my one-year-old and my three-year-old are in many ways smarter and more adept in some of the most advanced AI systems we have, not in narrow task, because they can easily be outperformed and even labeling images and things like that. It's like they're just young, they haven't really grown into that yet, but they're able to do a host of different things, whether it's helping my wife wash fruit this morning, or uh eating, or going turn on the light, or going to pick up a toy, or learning to speak, and then recognizing things and turning the television on. Like they just have kind of these uh, they're very complex and a lot of the things they can do. And that just continues to grow. That's a human-level intelligence. And that's often what we see here is this AGI is this hope and this dream that's typically 25 to 200 years away. We don't really know if it's even possible to create. And then you have this next level of once the machines do have general intelligence and they're smarter and quicker and more adept than us in every aspect, then we will usher in this era of super intelligence. And that's really the good sci-fi movies, the ones that we really enjoy. Uh, these are the robot overlords and the man who fights for salvation for the human race and things like that. That's what super intelligence is. And the reality is we don't even know if that's possible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, as a Christian, I do approach those kind of issues and say, I'm very skeptical that we'll be able to create those things because we don't create like God creates. Yeah. And so I think it's helpful for us to have those distinctions because it helps us to really understand the questions that are in front of us rather than often these kind of future, sometimes utopian, sometimes dystopian views of what is next, what is next. And so when we focus solely on what's coming next rather than what's already happening now, we really don't serve and really love God and love our neighbor today. We're always seeking what's tomorrow. And I think we'll overshadow and kind of forget about the real pressing issues of our day as we just sit there and dream about tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well said. And that that's really what it's all about is focusing on loving our neighbor today. We can't worry about tomorrow. It's a good place to wrap it up. Uh, Jason, uh, in the book, you talk about how AI is changing our perceptions of self, um, medicine, family, work, war, data, and privacy. Again, the book is The Age of AI, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Humanity. Uh, would the best place to go to connect with you be uh jasinthacker.com?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a great place. You can find out about my book, a host of resources and articles. Uh, you can also subscribe to uh a Monday newsletter called Weekly Tech, which I intentionally designed to be short and substantive and be able to help people cut through a lot of the hype of the day and understand the issues that are facing us each week as we prepare, because I know people are busy. And so the whole hope of that newsletter and my website and even the book is to equip Christians to be thinking with wisdom and through the lens of scripture in our day-to-day lives, where wherever we are and whatever we're called to do.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. Well, Jason, thanks again for your time. And uh may God continue to bless your ministry and this book. I know it's uh a big, big undertaking, a book launch, and and um, and so we just pray God's gonna help you really to equip the the body of Christ to be prepared going forward and then to uh be that that voice of of the omniscient one uh uh on this issue of of AI out in the culture.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate that a lot, Darren, and I appreciate what you guys are doing, Houston Baptist. The Lord is blessing you guys, and I'm excited to see how he continues to use the university.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.