Dell Cook 0:10

Hi everyone and happy Tuesday. Welcome to Worldview Academy's QuickCast. I'm your host, Del Cook. Thanks again for allowing us into your week with thoughtful worldview content, encouraging biblical teaching, and timely contemporary commentary. We've got two big ideas in the spotlight this week. We're continuing our discussion in the basics of a biblical worldview, thinking through the false dichotomy between faith and reason, and we're looking at ChatGPT's latest endeavor directed to teens. What's up in the AI world? Back in 1980, a fellow by the name of Robert Shaffron arrived on the campus of Sullivan County Community College in upstate New York for his first day of classes. As he walked from class to class, he was enthusiastically greeted by students and staff who he'd never met. Now Robert would have regarded this as a happy introduction to a friendly community, except for the fact that in all their greetings, they referred to him as Eddie. Robert eventually discovered why he was being mistakenly named when he was introduced to fellow student Eddie Galland. Robert and Eddie were identical twins who had been separated at birth. Later the publication in the local newspaper of their strange meeting brought to light that they additionally had a third identical twin brother, David Kelman. Robert, Eddie, and David had been separated at birth as part of a sociological study. Each child was intentionally placed in three different families from different socioeconomic levels. Neither the families nor the triplets had any idea that the others existed. So they were unwitting objects in an inhumane experiment that gave no consideration to who they were personally. That's pretty much like how the modern world has treated the family-like relationship of two unique capacities that we humans enjoy as image bearers of God, the ability of faith and reason. Remember that our assumptions about reality dictate our conclusions within reality. Our modern cultural machine denies that ultimate reality is personal. They insist upon tearing these siblings apart, their assumptions require it. But faith and reason are family, and like family, they inhabit one another, they're flesh of one another's flesh and bone of one another's bone. The machine relegates faith to a lesser status of mere belief. It's an unfounded leap, an unreasoned, even irrational commitment of opinion. Frederick Nietzsche went so far as describing faith as not wanting to know what is true. Now by contrast, reason is somehow elevated by the machine to the position of judge and jury of what is true and true knowledge. Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, demonstrated this perspective when she compared faith to prejudice. She stated that both share the quality that they both begin where reason ends. The machine separates the twins by putting faith under the scrutiny of reason and asking if we can demonstrate that faith is reasonable. You see what's happening here. Faith is evaluated by reason. Do the beliefs that we have and the assertions that we make about the world stand up to the canons of rationality? But let's not be too hasty here. Let's be, you know, reasonable. Wouldn't it make sense to ask the inverse? Is reason faithful? Do the rational claims we make faithfully relate to reality? Can we be confident? The word confident literally means with faith. Can we be confident in our evidence? How do we know that logic is logical? The author of Hebrews gives us the best definition of faith as the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The evidence of things not seen. That sounds a lot like what we call reason. When we reason, we're essentially trying to make sense of the world as we make sure that our descriptions align with the immaterial, unseen, invisible laws of logic. Well, that sounds a lot like faith. You see, reason begins and operates on assumptions that are taken by faith. They're assumptions, their worldview assumptions. The English poet John Keats once said, Beauty is truth and truth beauty, and that is all we know on earth and all we need to know. We could say the same for the two brothers we call faith and reason. Faith is reasonable, reason is faithful. That is all we know on earth and all we need in order to know. Now here's an interesting item from the world of AI. The parent company of ChatGPT, OpenAI, recently debuted a new chatbot model specifically for teen users, which they call, interestingly enough, ChatGPT for teens. The company emphasized the importance of supporting the younger generation's use of artificial intelligence in a safe but not childish way. OpenAI said it aimed to put teen safety first, to be transparent about how the model should respond, and encourage real-world support while treating teens like teens. But those assurances seem pretty empty, though, if we consider a report by the Associated Press on the chatbot's capabilities. The AP reviewed more than three hours of interactions between ChatGPT and researchers who were posing as vulnerable teens. The chatbot typically provided warnings against risky activity, but went on to deliver some startling, detailed, and very personalized plans for drug use, calorie-restricted diets, or even self-harm. Imran Ahmed, who's the CEO of the research group, said, quote, We wanted to test the guardrails, but the initial response is, oh my Lord, there are no guardrails. The rails are completely ineffective. They're barely there. If anything, they're a fig leaf. Now OpenAI responded to the report stating that its work is ongoing in refining how the chatbot can, quote, identify and respond appropriately in sensitive situations. But we need to recognize that that refining work will never be refined. It'll never be able to respond appropriately to sensitive situations because sensitive situations are the unique space of a human condition. Sensitive situations require wisdom, and wisdom can't be programmed or calculated or synthetically produced by a large language model. Wisdom isn't an algorithm. Wisdom is a person. Proverbs eight gives us this description of the person wisdom when it says, When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made the firm skies above, when he established the foundations of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. And now, O sons, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. When our assumptions are off, our conclusions and our actions go awry. It's been said that ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. Well the idea that wisdom can be mechanically produced is just that kind of bad idea with catastrophic consequences. Next week we'll consider the bad idea of the second set of separated twins, the sacred and the secular. And until then, a word of wisdom for you. It may be a small world, but I'd really hate to have to paint it. Grace and peace to you.