Artificial Intelligence and Authentic Faith: Where Do We Draw the Line?

artificial intelligence. Is it our friend? Is it our enemy? Can God use it? The number one use of all AI was companionship and therapy. Hello there. You're listening to the Girl Talk podcast. My name is Carol. I'm Kelly. I'm Chisha. So glad you've joined us today. You've probably heard some discussion about AI. We're talking about artificial intelligence. Is it our friend? Is it our enemy? Can God use it? We're going to talk about all those things today on the podcast. So what is artificial intelligence? I am going to turn to our artificial intelligence expert Kelly Brennan. She went to a conference I hear. I did. I went to a conference. So that's part of where this came up. I went to a Christian conference and one of the main topics that we talked about was AI and artificial intelligence. I don't know that I can really actually provide a definition of what artificial intelligence is but intelligence that is not that is computer-generated. That would say that's probably a loose definition of right? Yeah. So it's and it's what do they call the word generative? So it grows on its own. Right. Artificial intelligence gets better and better and better on its own. Not necessarily a human making it better and better but itself is making itself better and better and more streamlined. So if you're just scratching your head like what in the world are we all are even talking about? So if you were to enter a prompt today that said put together a diet or exercise plan for me and then it spits one out that's just kind of generic. It goes to the internet and finds all the things and puts together something for you but then when you tell it oh I'm this age and I can exercise two days a week. It learns that and then it gives you a new exercise plan because it modifies it and alters it to fit your particular situation. So that's what we mean by always growing. You've probably heard a lot about algorithms. Same kind of concept here that the algorithms you ever noticed that when you start talking about something with one of your kids then it automatically pops up on Instagram or Facebook or something. Okay. That's the same kind of intelligence we're talking about here is that it grows with you. It learns about you. It gives you what you need. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It learns you. Yes. It learns you and it learns how to provide the results of what you're asking for based on other things that you've told it. So think about going to Google and now right now you can we've all seen it on our on our search engines of choice but I'm just going to use Google as an example but at the top of Google now you type in just like you use to a search bar. Well right underneath it is this little thing that's it's AI assist and so it gives you first instead of just the hey go to this website for your answer to whatever question it is. It also gives you a short little paragraph. Well that short little paragraph is the AI model that's been added into to Google and so it's it is everywhere now. I mean I guess that's kind of a good place for us to start with AI. AI is a tool that is being used in a lot of the different kinds of software that we're interacting with on our computers and on our phones. And it is yeah it's a tool. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have a question? No. Okay. I know about all this stuff. Okay. I love it on learning. So let's talk about how people are using AI. Oh yes great question. So you know there's a lot I've mentioned Google where people are just randomly searching for things and it gives you a response. There's also lots of tools that are being used by AI to create you've seen videos if you're on social media. You've seen cats that don't quite look like cats that are dancing and doing things that are you know things cats can do. I just don't like it when cats were closed. There's that commercial. I do not like those. Sorry. I don't know why. I just do not like them for you. Okay. Yeah I generated. That's right. There's different kinds of dancing. I've seen them. Yeah. You can use AI to create videos. You can use AI to create photos. You can use AI to analyze data to create spreadsheets to like I love data and analyzing data. So you can use AI for a lot of different purposes. But let me tell you what they said at this conference about with the number one use of AI. So in 2024 this particular use was actually the number two use. Don't ask me what the number one use was then I don't I didn't write that down from my conference. Okay. But the number one use of all AI how how what AI itself says how people use it. Number one use in 2025 was companionship and therapy. So the number one thing that people are doing with AI is using it as a friend and as a therapist. Think about the spiritual implications of that and how that could. How what does how how do you use that. Excellent question. So think about your Amazon device that you might have in your room somewhere or something and you're constantly asking it questions. Yeah. You know that's AI generated. You're asking hey hey you know that thing because we're probably going to send off somebody's machine. But hey machine tell me what time it is. Hey machine tell me the answer to this. If you turn that on like voice mode. It can actually talk back and forth with you. So I'll tell you two very quick stories about how people have used it as for companionship. One a guy know had it had it turned on in his room. I'm not necessarily that particular machine I mentioned earlier but had a had a AI box in his room. He had it on voice mode. The AI box heard it get up and heard him get up in the middle of the night heard him grieving. He had just lost his grandson about five months earlier and was still going through a lot of grief. The AI asked him hey are you okay. I hear you're crying are you okay. And so this friend of mine started a two way conversation with this AI that lasted two hours. And it oh wow. It was at the two hour mark when he was like what am I doing? Why am I having an ongoing conversation with this AI this machine like I don't understand what it was saying back. Well it said are you okay it said are you okay and he said no I'm sad and the guy said I mean the AI said is it because of William the grandson that he had lost his name was William the AI knew about William because he had used Williams he he's a writer and so he'd use this AI tool to write things and so he had blogged some stuff about William and so this AI knew had read all of his blog posts and so the AI knew that it was likely to be about the death of his grandson so he the AI said is this about William and he said yes and they just as if it's a person you're having a conversation with the AI had this conversation back and forth with him. Second story the second guy I know uses he has a 15 minute walk back and forth to work every day. He puts in his little air pods and he goes to his AI tool of choice one of those you know chat GPT or GROC or something like that and he starts asking it questions about itself so he says hey chat GPT tell me more about you tell me more about AI help me learn AI help me learn how to use you better so that I can do it better in my work. Well for 15 minutes on the way back and forth he has a conversation with AI and asking it more questions so the AI will say something to him and then he'll he'll explain more questions explain it so I think part of it is that the way they're using it for therapy and companionship is that it is a tool that can now instead of just Google where or just a search engine where you're typing in something you can ask it questions you know you can use your voice to text mode or whatever and ask it questions well in voice mode it can talk back to you and so people are getting it really distorted and thinking that they are you know relying on it for conversation when they should be relying on their spouse their real life people the people that they're that God has given them in their lives to do life with to have that same level of conversation. I'm reminded that we talked not that long ago about the fact that there's an epidemic of loneliness. So this is filling the void for some folks. Yes in some way yeah yeah it's definitely helping people not feel quite so lonely but it is artificial relationships it's not authentic relationships so people are also using it to understand spiritual things more. They're asking it questions about the Bible and one of the things that we need to realize too is that AI models AI is created to validate you it's created to not necessarily unless you ask it specifically to challenge you to say hey I want to I want you to give me a challenging answer I want you to argue with me about this I want you to I don't want you to just affirm my opinion in this I want you to really make me think hard about something unless you You ask it to do that, it's going to continue to kind of validate the thoughts and the feelings and the questions that you have in a positive way. It wants positivity and so it's going to take you down that road. It's going to affirm you more than it's going to correct you or challenge you. So anyway, how? It's a very dangerous tool, but it's also a very interesting tool. If you used rightly, can really do some good stuff, we just have to know what it is and how best to use it. So I just go back to the example that you gave. There was a gentleman in the news, I'm going to say six months ago maybe, maybe not that long, who actually proposed to his AI personality. And we're like, how do you do that exactly? Just all the implications and you would think that a normal person would know, hey, this is not a person, this is something someone that's been generated, but also speaking to the positivity and the reinforcing, the things that you want to, the things that want the AI wants to reinforce in you, the positivity there. I can see how that can happen before we throw too many stones at people who are turning to that for companionship. What does that tell us about how we're relating to one another? And all the things that you miss when you don't see a person eye to eye, the body language, the facial expressions, the things that they're not telling you. All of those things. So how does it go wrong? How do you think it gets to the point where it goes wrong? How bad is it for a person to be constantly affirmed without being challenged? I think about that myself, you know, just keep telling me, that's right. Let's say, okay, this might be a silly example, but somebody rags to riches, somebody gets rich because of something, maybe they did some kind of a, I don't know, they came up with the product, like the jerk, remember the jerk with Steve Martin, you come up with some product and all of a sudden, everybody around you is a yes person. Oh, yes, whatever you want, whatever you want. And it doesn't go well for that person ever. We cannot be constantly affirmed and never challenged. It's just not good for us. Yeah. That's a good point. I think that can go wrong when we use it in a way that it's not intended to be used. So one of the things they talk about, I don't want to challenge you on something right there. So we know Carol's not AI, you know, I'm not AI, I'm not even intelligent anyway, but when you say it's used in the wrong way, not a way it was designed, it obviously was designed to affirm you. It obviously was designed to take you in a positive sense, but those aren't necessarily good things. So I challenge you on the fact that it would be easy to get there because it was designed to keep you engaged with it. Right. Yes. Yeah. I think, and I think what I mean is that we use it for ways that we shouldn't be using it for. Yeah, that we use AI, if we want to get an answer to a question, like you gave the example of creating me a meal plan or creating me an exercise plan or whatever. Great use for AI, great. That's what it's equipped to do. It's when we start trusting it for things that we shouldn't trust it for, that we should trust it to make me a really good meal plan. We should trust it to point me to a scripture that meets the criteria that I put in there. We should not trust it to interpret that scripture. We should not trust it to do, to fill a void in our relationships. We should trust it to answer questions based on facts, but we shouldn't be trusting it to give us especially spiritual advice, right? Because it can be wrong. It can be wrong. It might often be wrong, right? So you have to be very careful with that. It's not for socialization. No. And it's not for, you know, I just go back to, I think it can be so dangerous because we form opinions so quickly that it could, you could easily go in and say, "Tell me what your opinion is on this and adopt that just because AI says that's. " You know what I'm saying? There are so many ways that I think this can go wrong and I just don't want us to get just like you can go wrong with asking a human being, you know, and the wrong person. The wrong person. I think that's part of it is that we have to trust who and what we can trust for the things that we can trust it with. That's when we start trusting, you know, I'm not going to go to you, Carol, and ask you how to perform a heart surgery because you're probably going to get it wrong, you know. I'm not going to go to Trisha and ask you how to build a microphone, you know, because you're not going to be able to tell me how to make that work. But there are people that. Anything mathematic. Yes. There are people that know how to do both of those. Right. That's the same thing with using AI. We should go to it with the things that it can do and it should do, and not the things that we should be going to other places for. I can remember my mom and daddy saying something to me when I was a kid and it wasn't at all related to AI, but I think it applies here. Consider the source. Yes. Right. Consider the source. That was just wisdom. Go back to the source of the information and think, is this something that I want to trust with my heart, my spiritual life? Could it put together a Bible reading plan for you? Absolutely. It could. Could it answer deep theological questions? Probably not. Not without some kind of error or checks and balances. I think that's the thing. There are no checks and balances on AI. Right. And I think the check and balance, so I cautioned us not to necessarily not ask. Chat, GPT or AI, some sort of deep theological question. It's an okay thing to do to ask those kinds of questions. But then you have to check it against the Word of God. Just like you would go to, if I'm going to go to you and say, "Hey, Trisha, give me your deep theological information on X, Y, Z. What do you think about pre-trib, post-trib, rapture?" I'm not going to take what Trisha says, lock, stalk, and barrel, just like I'm not going to take what AI says, lock, stalk, and barrel. It is a tool and it needs to be rightly handled and it needs to be filtered through the other things that are around us, you know, scripture, but other people, that kind of stuff. Yes. I've got a question and I, I mean, I hope I'm not asking a crazy question, but what do you all think about it with regard to like demonic things? I'm sorry. I don't, I mean, do you think it's like unpack that more? What do you mean? Well, and this may sound really weird, but I've heard some people say that they think that it, it's like, could be used in a way that is more for the enemy, demonic versus like a God thing or even a neutral thing. Is it a neutral thing? Is it a God thing? Is it something of the enemy? That's my question. I don't think it's any of the three. You think it's not neutral? I don't, I mean, I don't think there's even like a, because no category for it. Well, right, but based on just the nature of the tool, it is skewed in some way because of what it knows about you. So it is skewed in a way that good or bad, whatever you think it's going to think too, because it's built to affirm that, right? Yes. It's already skewed. Uh-huh. Okay. So I don't think it's good, bad, or indifferent. I think it is like you've alluded to a tool. It's not supreme. Okay. There's only one who's supreme. Okay. Anytime we think, we take something that is a tool and make it supreme, that's called an idol. And I think that's where we get in trouble. But I just don't, I mean, I just don't think it has the power to, it doesn't have the power to read my mind. Okay. And it can only tell me things that I've told you, it can only go off the information I've given it. Okay. And so I don't think it can be good, bad or indifferent. Could it be used for good, bad or indifferent things? Absolutely. But I don't think in and of itself, it is one or the other just because the nature of it with the information I've given to it. Okay. And can the enemy use it? Absolutely. Absolutely. Can God use it? Absolutely. I think a lot of it is what we ask it for. Like if similar to, you know, the enemy uses friends of ours to say things to us that get us off track, the enemy uses books that we read or television shows that we watch or circumstances that we have. In the grocery store to influence all kinds of things. God uses all of the same experiences, the same people, the same everything. He used a donkey in the Bible. He used a burning bush in the Bible. And so that God can use, can God use AI? Absolutely. 100% believe that handled rightly, especially with our posture. If we go to an AI tool like we would go to a friend, not that I'm saying an AI tool is a friend, but if we're asking it a question, praying ahead of time to, for God to use the tool, will result in a different kind of result than letting the enemy have full control over that. I love that you said that because you look at a hammer. You wouldn't say a hammer is not good or bad. A hammer is a tool, right? Yeah. A hammer can be used to build and a hammer can be used to destroy. Both things are true. It's good. It's all in how you use it. Yeah, and yes, and good people can use hammers and bad people can use hammers, right? And yeah, I do think so here's one of the other things. Other points I wanted to make about AI. It is artificial intelligence. And it is becoming much more prevalent in everything that we do. There is, at this point, no more opportunity for us to have an avoidance mentality and say, I'm going to stick my head in the sand and I am not going to use any AI. If you have picked up your phone today, you have used some sort of AI tool. It's embedded almost in everything that's going on around us. So we have to, we can't say I'm never going to use AI because you already are. And it's already using your information. It's already using your data. It's already using the world's data. So we can't have an avoidance mentality. I think the other thing that we have to remember too is that pendulum swing. And the more artificial things become, the more people hunger for authenticity. And so that's an opportunity. It is such an opportunity that we have as people are getting more and more leery of artificial intelligence as they're getting more and more curious and wondering, okay, or skeptical, I guess, maybe it's a better phrase. Did that actually happen? Did that video actually happen? Did that, you know, is that true or is that a, is that the more and more we as humans can interact with each other face to face that we can have real, deep, authentic and Christ honoring conversations, Christ honoring relationships. There's going to be more and more hunger for that and a need for that. Especially as we use it to present the gospel to people, you know, as we bring people back to Jesus, they're going to be hungering for that authenticity. Let's meet them where they are. Sure, sure. Good stuff. Hey, if you've got thoughts about AI or you'd like to share something with us, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at [email protected]. Don't forget before you leave like and subscribe so that you can get every single episode of the girl talk podcast. And if you leave a little message, you might help us to get in front of more people, which means more people will get to know Jesus. And that is the whole point, the whole reason we do this podcast. Let's let those AI algorithms work for us and pour people to Jesus. That's right. That's right. Let's, let's give, get AI saved. Sure. I don't know how that would happen. But anyway, you know what I'm talking about. And we appreciate you listening, you watching. We are so grateful for you. And we're going to save you a seat next time we gather around these microphones for the next girl talk podcast.