The promises of AI are indeed amazing. The labor- and time-saving potential will save humanity hours of mindless tasks, and we’ve not even begun to realize the potential for medicine, among other things. However, potentials are not actuals, and history is full of unintended (and intended) applications and consequences of technology. The only way forward is to be clear on human exceptionalism and human fallenness.

As we near the end of the year, Breakpoint will look at the most important issues Christians faced in 2024. Every generation faces challenges. We may have hoped for different ones, but God chose to put us in this time and this place. These are the “You Are Here” arrows for the Church that help us better understand the moment we’re in.  

One of the “You Are Here” stories of 2024 is the rise of Artificial Intelligence. This isn’t merely a story about new and more powerful technologies. It’s a story about how society thinks of itself—how it understands what it means to be human. 

The “mad scientist” rarely begins as a villain. From Dr. Frankenstein to Spiderman’s Doc Ock, villains are often the victims of a combination of good intentions, unstoppable curiosity, and way too much arrogance. Their plights on screen mirror real life, as evidenced by artificial intelligence.  

In his book, 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity, Oxford professor and Christian apologist Dr. John Lennox argued that the promise of AI outpaces the reality of it. AI may be great at specific, repetitive tasks, like playing chess, constructing sentences, or identifying precancerous tissue on a CAT scan. It isn’t as capable of other things, like navigating an unfamiliar room or detecting sarcasm.  

This is because, at least so far, AI lacks the kind of generalized intelligence that allows us to move from task to task, to think in the abstract, to apply background knowledge, to use common sense, and to understand cause and effect. For all the hype around “machine learning,” AI systems continue to be, at a fundamental level, programs that do what their creators tell them to do.

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