Being Christian in the Age of Technophobia

Why Christians Should Embrace AI, and technology in general. But also not all of its specific use cases! Wow, this is a highly nuanced subtitle (I hope).

Alright, we’re jumping back into it.

There I was, recovering from my heart transplant. (insert dramatic pause if you really want) Life had been a bit of a struggle. I was forced to medically evacuate my home in the Middle East and was suddenly stuck in and out of American hospitals. Eventually, I sat down and watched Iron Man with my sister. Suddenly, my love for AI was born. Here was a guy, Tony Stark, who had nearly died of shrapnel-in-the-heart problems, was given a sort of sci-fi version of a heart transplant, and had the coolest piece of technology I had ever seen: J.A.R.V.I.S (Just a Rather Very Intelligent System). I wanted one — I wanted to make one.

Anyway enough about my heart transplant, it gets old eventually, I just needed a good way to segue into talking about AI. The past is interesting, but the future is better. The future is how we will get to see God's redemption at work, and His plan unfold.

So, Fast Forward »>

Now, I’m working with Biblica (the organization behind the NIV), to create an AI Bible translation assistant/copilot. I’m hopeful the tools we and others build will shave years off the translation process. My work with Biblica, and my independent projects, have me convinced more than ever that Christians should embrace, build, and apply AI.

If I took you to the nomadic tribe I grew up in, you would notice several things right away. You would be swept away by how amazing they are, how amazing their food is, and how beautiful their country is. If you stayed longer you would begin to see more. You would learn that many lost half, or much more, of their family to an earthquake. You would find that of those that have survived, many more have died of easily curable diseases. A shocking amount of children die before adulthood, and most adults have some type of permanent injury or illness. Many are in constant pain as a result.

Importantly, all of these problems listed above can be almost completely solved by existing technology. Many fewer would have died in the earthquake if their houses had not been made of mud. No one has to die of malnutrition and infant mortality should be 0. Compared to their very real problems, imagine what complaining about screen addiction might sound like to one of my friends. Sure, screen addictions cause some issues, but they are immediately solvable given a bit of willpower or a couple of quick delete buttons. Overall, certain modern Western attitudes towards technology seem like we’ve been given a genie lamp and now occupy ourselves by complaining it causes too much smoke.

We are on the verge of being given a brand new magic lamp: machine learning. Right now it gives us nearly text, image, video, or audio we can ‘wish’ for — just by asking. Although you often have to figure out how to ask ‘just right’. It’s limited now, much more is coming. Machine learning algorithms have recently stabilized nuclear fusion, all but cured the type of lung disease my grandpa died of, and discovered the first new class of antibiotics in decades. I can’t overstate the importance of these discoveries. Much of this has been powered by a class of machine learning called Large Language Models, of which ChatGPT is now one of the least powerful.

Despite these amazing things and the millions that “subtle AI” has already saved across medicine and agriculture, Pew Research estimates that only 10% of Americans are ‘excited’ about machine intelligence.

If you aren’t excited about the future, you are unlikely to help make it exciting.

Our worries range from robot takeover to deep fakes to job loss (Ironically, my job would not exist without AI). Maybe Hollywood is good at telling apocalyptic stories, or maybe most Americans know something deeply terrifying about matrix multiplication that I don’t (not that I know that much haha).

This fear stems from many factors and seems to be a mostly American/European phenomenon. Like I’ve mentioned, we’ve all been raised on AI takeover movies including The Matrix and many others. Secondly, the entire field of ‘AI safety research’ has become a fear-mongering tool of large monopolies looking to use regulation to centralize control of AI. Thirdly, large companies can sell more to the government if they convince everyone that it is an ‘existential risk’ (governments tend to like that for obvious reasons). I kinda think it’s just the beautiful meeting of math, code, and the sum of human culture, writing, photography, and art.

AI is through and through a human invention, something being “AI generated” is somewhat a misnomer if we are being thoughtful.

Imagine saying something was, “factory generated”, anyways… back to the point.

Unfortunately, most, including Christians, have accepted AI risk as an insurmountable fact. I propose another perspective on the discussion: Christians should embrace AI. Here are three reasons, in no specific order.

1. Pessimism Kills.

With the advent of every technology, a large portion of the population develops “technophobia” (fear of technology). When trains were first popularized, I’ve read some feared they caused “hunchback”. We all but halted the development of nuclear energy for many years because we thought it would cause nuclear proliferation — something that happened anyway. As a result, energy scarcity has now inflamed many wars and left millions — no billions — in poverty. We’ve even placed bans on safe genetically modified grains that could have saved millions from starvation. Although there can be risks, everything is safer than starvation. “Playing it safe” with technology almost always costs more lives than it saves. As opposed to popular belief, “the Industrial Revolution and its consequences” have been unimaginably positive for you, me, and billions more. If you still don’t believe me, read several personal diaries from more than 100 years ago. I see no reason why the effects of technology (broadly speaking) will change now. Accepting technology does not mean accepting a specific use case, I don’t believe rejecting technology as a whole can possibly end well, yet rejecting use cases such as the mustard gas can (Thanks to my cousin Samuel for that example!).

2. For Christians, The Rewards Vastly Outweigh the Risks.

Technophobia should be a non-issue. We already know how the story ends: Jesus comes back and we all live forever. It can’t end any other way. AI is the hot new thing now, but it won’t always be! There will always be a new technology to worry about. Hint, biotech is next. While some use cases are quite horrifying, the ability to prevent or cure most diseases is something we as Christians should look forward to.

Even so, the ‘end of the world, isn’t something we should worry about. Rather, as Jesus taught us, we are to pray, "Your Kingdom Come" (Matthew 6:10, NIV). This happy ending, will not fully take place until the Great Commission is completed: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14).

I strongly believe that machine translation will enable the drafting, and human refinement, of the Bible into every spoken and signed language well within our lifetime. A 2000-year task will be completed. Sad that it somehow took us that long. Take the Wright Brothers, who invented the aeroplane: they contributed more to global evangelism than any other individuals have for centuries. Perhaps Wheaton College should have a “Wright Hall” due to this fact.

3. Building is What Image Bearers Do.

The word we translate as "carpenter" is actually, "tektōn," a more general word for carpenters, stone masons, and artisans. From it, we derive our word "technology" (tekhnologia). The very first verse of the Bible tells us that God "created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1, NIV), and later that He "made mankind in his own image" and "male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). We are told that now Jesus is preparing (aka creating) a place for us (John 14:2-3) and creating a "new heaven and a new earth" (Revelation 21:1). Again, in Genesis, we are introduced to human creativity through Jubal, "the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes" (Genesis 4:21). We see that God is "like a potter" (Isaiah 64:8) and that "we are His handiwork" (Ephesians 2:10). God calls Noah to "build an ark" to save his family and the animals (Genesis 6:14-16). Even the Tower of Babel, a story often accidentally misused to promote technophobia, I believe is mainly a lesson against human pride and ignoring the first "great commission" to "be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). God simply did want people to stay in one place: "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city" (Genesis 11:7-8). This is hardly a lesson against building cool towers in general, humans went on to create many more cities with much taller towers! We also see that Paul was a tentmaker (Acts 18:3). There are countless more examples.

I am hardly attempting to reframe our faith as being merely about “inventing” and “technology”. It is not. Rather I am pointing out that the act of creating is fundamental to who our God is — and therefore who we are. On a personal level, I truly feel that nothing has helped me understand more theology than being a hobby video game developer (hear me out…) Many of the great early inventors and scientists agreed that it caused them to worship God more. There is so much joy, and excitement, to be found in building things — whatever that may be for you. We wouldn’t be humans if we did not create, build, and explore.

Finally, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get involved and build, from the ground up, the next branch of technology. The Great Commission, a finite task, is somehow unsolved even after 2000 years. We have wasted too much time. If I remember correctly there are some interesting parables about that. Not to mention how we completely dropped the ball with the opportunity the internet posed in the early 2000s to shape our world. Thankfully, it isn’t over, and the Church can utilize technology to: heal diseases, end world hunger, and spread the unshakable Hope we have in Jesus to the entire unreached world. God will do this with or without us, but would you not rather be a part of it?

Some last notes:

1. This was adapted from an article I wrote several weeks ago in College Church’s “Connections” magazine. I changed a few things so I can make it longer and more nuanced on substack, but the overall message is the same.

2. I’m not an AI expert, anyone who claims to be is selling something — usually for political gain or some clickbait CNN headlines. Please don’t listen to self-proclaimed “AI experts” unless they have experience (code) to prove it, and such people rarely call themselves by that title.

Always look for the code before you trust someone's opinion on AI. Here’s a bit of mine: https://github.com/dadukhankevin (the username I made a long time ago haha)

3. If you want to contact me because you disagree (game development has likely only gotten me so far in the theology department anyway…), agree, or just for fun: danieljlosey@gmail.com is my main email.

I’d love to hear from you! If you are a youth pastor and want help figuring out what to do when someone in your youth group falls in love with a chatbot…. (This was a hypothetical example given at a Missional AI conference I went to recently) You get the point: contact me!

4. AI seems scary, but I don’t think it has to be. When I first started learning to code I had a dream that my very simple game came alive and took over the world. It was quite scary, but just know I’ve been there too (:

Most importantly, this doesn't have to be a contentious issue in the Church. At the end of the day, these were my opinions — and I could be wrong.

Thanks for reading for highly sporadic substack posts! Signing off until I get another burst of 3 AM motivation. I hope this at the very least sparked a sense of hope for the future.

Remember, humans are the only ones capable of, in a sense, ‘co-creating with God’, that’s insane. Don’t squander that. Build with Jesus in whatever ways you’ve been gifted.

Your friendly neighbourhood *not an AI expert*,

- Daniel Losey