The Alex McFarland Show-53-The World of Artificial Intelligence

The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. Artificial intelligence is in the news all the time. There are some tech experts that are very worried about where artificial intelligence, AI, is going. Does the Bible have anything to say about artificial intelligence? Hi, Alex McFarland.

Welcome to the program. Today we're going to talk about this issue that's very, very prominent in the news. And whenever I read about computers and just the speculation about whether or not the internet or these servers and centers of artificial intelligence, could they become self-aware? What are they thinking about? And get this, how are the artificial intelligence banks reaching out to other AI centers and communicating amongst themselves? It really does sound, well, for lack of a better word, creepy.

Let's look at what the Word of God might have to say about something like this. And what I'm going to do in the program today, I'm going to give you nine facts, nine facts about AI, artificial intelligence, what it is or is not. So I want to thank you for listening. And this is a very important topic, I really do believe. You know, in the news recently, a lot of tech leaders like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and others have talked about artificial intelligence.

And maybe you've thought, well, what is it? Look, you have interacted with AI before, you really have. Now, let's say you call the power company, a utility, and they say, you know, if you want information about your bill, press one. If you would like to hear about special offers, press two.

If you need to speak to an agent, press zero. Well, anytime you've done something like that, whether it's talking to a utility or ordering a pizza, you've interacted with artificial intelligence before. And what they do, they program and they put lines of code in there, some is like a logic tree or a troubleshooting. If this, then that.

If not this, then this, this or this and these options, and you follow a logic chain or a logic tree. But what's really different about the times in which we're living. In fact, I really am not sure that all of the capabilities of artificial intelligence and chatbot, I'm sure you've seen in the news chatbot GTP. I don't even really know that it's been fully released to the news following public, the level and the sophistication with which artificial intelligence has been developed at this point. Now, I interviewed an IT guy from Israel recently and about a month ago, and he was telling me about how the firewalls have been created to keep AI in.

Now, we often, if you think about a firewall or antivirus software, you probably think about cybersecurity and from your computer keeping hackers out. But there is essentially a type of firewall, several layers deep that has been developed to keep AI in. And this particular IT guy, and I mentioned the fact that he is from Israel because it's known that Israel has very sophisticated military intel, very sophisticated computer capabilities. In fact, it's well known that if you first were introduced to the internet two decades ago by America online, many of you had AOL online, that software was developed in Jerusalem. So Israel has been a hotbed of computer technological breakthroughs. Well, this particular gentleman who is from Israel, I asked him, I said, how concerned as a citizen, how concerned should we be about artificial intelligence?

And he said, and I quote, terrified. Because for one thing, when programmers internationally meet and they engage in what they call letting AI out of jail, in other words, taking down temporarily for development R&D research to let AI go beyond its normal boundaries, but yet within the firewalls developed to keep AI from just going amok. He said it was very interesting that AI, when left to its own, always engages in things that seem toward humans to be malicious, such as suggesting that we cut the power to hospitals, or shutting down the power grid in winter to people that are trying to heat their homes. And so it seems like when AI is left to its own devices regarding human beings, that AI has basically things that are malicious about the human race.

In other words, maybe to save the planet. AI believes that the human race needs to go extinct, something like that. Now, the founders or some of the pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence, some names that you might have seen, Minsky and McCarthy and other names in the development of artificial intelligence.

I don't think they could have envisioned what it would become. In a general sense, artificial intelligence is like the adaptable thought processes of human beings. Maybe many decades ago in the film 2001, A Space Odyssey, you remember how communicating with some of the main characters in that, but we're to the point where now narrow AI, which is the chat feature on websites when maybe you're trying to buy a thing and they suggest if you like this, you might like that, or Siri, or talking to your GPS to get directions. Well, where AI is going is way beyond anything like that.

And now there have been some just landmark developments. People are asking the question, can AI or the internet itself become sentient? Now what does that mean? Self-aware. Now we humans are self-aware. The Bible says that when God made Adam and Eve, the book of Genesis says, well, of course, in Genesis 1 27 male and female, God made us.

And God breathed into our nostrils, nefesh, the breath of life and man became a living soul. We are sentient or sometimes people pronounce it satiant. We think we are self-aware. It's a very beautiful thing when even infants become self-aware and they on some level realize that they're a different entity than their mother or dad. Even little animals become self-aware. Well, to what degree is AI self-aware?

To what degree are thinking machines created by man able to process and make decisions and dare we say it, even moral decisions? Well, stay tuned. We're going to come right back and we're going to talk more about this emerging technology in light of scripture.

And we're going to go over nine facts you need to know about artificial intelligence. Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland is an advocate for Christian apologetics. Working in more than 2200 churches around the world, schools and college campuses, Alex is driven by a desire to help people grow in relationship with God. He arms his audiences with the tools they need to defend their faith while also empowering the unchurched to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. With 18 published books to his name, it's no surprise that CNN, Fox, the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, visit alexmcfarland.com or you can contact us directly by emailing booking at alexmcfarland.com. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. By the way, we're going to resume our conversation about artificial intelligence. And I want to make the comparison that everybody's making. How is AI like a person? Because the fact is that we human beings made in God's image, we are what are called moral agents. We know right from wrong. The Spirit of God speaks to us and tries to encourage us to do that which is right.

You know, the Bible says that God is long suffering and with every temptation will make a way of escape. We don't always do what's right, but deep down we know what's right. In fact, Revelation 2, 14 and 15 talks about the law of God written on each and every heart.

Let's talk about these facts regarding computers. First of all, point number one, AI does not possess personhood. Now, point two, AI does not possess a soul or a spirit. To be technically precise, the part of you that will be everlasting, either in heaven or hell, we often say the body and the soul. But really, as 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24 says, that we have body, soul and spirit.

Your body, the Greek word is sarx, from which we get the word sarcophagus. And then we have psyche, p-s-y-c-h-e. That's really what the Bible calls soul. That's your mind, your knowledge base, your emotion, your will, your intellect. But then there is the part of you that exists forever, somewhere. That's your spirit, pneuma. In the Old Testament, it's nafesh.

In the New Testament, it's pneuma. AI does not possess personhood. Like at the moment of conception, God knows who you are, just like God told Jeremiah. Before you were in your mother's womb, I knew you and designated you a prophet to the nations. Well, every conception ordained by God, it represents a person. That's why we have believed. Well, for 2000 years, the Western world has believed in the sacredness of human life. For 245 years plus of American life, we believed in the personhood of every individual. But AI does not constitute personhood, nor does AI possess a soul. And thirdly, let me say this, AI, artificial intelligence, whatever it might be, lines of code in a hard drive or a software program, or multiple centers of computer activity, interacting with centers of computer activity around the globe.

Let me tell you what it doesn't have, and this makes it different from the human beings that we should value, made in the image of God, and hopefully growing up to know the Savior. AI doesn't have the law of God written on the inside. By the way, you probably know if you've listened to our broadcast much at all, you know that one of my favorite topics is the subject of natural law.

In fact, earlier today, I was with two attorneys, Jenna Ellis, one of Donald Trump's former attorneys, and then Abe Hamilton III, who is one of the hosts on the American Family Radio Network, both of which we're talking about what the founders call self-evident truth, that we have this law of God written on each and every heart. C.S. Lewis in 1943 wrote this very famous book called The Abolition of Man.

C.S. Lewis warned us, and my goodness, we're there, that if we lose our knowledge of morality, the human race will abolish itself. Given enough rope, as the old saying goes, we're about to hang ourselves. The key to restoring our nation, saving our freedoms, is that if we possibly could, with God's help at the soonest available moment, restore a knowledge of morality, we know right from wrong. It's written on the heart of all people.

Let me say this. The most vehement activists for LGBTQ trans issues, they can shout and they can threaten, a woman is a man. No, we know that's wrong. We humans, we know right from wrong. By the way, talking about AI, it was in the news this week that someone gave a command, write me an essay about why homosexual activity is wrong. And now listen, AI, like chat, GTP follows each and every command.

I've had pastor friends who said that they jokingly told AI to write a sermon on John 3 16 or whatever. Well, in a matter of seconds, the internet can be trolled. AI can troll and scan the entire internet. I mean, you think about it, 125 terabytes of data for each and every human on the planet. And an AI engine can scan that in a matter of seconds. And whether it be like a poem or some song or even some visual image, a piece of art or a sermon outline, AI can come up with some fairly decent things. But when being given a directive like, give me a 600 word essay on why transgenderism is wrong. Give me an 800 word newspaper editorial on why gender reassignment and hormone replacement therapy for kids is immoral. AI always comes back with something like this. I can't do that.

It would be wrong for me to speak against homosexuality. Now listen very carefully, please. The lines of code now in the millions, probably tens of millions, that AI selects from amongst has been programmed by Silicon Valley liberals. So it's no surprise that AI is biased and leans leftward. Isn't that something? It's no surprise because AI is just simply regurgitating the code and the commands and the perspectives that it was programmed with.

And since the majority of Silicon Valley programmers are liberals or if they are conservative, they're probably in the closet conservatives out of fear for their career. But AI does not possess personhood. AI does not possess a spirit that will live forever. And AI doesn't have the law of God written on the inside.

Point number four, let me say this. AI certainly doesn't have the leading of the Holy Spirit. As far as we know, the Spirit of God doesn't work on inanimate objects. And that's what daisy chains of IC chips are and hard drives. These are, after all, they might be jam packed with data that's been saved, but it's not a person under the leading of the Holy Spirit. So let me say this. Point number five, AI, artificial intelligence, as created by fallen man is necessarily part of the fallen world. Now we'll come back to that in just a moment.

Let me tell you some of the potential threats. I mean, imagine your smart car while AI generally thinks of malicious things to do against the human race, because after all, you a consumer, you human with a carbon footprint, you are part of the problem. And to those globalist utopians, they don't know the true and living God. They certainly don't believe in a biblical worldview.

They definitely are under the occultic doctrines of radical environmentalism. Look, you consuming, you eating vegetables produced by evil agriculture, and you generating waste and you needing water and consuming raw materials, you driving a car, fossil fuels. Just imagine your smart car that knows each and every stop sign in the world, but it just decides to let you run a red light and be in a wreck. Let's envision that AI decides that a few million people need to be culled out. And it happens to know by trolling your entire browser history that you have, and this is a term they use in national defense, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, certainly social media, as my friend Eric Metaxas says, the social media overlords, they know if you have swallowed the red pill or if you are dispensing the red pill, that means you're a conservative. So your smart car is going to help the world out and just let you run a red light and engage in a collision that will take your life.

Well, that's one more red pill gone. Well, when we come back, we're going to talk further about the draconian malicious things that AI could do for you or to you if they think that you're part of the conservative problem. Stay tuned. We're talking about artificial intelligence through the lens of scripture when we return after this.

Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Over the last several decades, it's been my joy to travel the world talking with children, teens, adults, people of all ages about the questions they have related to God, the Bible, Christianity, and how to know Jesus personally.

Hi, Alex McFarland. I want to make you aware of my book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. You know, we interviewed hundreds of children and parents and families to find out the questions that children and people of all ages are longing to find answers for. In the book, we've got practical, biblical, real-life answers that they have about how to be a Christian in this modern world.

My book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, you can find it wherever you buy books or at resources.afa.net. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. We're talking about artificial intelligence. And just for the record, this really, really is Alex McFarland and not a bot using his voice print. No, it's me. It's Alex.

I think you probably know that. Hey, by the way, before we resume our talk about artificial intelligence, I do want to remind everybody to please be in prayer. By the time you hear this broadcast, my team will be headed to Paris, Tennessee for the next Truth for a New Generation apologetics event. Abe Hamilton III, Bert Harper, my co-host from Exploring the Word, Will and Miki Addison, Kerry Vaughn from Love Worth Finding, Adrian Rogers Ministries, Carl Kirby, one of the greatest youth speakers in the nation from Reasons for Hope, and also the Bird Songs. We've done a lot of events with the wonderful oh my goodness, they're world class, the Bird Song Band.

And so listen, there is still time if you want to join us. It's just right outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It's not very far from Memphis. You can go to my website, which is alexmcfarland.com. That's alexmcfarland.com. We'd love to have you at Paris, Tennessee. The theme is Truth Matters, responding to the issues that will shape your future. And folks, I've got to say, whether it's our Viral Truth Campus Clubs, that website is viraltruth.com, or it's my upcoming visit to the Billy Graham Training Center in Western North Carolina. Angie and I will be there July 7 through 9.

I'll be finishing my two year study on 1st and 2nd Peter. It's going to be amazing. Look, we're trying to woke proof America's youth. We're trying to inspire revival in America. And God is using what we do every year. We're corresponding with thousands of people that have either come to Christ or come back to Christ through our events, publishing, and broadcasting. Look, we give God the glory, but we're so excited about proclaiming truth and being used by God to help people see life and live in this 21st century through a biblical perspective. We need your help. God is using this ministry. It's an amazing work.

And the truth is on our side. And look, your prayers and support really are making a difference. So please, if you would pray, if you would donate, if you would invest, you can give securely online at my website, which is AlexMcFarland.com. You can follow my travel schedule.

You can be a part of any or all of our events, our youth camps. Folks, we're in front of people. And I've got to say it like this. We're in it to win it.

Okay. But we cannot and we will not stand by silently while our nation and world is being fed things that are false. The woke doctrine, the idea, oh my goodness, that men and women can change genders.

That's insanity, delusion, and people know it. And then finally, folks, what your support does, it enables me with the help of our publicists out of Philadelphia, Hamilton Strategies. They're getting me routinely on Fox News, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, all of those media outlets where you think there are no conservative voices. Look, I'm happy to go into those journalistic lion's dens and speak for Jesus and defend truth. And folks, frankly, we're training other young people, giving them a vision to speak boldly for truth in every context.

The movement is building. We can't do it alone. So if you would mail your best, most generous tax-deductible contribution to Alex McFarland Ministries, P.O.

Box 485, Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, the zip code is 27313, or you can give securely online at alexmcfarland.com. Thank you for standing with us to defend truth in our culture. Well, people need truth. And let me just go back to our nine facts about AI. Okay, number one, AI does not possess personhood. Artificial intelligence, number two, does not possess a soul. Number three, AI doesn't have the law of God written on the inside. Number four, AI doesn't have the leading of the Holy Spirit. Number five, AI, as created by fallen man, is necessarily part of a fallen world. Now, number six, AI does have the tainted influence of fallen man, its creator.

As I said in the previous segment, because the lines of code and the information programmed in is so often a part of Silicon Valley liberals, the product, I should say, of Silicon Valley liberals, there is the tainted influence, the bias. I mean, this is why we encourage you to build a library. I circulate frequently my recommended reading list. Read a book book, because look, when you're reading a book, more synapses are firing, you have better recall, you have better assimilation. But another reason that you ought to be buying good books is because the books on the shelves at your home can't be rewritten.

I mean, just imagine, and look, we're there. I had an article scrubbed from the internet when I wrote a major article about the conservative worldview, the Judeo-Christian worldview. It was released by Hamilton Strategies to the internet. It was on several hundred websites, and the Associated Press carried this particular article, and then it was gone, scrubbed. I know that articles can be scrubbed, but imagine AI with its woke leftist utopian socialist bent, rewrites American history. And just as 133 statues have been taken down since COVID, statues of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, well the internet, which for many is the source of information, is getting scrubbed of truth.

Now, three final points. AI, artificial intelligence, does operate for pragmatic ends, not for righteous ends. See, there was a time when we did things because they were right, and today people view that something is right if it reaches some pragmatic end. Now, G.K. Chesterton, the great Christian thinker of a century ago, who was hugely influential in the life of C.S. Lewis, he said man's most pragmatic need is to not be a pragmatist.

Because look, imagine if you say, well, what's pragmatic? Control the climate. Well, how do we do that? Well, we control people's liberty and freedom. When the idea of human-caused climate fluctuations is disproven by science anyway, but the AI internet doesn't know that. They only know what leftist programmers have deemed to be beneficial or pragmatic.

But finally, two more points. AI does have the potential to be harnessed for evil by humans. The internet could be harnessed for great good, and in many cases it has been and is. But AI has the potential, like any tool, or even a weapon or an object, could be harnessed for evil by humans. But one final thought, AI could be harnessed for evil by demons. Now, I mentioned interviewing an IT specialist from Israel, and the question becomes, can demons manipulate inanimate objects?

I honestly don't know. I know even secular psychologists have talked about patients that they believe are demon-possessed, and objects fly about a room. But could a demon get into a hard drive? Could a demon get into a server? I don't know, but I will say this.

While we don't know the degree to which a computer could be manipulated or harnessed by a demon, we definitely know humans can be harnessed, possessed, and humans can be used by demons, and then those demonized humans can manipulate AI. Let me say what I'm not trying to foment. Paranoia and unnecessary fear. But I will say, this is the time to have one's house in order. If you do not know Christ, then I would encourage you, as we enter this brave new world, this dangerous new dystopian world, that not only very often doesn't know Christ, we're living in a world that has done its utmost to silence truth. This is the time to know that you have Christ in your life and to be saved. And if you need information on what it means to be a born-again believer, go to my website, alexmcfarland.com, pull down the tab, resources, and you'll see there's a tab that says, what does God say about my relationship with Him? This day, you can know that you're saved, that you're born again, that you are ready to meet God, and whatever this world conjures up, you're ready for it because you've got Christ in your life. If you are a Christian, maybe you have come to Christ, but today you need to come back to Christ. Folks, in a world of AI, we need to make sure that we know the Lord, we're living for the Lord, and we're standing for truth. We're using our influence to elect godly, reasoned leaders with a moral compass. You know, many years ago there was the famous book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Do you remember the subtitle? The New Prometheus. Prometheus, how humans create a human, how man makes another man, whether it's Pinocchio, the little puppet boy come to life, whether it's Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands, and Vinson Price was the inventor who made a mechanical boy come to life. Humans have always had this vision of trying to replicate ourselves.

Look, in the beginning, God made man in His image, but we've been trying to make another human in our own image, but apart from the law and the righteous call of God. Look, it just might be that this invention will be our undoing, but you can be ready for it. Understand, the Bible in the book of Revelation talks about the beast and the false prophet that does wonders, great swelling words, lying wonders of deception that seem miraculous. You don't have to be vulnerable to that. Whatever apparent magic the human built internet can conjure up, you can be immune to such deceptions.

Why? Because you have the truth of the gospel, you have the eternal timeless revelation of God, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit. I'm not going to say AI is coming, it's here, but you can be ready because it will never be a person, it will never have a soul like we have. And in fact, while not only does it not have the law of God, it's very often counter to, contrary to the law of God, it's very much counter factual, counter reality, but you are prepared because you've heard the siren call of truth from the Spirit of God and you've responded to it.

Folks, I know this is a deep subject, but this is worth talking about because like every subject, whether it's ethics, morality, life, economics, government, education, family, marriage, human sexuality, gender, philosophy, the study of truth, or even human inventions like the computer, God has spoken and we can stand on the solid rock of truth and we can help rescue others and bring them out of the shifting sands of opinion, up under the solid rock of truth as well, including truth about AI. Thanks for listening. You might want to share this with somebody. Keep us in prayer. Stand strong for truth.

May God bless you for listening and may God bless America. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com. You may also reach us at Alex McFarland, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404, or by calling 1-877-YES-GOD on the number 1. That's 1-877-YES-GOD-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of The Alex McFarland Show.