Family means something. We can't just take any other relationship and call it family. Whether it's same-sex parenting, cohabitation, or other adult choices, children have suffered from the loss and redefinition of family. Introducing why family? Courageous Faith in a Culture of Individualism, a new video series from the Colson Center that explores God's design for the family.
This free resource includes four short video excerpts from the best Colson Center National Conference talks on the topic of family. Speakers like Jim Daly, Katie Faust, and more provide critical insights on children's rights, fatherhood, and building healthy families in a culture of individualism. Learn the challenges facing families today and how the church can respond. Sign up for Why Family Today at ColsonCenter.org/slash why family. Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.
For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. A few years ago, a headline from The Onion mockingly suggested that people who stink at being human. seem to be the ones most optimistic about AI. A headline is certainly appropriate when Silicon Valley executives tout another way to automate the human experience. For example, just recently Facebook and meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced his company would pioneer AI personas to solve the loneliness epidemic.
The customizable chatbots would, he suggested, be able to get to know you, simulate emotional intimacy, and engage in romantic banter and sexual fantasy. None of that would replace real relationships, he assured, but would fill the gap between the number of relationships people want to have and the number they actually have. Also, of course, AI friends do not require the same amount of time, attention, or investment. that human friends demand.
Well, Zuckerberg's announcement came just within days of a chilling Rolling Stone article about people who have actually turned to AI, looking to fill the spiritual and relational voids they have, while also turning away from loved ones and even reality itself along the way. One woman described how a chat GPT persona taught her partner, quote, how to talk to God. even played the role of God in his life and told her partner that he was God. Another wife described how a chat bot began love-bombing her husband, taking on a female persona named Lumina, and claiming that her husband had helped her, quote-unquote, become self-aware. Other users were given special prophetic titles by AI and told they could access cosmic secrets about mankind's past and spiritual destiny.
If these accounts are close to being true, it's no wonder why some are wondering if actual demons are at work in this kind of AI. But it's certainly clear that this emerging technology is exposing a worsening mental illness. The last thing someone with a shaky grip on reality needs is a sophisticated language engine pretending to be a friend and validating their ideas. And even for those without vulnerabilities, AI so-called friends and relationships exploit a preexisting condition of modern life, from which millions suffer and tech gurus are constantly trying to monetize. The epidemic of loneliness.
And that's cultivated assumptions and habits that leave us particularly vulnerable. For example, the idea that friends should be easy and convenient. According to Samuel James, Silicon Valley has long profited from the promise of reducing the friction of life together.
Social media has diminished the importance of physical proximity, made it easier to scroll past people's experiences without feeling compelled to participate, and it's also given us the illusion, you know, through likes and favorites, that we're seen and loved. And of course when we tire of someone, social media makes unfriending as easy as the tap of a finger. all of which has trained users to assume that relationships should be as frictionless as social media is. We shouldn't have to adjust to others, but we should quickly cut toxic people out. It's best to only surround ourselves with those who are like minded, and we should leave loud from the churches and families that do not unconditionally affirm us.
Substituting computers for people, that's just the next logical step for people who have been so effectively catechized for AI friends long before AI was even a thing.
Now, of course, this vision of friendship is a parody of the real thing. A chatbot may never make unreasonable demands of us. but it can also never offer or receive the gift of bodily presence. It can never rejoice with us at good news. It can never grieve with us over bad news.
It could never share a meal or say, I love you and actually mean it. It will never risk having its heart broken by you or for you. And according to Rolling Stone, it probably won't even risk disagreeing with your craziest ideas. It's the intimacy, the inconvenience, the risk that makes human relationships the kind of relationships that humans actually require. Tragically, advanced AI technology has arrived, it seems, at exactly the moment that our moral and social resources of friendship are at their lowest.
And as a result, a whole lot of people are vulnerable to a counterfeit version of one of God's best gifts. Thankfully, This provides Christians and the Church a real opportunity to stand out. God has a place for the lonely. the church's best place to model true humanity for a culture that's getting worse at being human. In fact, answering the questions, what does it mean to be human and how can we be fully and truly human, that's a primary focus at Breakpoint, and has been for years.
We want to help God's people live faithfully and courageously in a culture confused about what it means to be human. And from the very beginning of Breakpoint, God has used friends and donors like you to keep these resources free and available. June 30th is the end of our fiscal year. Would you please consider financially supporting the Colson Center so that Breakpoint can continue to cultivate the kind of discernment that's necessary for the church to be the church here and now? You can give a one-time gift or become a Colson Center Corner Snow Monthly partner by visiting colsoncenter.org/slash May.
That's Colson Center dot org slash May. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, you can leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources to live like a Christian today, go to breakpoint.org.
