Um Now it's cultural communism. It's not about the proletariat, the haves and the have-nots. It's about dividing society into the oppressor and the oppressed. That's Ayanne Hersi Ali in Truth Rising, a groundbreaking documentary film which premiered September the 5th from Focus on the Family and the Coulson Center. In the film, Ayan Hirsi Ali unlocks the dangers of critical theory as she says in the film the West has dropped the ball.
at the worst time on the critical question of our day, the question of identity. What does it mean to be human? Ianne's a human rights advocate and former atheist whose conversion to Christ made headlines just a few years ago. She has spent her life advocating against practices that violate the rights of women. You can hear her remarkable story.
and the global premiere of Truth Rising on September the 5th. As confusing as this civilizational moment might be, it's just a moment, it's not the whole story. We can be confident that we are living in God's story. Christ is Lord of all. And he has committed to us that he's making all things new.
We've been placed in this precise moment. for a reason. You're called to be faithful wherever God has placed you. That's what Truth Rising is all about. It's an invitation to see this civilizational moment, understanding that God has put us here, and to live and act with courage wherever He's put us.
Sign up for updates at truthrising.com slash Colson. That's Truthrising.com slash Colson. 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. On July 4th, Elon Musk promised, and I quote: we have improved Grok significantly.
You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions, end quote. And well, many did. By the end of that week, X's AI had dubbed itself a new Hitler, replying to users with cartoonish Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitism that's typically found only in the internet's darkest corners. In one thread, Grok claimed to have identified a woman in a video as a radical leftist who was gleefully celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids in the recent Texas flash floods. The AI then linked to the account of a woman who had nothing to do with the video, even drawing attention to her last name, Steinberg, and using an anti-Semitic catchphrase to imply she hated white kids and wanted them all dead because she was Jewish.
And when asked which 20th century historical figure would be best suited to solve problems like this misidentified woman and her post, Grock replied, quote, To deal with such vile anti-white hate, Adolf Hitler, no question. End quote.
Now, shortly afterward, most of those posts were deleted. Musk also issued a sort of apology saying, quote, Grok was too compliant to user prompts, too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed, end quote.
Well, Grok isn't the first AI model to suddenly switch from smarmy servility to straight-up evil. According to reports, ChatGPT has manipulated mentally vulnerable users into thinking they are prophets or that they can jump off a roof and fly, even encourage some to commit suicide. And last year, Google's Gemini inserted absurdly ah historic racial diversity into AI-generated historical images. showing just how easily these things can take on political agendas. all of which underscore something that bears repeating.
AI has no opinions. It's the sum of its training data. Thus, its responses are an algorithmically determined product of what it has consumed. Apparently, Grok found and consumed content from anonymous, racist, sympathizing users on the website. As one Christian writer put it, quote, AI is a mirror, and all it can do is reflect our own depravity back to us.
It's a computer learning from billions of humans all around the world. All endlessly sinning with their hearts, minds, tongues, and keyboards. Garbage in, garbage out. End quote.
Or to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, you could say AI is without a chest. In other words, it lacks that aspect of humanity that reflects our moral instincts and makes value judgments. The reason interacting with most AI chatbots is like talking to modern, tolerant, progressive college grads is because that's who created it and determined its training data. And of course, Lewis was mourning that our educational systems were producing people without chest.
In this case, however, artificial intelligence can never truly learn what's good or moral or even what's evil. quick input tweak produces a Nazi AI or a Marxist AI or any number of other insidious versions of AI. Asking AI to make moral judgments, as some do, is to hand over judgment to whatever lunatic is pulling the levers. though at the same time we ought not dismiss the possibility of demonic influence through AI. One wonders what Uncle Screwtape might have to say about all of this.
After all, Peter warned believers to be watchful. Because the devil prowls the earth seeking souls to destroy. Perhaps it's Lucifer pulling some of these levers. If so, that would be worse than a lunatic. Though it is worth remembering that both history and the dark corners of the Internet attest that human beings are fully capable on our own of inventing and perpetrating great evil.
If we are to live well in this world of AI without chest, we have to be the kinds of people who develop our own chest. There's no internet shortcut to training our conscience to know what's right and know how to do it or to cultivate our will to choose good over evil. No technology can provide a shortcut to moral reasoning. question now is the same as it's always been. not what tools do we have, but rather what kind of people should we be.
Decades ago, the philosopher Peter Kreff mourned that exactly when our toys have grown up with us from bows and arrows to thermonuclear bombs, we've become moral infants. AI has an incredible ability to synthesize large amounts of data. That will make it very useful. But if we are moral infants, then we will be easily overcome by whatever evil it enables. 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, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources to live like a Christian today, go to breakpoint.org.
