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. In Paris, there are two historic structures that offer explanations of the human condition. The L'Arche de la Diffance is France's official memorial to the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It's an immense, striking, open cube of nearly perfect dimensions.
Down the river a bit is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Its two towers are of different heights. There are various gargoyles adorning the exterior. The stones differ in size, and the stained glass is of different colors and shapes. As George Weigel has noted in his book The Cube and the Cathedral, the two buildings carry significant worldview implications.
The cube represents rationality as a means of perfection, while the cathedral reflects the fragmented beauty of the diverse human experience and God's creativity in all that he has made. Artificial intelligence, especially its potential for education, tempts us to stand in awe of its seeming rational superiority. Like the L'Arche de la Défense, it is impressive, especially in comparison to our limitations. To be merely awestruck, however, by artificial intelligence would be a tragic mistake. Consider, for example, Unbound Charter Academy, Arizona's first all-online AI-powered charter school, which guarantees that students will score in the top 10% of standardized tests.
At Unbound, there are no good or bad teachers. There are only two AI chatbots, Philip and Phoebe, that are available 24-7 and with a world of information at their non-existent fingertips. How appealing that is, especially when compared to Mrs. Smith, the local school teacher who's married with four children, unavailable after 4 p.m. and on weekends, and who has the unfortunate limitations of being merely human.
An unbound charter is just one variation of new AI schools popping up that are disrupting traditional models. The rapid adoption of AI in education is unsurprising, of course, especially given the shortage of quality teachers and the highly political emphasis in schools of education over and above subject matter expertise and actual mentoring skills. Moreover, the overall drive for efficiency in our culture makes AI quite desirable to both teachers and students. With AI, there's no lesson planning, no teachers' meetings, no study sessions or all-nighters. With AI, there are just instant responses to our most complex questions.
Within a Christian worldview, however, there is, to borrow a phrase from the Apostle Paul, a more excellent way. a more excellent way to approach AI in education and anywhere else. AI is an incredible tool for humans, but it can never be a replacement. This is a difference we must keep in mind, and it's a difference not in degree, but in kind. Simply put, humans are exceptional.
AI is not. The biblical framework of creation and fall can provide the helpful and necessary context we need for this framing. Humans were created at the pinnacle of the creation story as the only beings in God's image and the only creatures given authority over the rest of the created order. AI is a derivative of human creativity and thus below humans in the hierarchy of what exists. If we are to properly understand and manage the AI revolution, we have to orient our lives as if humans are indeed exceptional, because, well, they are.
Now, Christians can fully support employing AI in education as appropriate, but we have to do so prudently. Efficiency can never be our only motivation. For example, there will be a perpetual temptation to confuse the efficiency of AI in gathering and organizing information for us with the cultivation of wisdom. The attainment of knowledge. and of course acquiring virtue.
Nor can the convenience of chatbots ever replace the mentoring that students need by actual humans. Yes, it's true, moms and dads will need sleep when AI does not, but they will always be those who carry the primary educational responsibility for their children. The emergence of AI forces the question of whether ultra-efficiency is always best. Personal formation and relationships are not always properly cultivated in efficient ways. A friend of mine in the business space has adopted what he calls the principle of intentional inefficiencies in order to respect people as being image bearers and to honor biblical mandates.
Likewise, in education, we have to preserve higher values and the fixed reference points that take us beyond the efficiency that's promised by AI. Doing so will help us avoid what Joseph Pieper called the temptation of total work, which ironically AI can incentivize, and instead cultivate leisure, something that carries powerful life benefits, including educational benefits. And the Christian doctrine of the fall also clarifies aspects of human nature in relation to AI. The humans are indeed exceptional, we're not perfect. Much of the discourse on AI is driven by the attitude, we must do this now simply because we can.
But the central lesson of the Tower of Babel is that we ought not do everything we can do. Part of preserving human exceptionalism is recognizing and accepting human limitation. Look, we face a choice. The seeming omniscience of AI or the exceptionalism of limited humanity. Our answer will determine not only the trajectory of education, but But very likely the future of humanity.
For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Special thanks today to John and Leslie of Mokena, Illinois. Thanks for being a Cornerstone Monthly partner of the Colson Center. You made this episode of Breakpoint possible. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Andrew Carico.
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