AI: Boon or Bane With Jerry Bowyer

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Go to HopeforZambia.com slash faith to give and change lives. Will artificial intelligence be a great blessing for humanity or spell doom for mankind? Hi, I'm Rob West.

You can find arguments for both sides of that debate. One thing's for sure, it's coming a lot faster than people think. Jerry Boyer joins us today with his views on the topic, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, our friend Jerry Boyer is resident economist and frequent contributor here at FaithFi. He always has an opinion and something tells me today will not be any different. Jerry, great to have you back.

Great to be with you as always. So Jerry, it seems like proponents of artificial intelligence focus on the potential economic benefits while opponents see it as something that could get completely out of hand and even threaten mankind along the lines of maybe Skynet and the Terminator movie franchise. So where do you come down on this? Well, I'm not worried about the Terminator.

I enjoy the movies, but that wouldn't be my concern. Those scenarios that we talk about, about artificial intelligence that are dystopian in nature, they have some future where the AI becomes more intelligent than we are and is able to take over the world. I think those scenarios depend on a serious theological problem, which leads to a serious problem with anthropology, which is that your view of human nature. And that is that they assume that man can be a better creator than God. In other words, God created humanity. He created us as the crown of creation. He created us in his image, which means there's nothing in the material universe which is closer to God than we are. There's nothing above us in the world.

All the things in the world are under us because we are the crown of creation. That's the glory of humanity being made in the image of God. If we could create an AI which could surpass us in understanding and wisdom, that would mean that we would be bigger and better creators than God. If we can make something better than God's best, then that makes us better than God.

And we're not. We can never create something as powerful and as beautiful and as dignified and with the mental capacity of humanity because we can't create the image of God. We can create the image of us. God made us in his image. We can make we can make computer programs which are in our image. But being in God's image, we're less than God. Being in our image, AI is less than us. So there's a ceiling on our ability to create.

And that is that we're limited to what we can come up with on our own. God is, of course, unlimited. So being God's highest creation, that is mankind, you're saying we're going to bump into that ceiling. And therefore, this idea that somehow it could be the end of mankind is taking it beyond its capacity?

Because it attributes to mankind a creative ability that would have to exceed God's in order for us to create something that would exceed humanity. So in some sense, the people who are basically worshippers of AI, the people who believe in, quote, the singularity, I'm sure you've heard of that idea that, you know, we're on the verge of creating something, an event that's so powerful that the computers are smarter than we are. And the computers can create smarter computers than them. And those computers can create smarter computers than them. And that's the singularity where computers have infinite knowledge and it becomes a new God. We can't make gods. There's only one and there's only ever going to be one. So those people worship the computer that doesn't even exist yet.

Isn't it interesting? They have a God that isn't here yet, that they're already attributing divine powers to. They're already worshiping something that doesn't exist. But in essence, they're worshiping themselves because they're going to create that God. So they're idolaters of AI. But in some sense, Christians who cower in fear about the AI that's going to exceed human ability and exceed the human minds, in some sense, we're also idolaters because we also are giving humanity more credit for more power. We're giving AI more power than it can possibly have. So the people who worship AI and the people who tremble in fear against AI both treat AI as a kind of God.

One kind thinks of it as a benevolent God, the other thinks of it as a kind of an evil God, but they all give it divine powers. Fascinating. Well, we're going to continue this conversation with Jerry Boyer just around the corner. We'll talk about the potential impact on the US and the global economy. What about jobs in the future?

We're talking AI, artificial intelligence today. Much more to come just around the corner. And then your questions at 800-525-7000. Stick around.

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You can find a local CKA professional in your area by going to faithfi.com and clicking find a CKA. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. We're talking with Jerry Boyer.

He serves as our resident economist. Today, a little different topic, AI. That is artificial intelligence. Is it something to be concerned about? Is it something to celebrate?

Perhaps something in the middle? And Jerry, before the break, you were sharing with us really a biblical worldview on mankind being the creator. We're the ones that programmed AI, and therefore it can never outpace our ability, our intellect, because ultimately it will never rise to the level of God who is the ultimate creator, right? Exactly, and in sort of practical terms. I mean, that's sort of theological and it's proper to be theological, but in practical terms, I don't think people realize just how inefficient AI is compared to the human being.

For example, my friend George Gilder has done some analysis on this. He's one of the top tech experts in the world, committed Christian, and he points out that the human brain has roughly the same number of connections as the entire global internet. So if you see all the connections in the global internet, that's about the same number as the number of neural connections in one single person's brain. We're not all equally complex with our brain, so maybe mine's a little less, but on average, every human being has a brain which is on average as connected and as complex as the entire global internet combined. That's how far ahead the humanity which God created is from technology. And by the way, it's not just a matter of one human brain being that much more sophisticated than any computer, it's all the computers put together. Also, we are vastly more efficient.

The computer companies now, you know, these companies that run the cloud, like Google, etc. They now locate these on glaciers, because the processing power is so inefficient and produces so much heat that the computers melt down because they're inefficient with all that use of electricity. So they literally put them on glaciers to absorb some of that extra heat. They take enormous amounts of energy to run. I mean, just the parts that are mining Bitcoin are now becoming major energy consumers. How much electricity does the average human brain use? A little less than the average ceiling fan uses. A human brain is running something as complex as the internet for basically that little light in your refrigerator when you open it.

Or that light on your stove, you know, that you just push the light on without the heat. That is so vastly complex compared to AI, that technology is just nowhere near. Yeah, wow, that's fascinating, Jerry. Let's talk about the economic implications of all this. Of course, the predictions economically for AI are huge. Supporters say it will create a productivity leap that will grow wealth and improve living standards. It could add as much as some numbers I've seen are $20 trillion dollars to the global economy. What do you think the economic impact will be?

I think they're considerable, but I do think they've been hyped quite a bit. You know, with the Davos meeting, they were talking about AI, and I heard people saying it's the most important technological advance of their lifetime. I don't know, microchips were invented in our lifetime. The internet was invented in our lifetime. No, I don't think AI is the most important in our lifetime. I can tell you, we use it a lot in Boyer Research. It's a key part of our business. We have a saying around here, artificial intelligence is just fine. It works terrific.

It's no problem. Just so long as the answer doesn't have to be right. If the answer has to be right, you can't depend on it, which people might ask, well, then why use it at all? Because an initial stab at an idea, an initial draft of a white paper, initial research, which then requires human oversight, you're skipping a few of the early steps. So an AI is like, I think of an AI as an intern with no experience whatsoever, but who can basically put in about a month's work in an hour, but has less judgment than the average intern without any experience. So that's kind of how we use it around here. It can produce a lot of text, it can produce a lot of information, but you have to double check everything. So it's been a huge productivity gain for us, but I think that there is a certain exaggeration about how much productivity gain we're going to get. And I think we're going to have a lot of problems where a lot of companies are going to say, oh, just have all the service reps be AI and we're going to have a decline in service reliability because AI is not up for that yet. So like most of these technologies, it appears, it gets hyped, it gets in bubble territory and valuation. Then you spend about 10 or 15 years working out the kinks and then it's actually really useful, but almost always later than we expect it to be. Yeah, that was helpful.

Let's take that a step further than Jerry. So where are the jobs that are most at risk? Where will this impact the labor force most significantly? I think the jobs that are most at risk in the creative class are people who are in the creative class, but aren't actually very creative. So AI can write a mediocre, say short story, AI can write a mediocre business memo. So mediocre people probably are in trouble, you know, with AI coming along. Um, you know, so, and same thing with some design functions, et cetera. Uh, so I think what it does is it makes very creative people more productive. Every new technology basically almost always does the same thing.

It gives more reward than it does punishment, but it disproportionately favors some over others. So yeah, there are people who are going to be put out of work by this thing as there were people who were put out of work by the automobile and people you look, when I started in accounting, I used a 10 key. You don't even know what that is, right? That's a, it's a calculator that sits on your desk. And I had to learn to do that really quick. And then spreadsheets came along.

They didn't need as many bookkeepers when spreadsheets came along, but we all somehow found other things to do, which didn't involve us just pounding away on those 10 keys all the time. The same thing's going to happen here. Likely that's the history of technology, but it does take some time.

Let me just put out one more challenge. If we have time here, I would love for Christians instead of cowering in fear about AI to take dominion over it. AI has been trained on information that is often hostile to our worldview.

I had an hour long argument with GPT for about evolution and atheism once it sounded just like another atheist sounded like Richard Dawkins or another atheist troll on the web, but the people who have trained AI don't think like we do. So what does that mean? Avoid AI? No, it means train our own, train it yourself, master it.

It's not going away. If we disengage, a little bit like investing, the more we disengage, the more we leave it to its own devices. The more we engage, the more we can steer it in the right direction. AI isn't just something we react to. AI is something that we can either move in the right direction or let it go in the wrong direction because we've decided we don't want to have anything to do with it.

Yeah, that's well said. The team here at Faithfi has actually trained our own internal model with all the questions and answers that I've given over the years. And they say I might not be necessary, Jerry, at some point in the near future. Well, that is not true, but it is going to allow you to come up with new answers to new questions rather than having to go over those same questions over and over again that you've already answered.

It should free you up. And by the way, I take a lot of comfort in knowing that there's been an AI that's been trained by you. Well, thank you, Jerry. And we've got 30 seconds left. Tie a bow on this as we look at this through a biblical lens, a biblical worldview. Where would you finish today? I would finish with new technology always brings new challenges.

It always does. But we don't have to be afraid of those challenges. There's nothing inherent in the natural order. There's nothing that can be created out of matter in terms of technology that is inherently evil. So, yes, we can take things and turn them into we can take paper and turn it into pornography, but we can also turn it into Bibles printing. It was not a bad technology. How you use printing is what determines its worth.

That's the same for every other technology, including this just incredibly new, sophisticated form of printing, which is artificial intelligence. Well said, Jerry, we're going to have to leave it there. Thanks for stopping by. My pleasure. That was Jerry Boyer, our resident economist. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000.

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Welcome back to Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. Let's go to Paramount, Florida. Hi Nancy, go right ahead. Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. I caught up this Christmas in a little thing that I wasn't sure what was happening. I was sure, but I wasn't sure how it would affect me. I have a store card, just a store card. And at some point they, without me knowing it, they changed it to a MasterCard, which is fine.

We have very good credit. But while I was paying for something, the cashier said, would you like to apply for a rewards card? You'll save $50 on this purchase. I just did.

And I thought later on, what did I just do? So I'm wondering if it would hurt my credit if I closed that out. No, I don't think so. I mean, you may see a temporary drop of maybe 10 or 20 or 30 points at the most, but this isn't an account that had a lot of history associated with it, given that you just opened it a month ago. More than anything, probably what pulled your score down, and again, we're talking a minimal amount here, was just the authorization that you extended when you allowed them to open the account in your name, because they would have had to go pull your credit report to do that.

So you turning around and closing it really isn't going to change anything. So I would just go ahead and do it. If you don't plan to use it, these store cards are not the best, just because they tend to have very high interest rates.

They're often with companies that are not considered top tier lenders, and so they just don't help you from a credit mix standpoint. And if you're not going to use it, it's just one more account to keep up with. So I wouldn't worry about it. Nancy, are you going to look into buy a car or a house or get a loan or anything in the next six months? Oh, no, no, we don't know. Yeah. So it really, it really doesn't matter anyway.

I mean, it's nice to know that your credit score is as high as it can be, but it really doesn't come into play for somebody in your season of life, unless you're going to go out and try to qualify for a loan. And at this point, you don't have any interest in doing that. So it really doesn't matter anyway. So I would say absolutely close it. Don't look back and don't give it one more thought. Oh, thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

May the Lord bless you. Thanks for calling. Let's see, we've got three lines open at 800-525-7000.

You can call right now to Anderson, Indiana. Hi, Becky. Go ahead. Hi, Rob. Thanks for taking my call.

I really appreciate your program. Thank you. So I recently received an inheritance. And so I'm interested in your thoughts about tithing from that and how taxes might figure into that.

Yeah. Well, from the tax standpoint, there really are no taxes. Any taxes that would be due would be paid by the estate prior to you receiving the inheritance. And given that, you know, state taxes, at least in the current law, don't kick in until you get above $13 million. Most estates are taxable. There is no inheritance tax.

So you're not going to have any tax on that money. In terms of a tithe, I love the principle of the tithe as a guideline. I like considering it as a starting point for our giving. You know, we're not under the law of Moses, so it's not about a legalistic approach. And yet we did even see a reference to the tithe before the law of Moses.

So I think it's a great beginning point. The key, I think, to New Testament giving is giving freely and giving cheerfully, giving sacrificially. But using the tithe as a beginning place to say, on my increase, I'm going to give as unto the Lord, starting with my local church, I think is great. And if we apply the principle of the tithe, I would say it does apply to an inheritance because that's your increase.

You know, everything we receive is from the Lord, whether it comes from the government as a social security check or our employer as wages or an inheritance, you know, that's ultimately it all belongs to God and he's now entrusting it to us. So an inheritance check would absolutely be an increase. So I would follow the same kind of pattern of giving you do with anything else you would receive. So just to clarify, the inheritance is in the form of stocks. So that's where I was wondering about the taxes part, because right now I've received the stocks, but at some point, if I sell some of them, then what would you, how would you look at that from a tithing perspective?

Yeah, it's a great question. So right, I wouldn't tithe on it now if you're going to, if you receive the stocks and you're going to continue to hold them from a tax standpoint, what happens is you get what's called a step up in basis. So if you receive these as an inheritance, the cost basis that determines the capital gain or loss, the cost basis is stepped up to the market value of those stocks as of the date of death.

Now, if the basis steps up, but you hold the stocks and then they continue to increase in value over time, then yeah, at that point, you would have a capital gain that you would owe either a short term gain if you sell it within a year or a long term gain if you sell it in more than a year. So that is something to consider. Now, in terms of the tithe, you have a couple of approaches. One is to say, well, all of this is an increase. And, you know, as of the day you receive it, and so you go ahead and liquidate a portion of the portfolio to pay a tithe. And then from that point forward, you would tithe on only the gains that you had. So maybe every time you sell a stock, you'd say, okay, on this particular stock, we made X dollars.

And so I'm going to tithe on the gain because you had already, you know, given the tithe on the whole thing when you received it. But does that make sense? Yes, it does. Thanks for helping me think that through. You're welcome.

Yeah. So I think the big idea here is to break up you receiving this increase at the point of inheritance and you saying, okay, the full amount of this portfolio is my increase. And so I want to give a tithe. And then from that point forward, you've already tithed on that money. Think of it like money you would have received as income that you would have tithed on. And then now you're deciding to invest it, although you're just keeping the same stocks. And then at that point, from that point forward, we're just looking at gains or losses. And then you could look at that maybe on an annual basis total. And this is a good tax time is a good time to do it because you've got to calculate gains and losses anyway for the year. And so you could total up all the gains, subtract all the losses.

And if you have a positive number, then you go ahead and tithe from that point forward. So clearly you want to honor the Lord with this and I'm wanting to help you do that. So thanks for calling today. We appreciate it very much. Hey, let me mention, as we start a new year, often we're thinking about how we can position ourselves well for the new year. And I've been sharing a couple of ideas on some financial moves you can make for 2024.

Here's one to consider. What about starting a monthly money date with your spouse? This would be a time to review your spending plan, update your goals, make course corrections, not finger pointing. This is a chance for you all to get on the same page financially. And if you have a budget, especially, let's say you're using the Faithfi app, you could go in there and say, Hey, we're out of money. You know, in our eating out, it's two weeks into the month, what are we going to do? Now all of a sudden we can talk about a plan to course correct and make some changes. And maybe we're eating at home for the rest of the month, the next two weeks, you know, whatever it is. Well, that happens, I think most effectively when we're coming together, communicating, planning, working together to manage God's money, it could be a game changer in your marriage.

Consider starting that this month. I'm Rob West. Thanks to our amazing production team and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us again next time right here on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.