Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly part of our everyday lives. We come across it everywhere we encounter the digital world, for example ‘virtual assistants’ on our smartphones, navigation tools in our cars, customer service ‘chatbots’, online shopping recommendations and social media feeds curated for our personal attention. Some uses of AI seem highly beneficial, such as its use in medical diagnostics. Sadly, we are also becoming familiar with AI being used to harm or deceive, such as elaborate scams, ‘deepfake’ images and videos, cyberattacks and the hacking of data and systems. As it says in Ecclesiastes, ‘God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes’ (Eccl. 7:29).
Artificial intelligence is not actually intelligent. Nor is it ethical or moral, it is simply a set of computer programmes (algorithms) that can find and process very large amounts of data quickly, adjusting or extending its algorithms over time in order to achieve ‘better’ outcomes. An AI agent or content-generator does not understand the actual meaning of the data it is working with, it is simply looking for patterns. It can undoubtedly be a tool used for good, such as identifying cancers at a very early stage. But there are risks, sometimes even in what appear to be neutral uses of AI. For example, large language models may ‘learn’ and propagate our own human biases, reinforcing existing inequalities and injustices. AI can produce ‘hallucinations’ – false information and answers – due to the algorithms wrongly ‘filling in the gaps’ in the information it has found, and once generated these hallucinations can ‘go viral’ and quickly become accepted by other AI tools and humans as ‘fact’. You may have noticed some news articles generated by AI carrying the warning: ‘AI can make mistakes’.
Recently, however, the threat of AI has been termed ‘existential’ – that is it could even pose a risk to continued human existence. One expert said that AI has a greater than 10% chance of killing all humans within the next decade! Scary stuff!
There are numerous scenarios in which human extinction might happen due to AI, from hacking the security systems controlling biohazards or nuclear weapons, to extremists using AI drones with biological weapons, to the ‘unintended consequences’ of an AI agent achieving its goal by unexpected means (e.g. maximising drinking water reserves by preventing humans from drinking it!). ‘Self-improving’ AI systems, rewriting their own code, might develop too quickly for safety measures to be implemented, even breaking the law or resisting human controls to achieve the stated goals.
Of course, AI is only one of many existential threats to humanity. Others would include climate change, nuclear warfare, global pandemic and meteor strike.
So should we, as Bible believers, be afraid when we consider the state of the world today?
One familiar Bible passage is Psalm 23:4, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you (God) are with me’. Psalm 46: 1: ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, therefore we will not fear even though the earth be removed…’.
The Bible does make it clear that in the ‘end times’ there will be lots that we might worry about. Jesus talked about ‘men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things that are coming on the earth’ (Luke 21:26). Could it be that we are coming close to those times? Daniel spoke of ‘a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation’ (Daniel 12: 1).
But the Bible also says that true believers do not need to be afraid of anything that is to come. God has a clear purpose with the earth and the people who are on it, and is in ultimate control of what happens.
We shouldn’t be afraid, but we do need to be careful. Jesus’ warning in Luke 21 about the fearful state of the earth before his return finishes with an instruction to ‘take heed to yourselves’. In other words we should think about the things we can control in our own behaviour rather than being scared of what’s happening around us.
The best way to protect ourselves from being deceived by all the scammers and false information produced using AI tools today is to carefully compare what they are saying with known and trusted sources of information. Just because a message or call says it is from your bank doesn’t mean that it is! You need to check using other information sources that you know to be genuine. Similarly, not everything that we read on news feeds and other websites is absolutely true. As it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, ‘Test all things, hold fast what is good.’
The advice in Paul’s letter to Timothy seems appropriate to the theme we have been considering. Speaking of the ‘last days’, he says: ‘Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation…’ (2 Timothy 3:13–15). In the first century there were already lots of people teaching falsehoods instead of the true gospel. Timothy is urging the Christian believers to check everything they hear or read against the actual Bible; it’s the same thing as not trusting everything said by an AI-generated influencer, or rejecting a scam email!
The Bible is the one source document that we can be absolutely sure of, because it is the word of God. And that word promises a wonderful future for the earth and for those upon it who want to follow the ways of God. Humanity will not be completely destroyed by AI, or by any other catastrophe. The God who put so much care into creating our beautiful planet will not let it be destroyed: ‘God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, did not create it in vain, he formed it to be inhabited’ (Isaiah 45:18).
There may well be troubled times ahead, but we can be confident that God will keep his promises. As the passage in Luke 21 that we referred to earlier goes on to say, following the time of fear and time and distress for the nations, ‘Then they will see the Son of Man (Jesus) coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near… When you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near’ (Luke 21:27,31).
The kingdom of God will be a time of peace throughout all the earth, a time when all troubles will be past and forgotten. ‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.’ (Habakkuk 2:14). That’s what we need to be looking forward to, whatever problems may challenge our future!
Footnotes:
All Bible quotations are taken from the NKJV.
Christadelphians read the Bible and base all of our teachings on what the Bible says. We do not use AI to generate content for this website, but please do check all information on this site against the one true source of information, the inspired word of God found in the Bible.