your chatbot doesn’t know Jesus
Dear Christian,
Let’s talk about AI. Everyone else is, why not?
I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon when it comes to new technology, although I probably am. I do not want to minimize some of the truly incredible and helpful things AI can do. It looks like AI is not going to go away, so can we Christians talk about how our worldview should inform how we interact with it? I will try to stay on clear biblical ground.
Proverbs 1:7 tells us: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Your Chatbot does have the requisite fear of the Lord that the Proverbs claim is the beginning of knowledge. When you think of places to go for wisdom, which is discerning how to apply knowledge, what comes to mind? A pastor? A spiritual director? A mature Christian friend? Somehow this list has come to include Chatbots, namely “Christian” Chatbots. I was personally approached about using one at Barnabas and how it would generate revenue! I declined.
As you look for someone to wisely guide you in your life and in your faith, would you go to someone who does not know Jesus? If you turn to a Chatbot for this guidance, that is what you are doing. The fact is, anything AI powered is “crunching numbers” even if those numbers are words. An article from the Oxford College of Marketing puts it this way: “AI mimics reasoning by making educated guesses based on data patterns. It doesn’t “think” or “understand” like we do but creates responses based on probabilities.” 1 Your Chatbot may be an incredible educated guesser, but it has no ability to understand, much less bring godly wisdom to the discussion!
Another issue with seeking help from your Chatbot is that there is no wisdom in how the information is delivered. Markus Brinsa, an AI Risk Strategist, says,
“Crucially, [an LLM like Chat GPT] is never trained to stay silent — for every input, it must produce some output. As a result, when you ask a question, the model will always attempt an answer. If it doesn’t actually “know” the right answer, it will generate something that looks like an answer based on patterns it learned.” 2
I know one of the most helpful (wisest?) things I can do as a counselor is to let a question or statement “hang in the air” for a few moments. Aside from being a counseling technique, as a Christian counselor, I see this as leaving room for the Holy Spirit to work. Often an authentic head nod, raised eyebrow, sigh, smile, or tear brings more healing than any words I could come up with. Spending some time trying to counsel while masked during Covid showed me just how crucial these non-verbal human communications are to deep, meaningful interactions. I just want to remind you: your Chatbot cannot provide any of this, and if it does, it cannot be authentic.
One of the most comforting passages in Scripture comes from Jeremiah 31:
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
We see this quoted in Hebrews as well in reference to the New Covenant initiated by Jesus Christ. It is such music to my ears that God’s people will be so connected to Him without any go-betweens. Your Chatbot has no hope of this, seeing as how they do not have a heart on which to write.
My friend, please be discerning about where you turn for help. I hope this helps you think about how to navigate this new world where you are being offered emotional, spiritual, and relational help from non-human, non-Image-bearing sources.
P.S. – My wife, a very human, Image-bearing source, read this blog and wanted to add: “Chatbots are also notoriously sycophantic; they seek to tell us what we want to hear and appeal to what they think are our interests.” This way of interacting does not sound like a path to Wisdom. Thanks, Amy!
