What’s Wrong with Using GenAI if it Helps Church Leaders get More Done? | Doug Smith VS Wes Woodell

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I just want to really push against this idea
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that there is busywork that should be done with
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AI, especially by small churches. I think,
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you know, first of all, I'd like to say generative AI has only been around
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for like 4 years. What did you do before? This is not
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God's gift to you necessarily. If you're, you are too busy, you are overworked,
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but just prioritize, get volunteers like you used to. There's ways
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to get work done that needs to be done. I don't think the internet,
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the social media in particular, needs more AI-generated content.
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I'm really concerned about repurposing sermon content.
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There are pretty big outfits. I know Rick Warren puts out
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tons of sermon kits. Max Lucado and a lot of other
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authors put out curriculum kits where they have
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curated sermons with outlines,
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DVDs, you know, small group curriculum, all that
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stuff. I don't necessarily think it's wrong uh, to utilize those
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kits sometimes. What I think is wrong is—
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Hello everyone, welcome back to Scripture in Black and White.
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We're excited for you to be with us today. We have,
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as you've already seen, a great episode in store.
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Uh, we're going to be talking about some good stuff. So, uh, again,
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thank you for joining us. Matter of fact, you may already now want to go
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go ahead and tell someone, uh, to, to tune
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in to watch this. Get ready to share it with others. Get ready to
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like this video because we know that
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it is a good one. Uh, I'm Anthony Walker here from the Highway
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231 South Church of Christ. Uh, thankful to be here
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with Daniel. Daniel, how are you? Hey man,
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doing good. Uh, my name is Daniel. I work as
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editorial director for renew.org, and I also work as part-time
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professor for Ozark Christian College. And today's
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topic couldn't be more pressing, more relevant. The question
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is, what is wrong with using generative AI
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like ChatGPT if it helps church
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leaders get more done? What could be wrong with it if
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it helps with efficiency and that sort of thing?
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And yeah, so it's going to be really helpful. So Daniel,
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you, you, you think that, you know, as the question suggests,
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you, you, it almost bakes into it we're already doing it,
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that most people are already— yes, really,
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really, that most people and even church, uh, leaders and ministers,
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they're already involved in it. Yeah, I'll let the guys,
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uh, weigh in on that question, but yeah, what, from what I've seen,
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statistically speaking, most church leaders are using it for many
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tasks. Yeah, yeah. I think the latest—
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well, it was like 25% are using it for this or that. Anyway, I'll let
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them weigh into that though. But yeah, people are definitely using it. Gotcha,
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gotcha, gotcha. So yeah, I'm interested to hear,
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uh, you know, with, with every, uh, advent in
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technology, basically we, we go so much further.
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You know, at one point in time it was just kind of incremental.
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But now the next new thing, you know, you, you and I remember,
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Daniel, when, when Google takes off, like, it was
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a huge leap forward. You know, we're going from
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having to go to the library and, and research
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and, and get books to now I just type it in. And then
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you think of what happens when that takes place even with our mobile devices.
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So now we have all the knowledge in the world
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at our fingertips. Uh, so, so again, now here we
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are with a generative AI. So, uh, yes,
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I am, I'm looking forward to this, and hopefully, uh, our listeners
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are as well. Uh, well, Daniel, uh, I'll let you do this.
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Uh, tell us about our, uh, guest on
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today. Absolutely. So 2 guys who are brothers in
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Christ, uh, they are both solid on theology They both
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love Jesus passionately and they are disciple makers.
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And yet one of these guys, a big part of his living is
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helping ministries incorporate AI into their work.
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On the other hand, the other guy, he left
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the software company that he was with because they said that all employees here will
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incorporate AI into their work. So significant
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disagreement here. And together, these guys are going
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to help us wrestle with this question again, that if using generative
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AI, if it helps me get more ministry tasks done,
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you know, helping with, for example, administrative tasks so that
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maybe I can do more in-person ministry, what could possibly be wrong with that?
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Isn't that just a win-win? And so first,
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I'm going to introduce Wes Waddell. Wes Waddell is the
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CEO of Connect My Church, which is a tech company that creates tools to
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advance the gospel and help Christian ministries
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grow. Wes is a graduate of Harding University and Fuller
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Theological Seminary, and he's currently pursuing a PhD at Talbot School
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of Theology, where his research explores the use of emerging technology on
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the mission field. Okay, that's Wes. Wave, Wes, so we know
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who you are. And next is Doug Smith. Doug is a software developer
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and the author of the award-winning Unintentional: How Screens
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Secretly Shape Your Desires and How You Can Break Free, and author
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of the forthcoming Unintelligence: The Lies Behind Today's AI
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and the Truths You Need to Thrive. Wave,
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Doug, so we know who you are. Hey, Doug. So appreciate
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you guys. If you could start by just sharing,
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what do you think's at stake here? Why is this important to get right?
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What do we lose if we get this wrong? Wes, could you start?
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Yeah, I think, uh, I like technology. I've been playing
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with technology since I was a kid. I remember when the Atari came out,
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well, how cool that was. Then the Commodore 64 on the computer side,
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and wow, the world is changing, look at these awesome graphics.
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To MS-DOS, to Windows, all the way through. Built computers
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my whole life, always toyed around with technology.
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Have known about AI coming for a long time before it finally got
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here. So this was tech that I was excited about actually getting
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to play around with. And so whenever we started getting these chatbots
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early on, I was an early adopter. And, um,
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what was the question again, Daniel? Yeah, just what's at stake here
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if we get this wrong? What do we lose? I think
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what's at stake in my mind is Christianity.
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Throughout our history, we've always had, uh,
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early adopters when it comes to utilizing technology
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of the day to share the message and hope of Jesus Christ.
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And what excites me about AI, why I was excited about it before
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the tech even got here, was the idea that we could utilize this
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medium, uh, to share truth with
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people. And AI is one of those things that
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can be used for bad. It really can be. It can
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amplify evil, but it can also amplify good.
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And so I'm optimistic in my view and use of
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the technology. And for me, that's what's at stake.
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Um, we have people that are hungry for the gospel,
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that are hungry for biblical truth, that sometimes
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are in countries where the internet is censored
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or your life is in danger if you have faith in Jesus
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and express it. And so for people that are hungry
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for what we really take for granted here.
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Um, this is a tool that could help get those materials
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and that truth in their hands where they can learn and become
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close to Jesus because they're getting access to what we take for granted.
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And so for me, that's a big part of what's at stake, probably the most
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important thing. And I could say a lot more, uh, that we could
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lose, but the most important thing is souls. And that's,
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that's what really drives me to lean into this tech.
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Doug, what would you say we're in danger of losing if we
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get this wrong? Yeah, thanks, guys. And thanks
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for the opportunity to be here. Thanks, Wes. Appreciate being able to talk
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with you again. Well, like Wes, I'm a technologist, been a
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technologist all my life, grew up with it, electronics engineering degree.
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Um, tearing it apart, putting it back together, all those things. I've been
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all in on technology until, as Daniel mentioned, that I had to leave
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a job I love because we were being forced to use AI. So I've been
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looking at technology also, though, through other lenses,
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and especially big tech's flavor of technologies, which,
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which tend to be exploitative,
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manipulative, and intentionally designed. That's why my first
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book is called Unintentional. They intentionally designed their Their applications,
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especially we know about social media, the lawsuits that are coming against social media.
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This is their track record of manipulating people into using their products to
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make them addictive, just like big tobacco did. So to me,
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what I think is at stake is we risk losing
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the ability as churches to do the non-AI ministry
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work that only we can do. The, the reason AI is a
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big priority is because big tech has decided it's a priority.
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And when I say, and so again, we could, there's so many ways we can
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go, we have a short time. AI is a, I've been involved with AI especially
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in many, many different forms since it was expert systems
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in the '90s, that kind of a thing. So it's a squishy marketing term,
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it's very unhelpful. Generative AI chatbots is what
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we're talking about. And I think that's typically what Wes is talking about too.
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Um, so, but so those things specifically,
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generative AI chatbots in particular, because they're such a priority
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to me, I believe what our embrace of them actually leads us
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away from our mission, um, to reach
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souls for Christ, because it actually leads people away from truth by
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its very design. And so I think, um, I would, I would,
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that would be, you know, obviously Wes and I would see that differently. And so
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I think Yeah, we are called as a church to be engaged
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like Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, focused on uniquely human
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connectedness, loving God, loving each other. Big Tech's flavor
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of generative AI basically competes with everything I just said.
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It is against every aspect of engaging in truth in that
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way. Well, I couldn't be more
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grateful to have both of you on in this conversation. I think you're both
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going to make really helpful points, and I think a lot of us are kind
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of caught in between the practical
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arguments and the— I don't want to say practical versus
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principled, but there are definitely some principled arguments on the other side as well.
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So help us out here. Flesh this out.
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Wes, would you take maybe 5 minutes or so and just present a case
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as to why it should be okay for church leaders to use
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generative AI in ways that help them to
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do more ministry? So I just recently published an article
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in Christian Standard, uh, that's on this topic.
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And, uh, there are certain uses of AI,
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uh, as far as ministry application goes that I'm,
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I'm perfectly fine with. There are others that I think are not
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healthy at all, uh, and I'm sure Doug would agree, uh,
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on, on those, as you guys probably would too. But if
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there are administrative tasks that are just busy work
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that a generative AI tool could help take some of the burden
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off and free up a minister's time, uh, I think that's a good thing.
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You know, if you know you have certain events coming up or certain
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things that just need to be communicated, uh,
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I think letting a chat tool, uh, help speed
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that process up is actually a good thing because it frees you up to spend
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more time on things that you really need to be spending lot of time on.
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Um, when it comes to like sermon prep or things like
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that, I'm very cautious, uh, in my use of
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AI. Um, I don't think AI should be used to
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write sermons, uh, simply because if
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you're a preacher, your congregation needs a preacher that has been
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changed by the text, by getting in, digging in spending
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that time with the Lord and letting the Lord change you,
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and then you go up there and speak out of that, uh,
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experience that you've had in your personal life with the
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Lord and with applying those truths. Whenever you take a, an AI
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chatbot and get it to spit out a sermon for you, you lose that
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time and you rob yourself and you rob your congregation,
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and it, it will amplify laziness in that way. I don't
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think that's a good use. I think you've got to be really careful using
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AI for Bible study, just like you would be careful with a commentary.
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Uh, you don't just want to take a commentary and, and put it on the
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same level as the word of God. Um, so you just need to be careful.
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Understand, this is not— when you're using a generative AI
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chatbot, it's not the bastion of all truth. It is,
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uh, not morally ambiguous. It is trained
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on data And it's basically a complex math
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equation that is spitting out, uh,
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results just like an old Google search. It's just a
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lot more complicated than an old Google search.
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It is a much more complicated, uh,
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thing than that, but it's basically the same kind of thing where
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it's complex math that is spitting out based on a math equation
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the results that you're going to see when you ask it a question or things
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like that. And so I think you got to go into it with that mindset.
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This thing is, is not a person. It doesn't think. It's not
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your friend. It isn't it. It is a man-made creation.
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Um, I don't think AGI personally
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is possible, uh, just because I
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don't think we can create anything like a god. Uh, I think
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whatever we create, it's not going to be a super
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intelligence. It's, it's complex math,
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and so we just need to think about it like that. And, um, we could
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probably talk a lot more about AGI later if we want to, but,
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um, all kinds of things to be
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cautious about. But then there are also— because if you have the understanding
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this is complex math, that this is just a major search algorithm
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that's spitting out results, how could that be used in good
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ways, um, not only to take a burden
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off of a minister's plate, but like on the mission field, like I mentioned earlier,
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you've got people that are hungry for the Word of
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God that don't always have access to a teacher.
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And so if you can give them a tool that you can put
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in their hands that they could readily have access to,
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they could use that search algorithm technology to
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connect with resources that they need for
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their own learning. And as long as there's an understanding that,
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you know, this little tool is not God, it is not the bastion of all
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truth, it's just a tool, it can make mistakes,
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it's not perfect, I could see use
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like that for learning, just like
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we would use books or a commentary or things
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like that. We just have to be thinking about it the right way. And we
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are in such an infancy stage right now.
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Used to, when the internet first became popular, people thought that anything published
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on a website was true. And I remember fights among
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many people because somebody would try to justify an argument by
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saying, well, this website says it right here. Well, anybody could make a website.
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Nobody knew that. That wasn't like part of the cultural IQ back then.
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Now it is. Now it's like, who cares if it's on the internet? It could
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be wrong, you know. But whenever the internet first started becoming
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popular, nobody thought that way. It was just like, it's true if
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it's— and so I think the IQ of the
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populace is going to raise as we continue to
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adopt this technology. People are going to think about it more in
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a realistic way. But right now, you know, we're in that Commodore 64
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MS-DOS phase with AI tech. This is just starting.
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In the next few years, you know, what we have right now is fairly impressive.
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In the next few years, it's going to become way more impressive,
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especially as open source models are released. Agentic AI
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is coming. Team AI teams, agent teams are going to
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become a thing within the next year or two.
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Businesses are going to adopt it. There's just,
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there's going to be so much. Advancement.
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It's going to make our heads spin.
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So Wes, thanks for that. I would say in
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summary, it's kind of like don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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There's a lot of good that generative AI can
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accomplish for us. Doug, you don't see it
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in those terms. I think you see a lot
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more warning signs, um, even in the things that
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seem to just help our efficiency out. Um, so speak
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to that. Why don't you, um, give us 5 minutes or so of, of your
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perspective? Yeah, thank you. That was really good, Wes. Thank you so much.
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Um, I, I'm going to say that it was so well— you said so well
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said about the sermon prep, um, amplifying laziness,
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um, that it shouldn't be, shouldn't be used for that. That's really great. Um,
18:17.751 --> 18:21.105
Barna just did a study that showed that 24% of
18:21.362 --> 18:24.381
pastors are using it for writing or editing their sermons.
18:25.361 --> 18:28.653
And that was double over 2 years, that over
18:28.749 --> 18:33.310
2 years from a previous survey they had done 2 years ago. So pastors aren't
18:33.810 --> 18:37.083
listening to that. So pastors are being drawn in. And what
18:37.583 --> 18:41.275
I would say is that is by design. That is, that is fundamental to
18:41.775 --> 18:45.739
the architecture of what chatbots are as created by big technology companies.
18:46.477 --> 18:49.987
Um, so, um, one of the key things that,
18:50.163 --> 18:53.273
that Wes has been talking about is that this is an idea to communicate truth.
18:53.321 --> 18:57.024
And again, fundamentally by design, yes, it is a math equation,
18:57.072 --> 19:00.999
a big complex math equation, but it isn't really, um, with respect,
19:01.015 --> 19:04.766
it's, it's not like an old Google search. I agree with Wes that,
19:05.231 --> 19:08.901
um, that, uh, in the past, you know, you would search
19:08.933 --> 19:12.043
for Google search and a website might pop up and it might be unreliable,
19:12.059 --> 19:14.931
but that was written by a human. Who may or may not be reliable,
19:15.348 --> 19:19.651
right? We're taught in the Bible to test, test the spirits, to test sources,
19:19.828 --> 19:23.264
to find wise counsel. You know, we're supposed to find people who are wise.
19:23.312 --> 19:26.491
So we would look for wisdom on the internet. Now we can't,
19:26.732 --> 19:29.799
we don't know that because generative AI is generating so much content.
19:30.120 --> 19:33.396
The difference between a traditional Google search and generative
19:33.896 --> 19:37.314
AI is that not one word of generative AI is
19:37.346 --> 19:41.004
grounded in reality or truth. And that's because every
19:41.101 --> 19:44.758
word is generated by math, not by meaning. There's no connection
19:44.870 --> 19:48.495
to actually knowing what a word means. So it's not just that it sometimes hallucinates,
19:48.816 --> 19:52.152
it's that literally every word is ungrounded from truth. And so
19:52.264 --> 19:55.424
I think to me, it's a disastrous idea to use this on the mission
19:55.488 --> 19:59.642
field because these tools have, are not communicating
20:00.142 --> 20:04.181
truth. In fact, um, uh, Wes said that, that the
20:04.213 --> 20:07.582
IQ is going to raise. It's the studies are actually showing that our IQ
20:08.082 --> 20:11.164
that our IQs are declining with our current use of AI. There's this
20:11.582 --> 20:15.470
phenomenon called cognitive surrender that's being measured
20:15.679 --> 20:19.085
as people are led by chatbots away from
20:19.133 --> 20:22.089
truth. Because what chatbots are not created to lead us into truth,
20:22.683 --> 20:26.105
chatbots are created to lead us to use them more. That's the point of every
20:26.137 --> 20:29.382
big technology product. It's that it's to verify and
20:29.430 --> 20:32.884
validate us to keep us using them more. And so that's
20:33.384 --> 20:36.752
why pastors are using them. Pastors are busy. Right? And they, um, but they don't
20:36.800 --> 20:40.746
understand the design. They don't understand that's fundamentally not trained
20:40.890 --> 20:45.108
on the wisdom of human, that's trained on the internet, which is a subset.
20:45.460 --> 20:48.780
And then it's sliced and diced and changed into a math equation that
20:49.325 --> 20:53.238
then results in ungrounded of
20:53.415 --> 20:57.151
every word was created by something that had no idea what it meant. And so
20:57.167 --> 21:00.519
imagine going to someone and asking them to give you advice.
21:00.872 --> 21:04.573
And they had no idea what one word meant. That's what
21:05.073 --> 21:07.873
you're doing with generative AI and by trusting it for literally anything.
21:08.562 --> 21:12.295
And so, but again, fundamental to the architecture is
21:12.327 --> 21:15.788
a discipleship relationship. It's actually designed to cause you
21:16.288 --> 21:19.857
to want to trust it more. That's how the interface is created. The natural
21:20.357 --> 21:24.471
language user interfaces are so friendly and affirming and
21:24.487 --> 21:28.188
helpful and easy. And it's designed to be easy to use.
21:28.269 --> 21:31.571
Why? So that we'll use them more and become dependent and
21:32.071 --> 21:36.285
changed by our very use of it. So as Wes said so wisely that
21:37.302 --> 21:40.173
pastors shouldn't use it, that we have to be changed by the text, but they
21:40.237 --> 21:43.828
are being changed even in their simple quote-unquote administrative tasks or
21:44.424 --> 21:45.937
communicating certain things.
21:47.821 --> 21:51.754
That disciples— that usage is discipling people into using
21:51.851 --> 21:55.197
it for— into becoming a person who is dependent
21:55.522 --> 21:58.999
and then losing essential God-given abilities of critical thinking,
21:59.111 --> 22:02.804
discernment, wisdom, creativity, and innovation. Those things are
22:02.868 --> 22:06.015
lost by our dependency on generative AI. And, and again,
22:06.031 --> 22:09.853
studies are already showing that that's the case. And so, yeah, I suspect
22:10.353 --> 22:13.947
that most people approach this like from a pragmatic standpoint. They just like,
22:14.028 --> 22:16.517
oh, wow, chatbots are here. Let's see what they can do. And then they try
22:17.017 --> 22:20.964
them like, whoa, that's amazing. And then they believe certain stories that they're told
22:21.464 --> 22:23.967
about, oh, this is leading into truth, or this is the next best thing,
22:23.999 --> 22:27.257
and so on. And boy, I could save so much time. But what's happening is
22:27.289 --> 22:31.365
they're becoming the kind of person who is dependent upon it and
22:31.865 --> 22:35.922
who, um, who then end up being busy actively and
22:36.422 --> 22:39.485
efficiently creating stuff that AI can do. And they end up
22:39.985 --> 22:43.464
being changed into a person that now can't do the other things
22:43.496 --> 22:47.637
that they have lost as a result of that dependency. Again, these are fundamental
22:47.653 --> 22:51.584
design concerns in, in the architecture of today's generative
22:52.084 --> 22:55.446
AI. That again, I'm very concerned about, not because I'm afraid of technology,
22:55.802 --> 22:58.939
not because I'm a Luddite, not because of any of those reasons, but because I've
22:59.439 --> 23:03.231
been studying the fundamental architecture of how this is designed and what it's already
23:03.263 --> 23:05.785
doing to people and what it will probably continue to do.
23:09.710 --> 23:12.993
Yeah. And I agree with so much of
23:13.058 --> 23:16.099
what you're saying as well. And,
23:16.455 --> 23:20.115
you know, I used to live in, in near Silicon Valley
23:20.615 --> 23:24.392
in San Francisco, and I had many people I rubbed elbows
23:24.506 --> 23:28.904
with that worked for those social media companies. And I remember it,
23:30.500 --> 23:33.691
it was striking to me that none of the employees that I knew would let
23:34.191 --> 23:38.133
their children use those apps because
23:38.166 --> 23:40.511
they were addictive. And this was years ago.
23:42.416 --> 23:45.403
And when I say I believe the IQ needs to raise,
23:45.582 --> 23:49.273
I'm talking about Just
23:49.773 --> 23:53.239
like what we're seeing with the lawsuits coming out against the social media companies now
23:53.448 --> 23:57.976
where they're putting limits on how often
23:58.024 --> 24:01.798
children can use it and things like that, because the IQ of the
24:02.055 --> 24:05.298
populace is raising on the harm caused
24:05.346 --> 24:08.991
by the usage of certain things. And I'm in complete agreement.
24:09.039 --> 24:13.325
If you're farming
24:13.437 --> 24:16.868
out your brain cells to a chatbot all the time.
24:16.980 --> 24:20.731
Your brain is a muscle, and if you don't exercise it,
24:20.747 --> 24:24.434
it's gonna get where it's not strong anymore. And so
24:25.717 --> 24:28.731
I think we need— we do need to be careful about some of the things
24:28.827 --> 24:32.274
we're not using our brain for all
24:32.774 --> 24:35.063
the time and how much time we're spending on it and all those things.
24:35.255 --> 24:38.221
But I also think there's responsible use.
24:39.087 --> 24:42.694
Um, and, and I think that's where the
24:43.194 --> 24:46.733
happy medium is for me, is, is how do we use these things responsibly,
24:47.823 --> 24:51.366
uh, without doing harm to ourselves or others? And I think it can be
24:51.866 --> 24:55.261
done, but I think conversations like this are valuable because
24:55.774 --> 24:57.890
there's a lot of people that don't, don't even think about this stuff.
24:58.964 --> 25:02.186
Yeah, it is valuable. I'll just respond to that real quick.
25:02.346 --> 25:06.247
It is. Um, thank you, Wes. That's, um, The problem
25:06.521 --> 25:10.449
with, as you said, in my first book, I actually
25:10.949 --> 25:14.522
quote Silicon Valley elites who don't let their kids, they don't send
25:15.022 --> 25:17.913
their kids to schools where they use technology in the school,
25:18.732 --> 25:22.123
all while selling technology to our schools. Like we
25:22.623 --> 25:25.991
have to have technology in school. Now they're saying, you know, they won't,
25:26.072 --> 25:29.241
they'll still not send their kids to school. They're not using their, their kids
25:29.274 --> 25:32.819
aren't using AI. For education while they're selling, while there's Claude
25:32.851 --> 25:36.917
for Education from Anthropic that's totally being
25:36.949 --> 25:40.950
used on our kids. So they're happy to become trillionaires at our expense until the
25:41.450 --> 25:43.890
lawsuits come. And I'm just not willing to let that happen.
25:44.983 --> 25:48.679
The problem, again, the fundamental design, I actually wrote this
25:49.179 --> 25:52.712
in an early article to Renew on renewedog.org talking
25:53.212 --> 25:55.572
about how Craig Groeschel, the pastor of the largest church in the country, in the
25:55.589 --> 25:58.881
world probably, asks ChatGPT dozens of questions
25:59.381 --> 26:02.814
a day. That's his personal experience. He asks it dozens
26:03.314 --> 26:05.736
of questions a day. He puts his sermons in there and asks it, how will
26:05.784 --> 26:09.477
this land with certain people in the audience?
26:09.541 --> 26:12.817
How will, you know, critique this for me? It uses that as a critique partner,
26:13.636 --> 26:17.152
that kind of a thing. He has a discipleship relationship. The number one pastor in
26:17.248 --> 26:20.379
the, at least I guess the most popular pastor in the country
26:20.879 --> 26:23.839
has a discipleship relationship with a chatbot. And that is the design.
26:24.065 --> 26:26.688
That's what it's for. And so again,
26:27.461 --> 26:31.456
I think when we look for a happy medium, we are really pushing against
26:32.442 --> 26:36.097
fundamental architectures and designs that are leading even our elite,
26:36.728 --> 26:38.847
what we consider our most elite pastors astray.
26:43.030 --> 26:46.402
Wes, I've got a question for you, and thank you for all
26:46.450 --> 26:49.505
that you shared. And uh, your perspective on this.
26:49.922 --> 26:53.212
You know, when you look at how, let's say,
26:53.228 --> 26:56.503
the larger— and, and Doug is making that point— the
26:56.519 --> 27:00.980
larger churches to the smaller churches in their use of technology.
27:01.639 --> 27:05.523
Uh, I remember, uh, the COVID dynamic,
27:05.587 --> 27:09.567
and I could see how the churches that had a handle
27:09.760 --> 27:13.211
on technology fared a little bit better than those who
27:13.711 --> 27:16.817
didn't. And a lot of times they ended up being larger churches, staffed, etc.
27:17.217 --> 27:20.583
The smaller churches had to, you know, just kind of
27:21.083 --> 27:24.637
survive basically. As we look at this field within
27:25.214 --> 27:28.755
AI though, it, it almost seems like the leveling of the
27:29.255 --> 27:32.457
playing field of that, because now the smaller
27:32.746 --> 27:35.294
church who may not have the staff,
27:36.351 --> 27:39.332
this minister, this pastor, this, you know, who,
27:39.397 --> 27:43.315
whomever can use this as it— where do
27:43.331 --> 27:46.879
you see the line is basically the question
27:47.379 --> 27:51.568
we get into of what they consider, you know, menial task
27:51.760 --> 27:55.196
versus essential task. And the reason I, I ask that is
27:55.309 --> 27:57.364
kind of a longer way, but let me show you why I'm saying that.
27:57.942 --> 28:01.924
In the larger church, the pastor may, to real
28:02.133 --> 28:06.185
people, uh, you know delegate some of these
28:06.218 --> 28:09.531
tasks and he's not thinking about it
28:10.031 --> 28:13.249
in the way that we desire because we're saying, well, he's already delegated it.
28:14.284 --> 28:17.955
Where do you see the line of those things that they delegate to
28:18.327 --> 28:21.028
those people versus what you would delegate to AI?
28:23.942 --> 28:26.956
Uh, I think if it's something that involves, uh,
28:27.552 --> 28:31.748
discipleship, counseling a
28:32.248 --> 28:34.760
personal touch, human-to-human touch,
28:36.541 --> 28:40.102
those should never be delegated to a chatbot.
28:41.234 --> 28:44.355
A chatbot cannot be your friend. It doesn't have a soul.
28:45.292 --> 28:49.011
It doesn't think. It's processing. It is not
28:49.511 --> 28:53.804
a human. And if
28:53.853 --> 28:57.073
there is busywork like administrative
28:57.573 --> 29:01.571
tasks that are just straight up busywork that you
29:02.071 --> 29:05.356
can fire off quickly through an AI tool.
29:06.260 --> 29:09.684
That's more what I have in mind when I say
29:12.898 --> 29:16.972
let the chatbot do that. Repurposing sermon content
29:17.406 --> 29:21.109
for publishing on a website is busywork
29:21.254 --> 29:25.245
that is honestly more effectively done by an AI tool. If you take the
29:25.745 --> 29:29.541
transcript that you've already labored over, that you've already
29:29.573 --> 29:33.468
poured your heart and soul into, that you spent hours prepping,
29:34.061 --> 29:37.508
and then you go preach a sermon and you take that transcript
29:38.008 --> 29:42.236
and run it through an AI and say, turn this into descriptions for
29:42.736 --> 29:45.426
our post on the website, turn this into a devotional.
29:46.228 --> 29:50.315
Anytime I have AI write, for instance, a devotional
29:50.460 --> 29:54.107
based on a sermon, I will go and edit that thing hard.
29:54.509 --> 29:58.124
I don't just have it spit out something that I then go put in people's
29:58.624 --> 30:01.740
hands unless I've thoroughly checked it. Same with social media posts.
30:02.463 --> 30:06.319
I think you can repurpose content for social media posts
30:06.819 --> 30:10.144
for like a church webpage or something like that, but you always want to
30:10.160 --> 30:13.856
have a human go and edit it and check it and
30:13.872 --> 30:18.188
make sure it aligns with what you believe. And that's
30:18.688 --> 30:22.531
the kind of stuff that will take hours to do if you were
30:23.031 --> 30:26.745
just doing it one by one. Hours and hours is
30:26.841 --> 30:30.302
how much— I mean, we used to have to pay people sometimes to be in
30:30.802 --> 30:33.730
a staff position to go do that. But you can,
30:33.971 --> 30:37.912
you can knock that out in 30 minutes to an hour for like a week
30:38.457 --> 30:41.774
with a chatbot. And that frees you up
30:42.274 --> 30:46.763
to do all these other things that honestly, matter more than,
30:47.038 --> 30:50.979
than, uh, social media posts are important. It's a touchpoint with the community.
30:51.399 --> 30:54.569
Yeah, but there are other things that matter more. This, this hurting brother
30:55.069 --> 30:58.167
or sister over here that I could go be spending time with, this woman that
30:58.183 --> 31:01.330
just had a miscarriage that I could go be spending time with, whatever.
31:02.878 --> 31:06.243
It frees you up to go spend time with people. And,
31:06.323 --> 31:09.879
um, you know, that's the kind of thing I would use it
31:10.379 --> 31:13.797
for. I would not— I've seen horror
31:14.297 --> 31:17.290
stories of some of these pastors who clone themselves,
31:17.402 --> 31:20.832
quote unquote, so that their members can
31:21.332 --> 31:25.703
go get counsel from them. That is crazy to me. That's irresponsible.
31:25.831 --> 31:28.940
It's not true. And it's going to harm
31:29.440 --> 31:32.770
people. I don't ever think we should use chatbots
31:33.270 --> 31:36.167
for that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
31:36.392 --> 31:39.549
Thank you. Wes, you're a dad,
31:39.776 --> 31:44.617
and how do you help kids love
31:45.359 --> 31:49.438
work, love hard work in an era in which there
31:49.551 --> 31:51.243
is an easy button for everything now?
31:53.109 --> 31:55.269
I don't think there is an easy button for everything.
31:56.010 --> 31:57.880
I'm working on my PhD.
32:00.152 --> 32:04.139
It's not easy. I have all these AI tools. But I
32:04.155 --> 32:07.622
also use them ethically and responsibly. They don't write my papers
32:07.736 --> 32:11.516
for me. They don't read my books for me. You know,
32:11.597 --> 32:14.346
Doug, if you had sent me your book before this, I wouldn't have put it
32:14.846 --> 32:18.027
into an AI and said to summarize it. I would have read it because I
32:18.527 --> 32:21.414
know you wouldn't have wanted me to put it into an AI and summarize it.
32:22.159 --> 32:25.852
That's work. And it's just, you know, it's just as
32:25.949 --> 32:28.800
easy as it was before AI became a thing. And so,
32:29.202 --> 32:32.893
I think that's a wrong characterization to say there's an easy button
32:33.393 --> 32:36.504
for everything. Well, let me clarify, Wes. I mean,
32:37.129 --> 32:40.612
you like hard work, you have a work ethic.
32:40.660 --> 32:45.972
And so my question is, for those that are growing up that they
32:46.472 --> 32:49.999
could get their degree through having AI create all
32:50.064 --> 32:54.236
of their papers and that easy button is there, easy access,
32:54.461 --> 32:57.955
how do you help that kid love the value
32:58.455 --> 33:01.291
of hard work? Because you already have it, but what about that kid that,
33:02.166 --> 33:04.644
you know, they don't have to have that?
33:08.350 --> 33:11.876
You know, I was really lazy growing up, and so I'm just thinking,
33:11.925 --> 33:14.915
how did I get to where I kind of flipped the switch?
33:17.125 --> 33:19.920
Before I became a Christian, I was incredibly lazy,
33:20.583 --> 33:24.607
and I guarantee you if this tick had this tech had been around,
33:25.506 --> 33:28.720
uh, prior to that, I would have been using it to cheat
33:29.220 --> 33:33.380
on tests. I would have been figuring out ways to, to get my papers written
33:33.880 --> 33:37.172
with it. Um, but I also deep down
33:37.672 --> 33:40.996
had a really low view of myself back then.
33:41.109 --> 33:43.776
I felt like I was a piece of trash. I've got a lot of trauma
33:44.276 --> 33:48.114
and stuff in my background. Um, and so I think
33:48.404 --> 33:52.380
for kids, a lot of times, uh, they're also
33:52.412 --> 33:55.746
internally struggling with their
33:55.794 --> 33:59.610
identity and who they are. And, and a lot of times we give ourselves
33:59.706 --> 34:03.200
permission to do or not do based on how we
34:03.312 --> 34:06.342
deep down view ourselves, even if we don't tell other people about it.
34:07.160 --> 34:10.622
And so I think, uh, helping kids fall madly in
34:11.122 --> 34:14.597
love with Jesus is step number one. Whatever we can do to
34:14.613 --> 34:17.885
help them do that. Because that's where your identity is
34:17.997 --> 34:22.058
grounded, where you understand I have worth, I have purpose. God doesn't
34:22.090 --> 34:25.829
make trash. God has a plan and a purpose for me. And so
34:25.845 --> 34:29.392
I'm going to enter into this area
34:29.892 --> 34:33.549
of work and I'm going to model my work ethic after biblical
34:33.565 --> 34:37.417
principles. And I think, you know, you can have a strong work
34:37.917 --> 34:40.851
ethic without having faith, but if you ask me how I would do it,
34:41.493 --> 34:44.752
um, That's how I would do it, is I would try to instill a
34:44.945 --> 34:48.251
really strong faith. And we do try to do that with our own children,
34:49.038 --> 34:52.055
uh, and I've got 2 in college right now, 2 in high school, so I,
34:52.248 --> 34:54.478
I know the, I know the struggle and the battles.
34:55.297 --> 34:58.523
And, uh, I've got some great kids. God has blessed me with them.
34:58.764 --> 35:02.150
And, um, that's what we try to instill in them, is just
35:02.650 --> 35:05.793
a strong faith. And I feel like you work out of that faith. And,
35:06.451 --> 35:09.569
you know, scripture says work as if you're working for God himself.
35:11.273 --> 35:14.837
And so for a disciple of Jesus, you've got a foundation there for
35:15.337 --> 35:18.369
a very strong work ethic. I think Christians should be the strongest workers,
35:19.653 --> 35:22.396
not the ones using AI to amplify their laziness.
35:23.451 --> 35:27.248
And that's the thing with AI. It will amplify laziness or it
35:27.280 --> 35:31.615
will amplify work ethic. It's an amplification
35:31.648 --> 35:33.975
tool. Doug, you have a comment? Can I respond?
35:35.098 --> 35:38.107
Yeah, please. If you don't mind, I, yeah, I want to respond
35:38.607 --> 35:41.828
to a couple of the things that, that was really good though, Wes. I think,
35:44.502 --> 35:47.875
I think I do want to say that kids are in a uniquely difficult position
35:47.972 --> 35:51.345
with the apps available. And I would just say
35:51.377 --> 35:54.691
really clearly, there's no reason any kid, any teen should ever
35:55.191 --> 35:58.415
use a chatbot at all. I think you have permission as a parent.
35:59.128 --> 36:02.774
Just say no. There is no, there's no upside. There's really no upside.
36:02.854 --> 36:06.028
There's zero. It takes zero training to use them.
36:06.621 --> 36:09.298
They can learn it in an hour if it really becomes an essential skill.
36:09.427 --> 36:12.825
It's not, but it, but it, it is all
36:12.889 --> 36:16.400
about the entrapment. They cannot, their brains cannot,
36:16.416 --> 36:20.104
simply cannot push back against the intrinsically
36:20.604 --> 36:23.662
addictive nature of a chatbot. It's designed on
36:23.759 --> 36:27.157
purpose to form a relationship. Kids are committing suicide.
36:27.706 --> 36:31.390
Kids are forming sexual relationships. 30-some percent
36:31.519 --> 36:35.122
of kids' first sexual encounters these days are with a chatbot.
36:37.547 --> 36:41.469
30%. They have their first romantic relationships are with a chatbot.
36:41.696 --> 36:45.703
There's zero reason. Would you let your kids smoke crack? Do not let
36:45.899 --> 36:49.514
them. Do not let them use a chatbot if you get nothing else out
36:50.014 --> 36:53.425
of this. So, and there's a, there's lots of studies
36:53.458 --> 36:57.191
or lots of books. I would recommend listening to Cal Newport.
36:57.913 --> 37:01.172
He has some great stuff on this recently. He's been talking about this,
37:01.300 --> 37:05.506
especially against kids. And there's a great book on education called
37:05.634 --> 37:09.246
The Digital Delusion by Dr. Jared Horvath that if
37:09.746 --> 37:12.569
you think you should use AI for education, just read that book first and then
37:13.002 --> 37:15.619
come and talk to me. The other one is,
37:16.759 --> 37:20.547
just real quickly, back to when Anthony,
37:20.563 --> 37:24.460
you asked Wes about good uses for efficiency. I just
37:24.960 --> 37:29.045
want to really push against this idea that there is busywork
37:30.151 --> 37:33.421
that should be done with AI, especially by small churches.
37:34.896 --> 37:37.701
I think, you know, first of all, I'd like to say generative AI has only
37:38.201 --> 37:42.013
been around for like 4 years. What did you do before? This is not God's
37:42.513 --> 37:45.636
gift to you necessarily. If you're— you are too busy, you are overworked, but just
37:46.136 --> 37:49.773
prioritize, get volunteers like you used to, There's ways to get work done
37:50.030 --> 37:53.417
that needs to be done. I don't think the internet, the social media in particular,
37:53.465 --> 37:56.884
needs more AI-generated content. I'm really concerned
37:57.384 --> 38:01.346
about repurposing sermon content. All text generated by
38:01.426 --> 38:04.700
AI, I call it word sausage. That's a term that I'm using.
38:05.134 --> 38:08.247
It's hard. It's because the words that are generated, even from your
38:08.747 --> 38:12.469
content, when you, when it comes out, it's mixed together
38:12.501 --> 38:16.176
with the algorithm and it has a tone, it has a voice, and it has
38:16.289 --> 38:19.884
things that aren't right. And yes, someone as smart who can get your PhD
38:20.384 --> 38:24.393
like Wes can edit effectively and make it probably right. Most of
38:24.893 --> 38:28.164
us who don't have that level of education probably can't do that because it's mixed
38:28.664 --> 38:32.337
together word sausage. It's really hard. It frames the conversation. So I really would
38:32.837 --> 38:36.237
want to push against that. Your voice is being changed when you
38:36.253 --> 38:39.815
use AI to write or even to change and repurpose content. So I
38:39.880 --> 38:43.442
really want to invite people to consider if someone else is doing the writing for
38:43.555 --> 38:45.545
you, even if it's a machine,
38:46.540 --> 38:50.151
you're not the person doing it. And so the people that are reading it aren't
38:50.651 --> 38:54.067
getting your voice. They really aren't. And so does social media
38:54.567 --> 38:56.988
really need to be filled with more AI content? Do they really need that extra
38:57.488 --> 39:00.615
thing? I would say that I don't think they need it. And because of AI,
39:00.663 --> 39:04.017
there's so much more of it. They, because the word of the year last
39:04.517 --> 39:07.789
year in 2025, the word of the year was slop. And that's because of
39:08.289 --> 39:11.754
AI. So people just aren't going to read it. Right? They need you. They need
39:12.254 --> 39:14.312
your voice. They need your presence. And anything that's getting in the way of that,
39:14.442 --> 39:17.323
including AI, should be deprioritized.
39:18.343 --> 39:21.143
So yeah, thanks. Doug, did you have a question?
39:21.662 --> 39:24.078
Yeah, Doug, do you have a— Go ahead, Anthony. We're right on it, Daniel.
39:24.127 --> 39:26.589
I was going to ask Doug if you had a question for Wes.
39:28.319 --> 39:28.352
Ooh.
39:32.605 --> 39:34.853
Thank you for shifting that. I'm not ready for that.
39:36.258 --> 39:38.942
I, so I guess when I,
39:40.035 --> 39:43.765
I feel like Wes
39:44.134 --> 39:48.095
is so bright and smart
39:48.159 --> 39:52.055
and gets this so clearly. I guess, have you had
39:52.555 --> 39:56.415
experience with people who aren't at your educational level who are being drawn
39:56.463 --> 39:59.872
in in unintentional ways by AI?
40:00.065 --> 40:03.786
Have you seen harmful? Oh yes. Uses? I mean, because you're
40:04.286 --> 40:07.764
aware, you have high guards and sensitivities to these
40:07.797 --> 40:11.246
things. But I guess, because I've seen a lot, I'm seeing, I'm studying this a
40:11.262 --> 40:14.615
lot, I'm seeing a lot of harms. But I'm wondering if you have that experience
40:15.115 --> 40:18.273
with people who are being hurt by this. Absolutely. I think one of
40:18.305 --> 40:21.338
the harmful things I'm seeing right now are what
40:21.838 --> 40:25.766
you brought up earlier. And those are the character chatbots that teens
40:25.926 --> 40:29.247
and young people are getting into. Unbeknownst to their parents
40:29.295 --> 40:33.079
a lot of times. I think screen time needs to be tightly monitored.
40:33.143 --> 40:36.863
We've always had really strict limits on my kids since they were—
40:37.393 --> 40:40.648
their whole lives about how much screen time they get daily,
40:41.321 --> 40:43.647
and we monitor closely their screen time.
40:44.593 --> 40:48.441
And one of the things that scares me to death are some
40:48.941 --> 40:52.450
of the, you know, friends of my children over the years, the, the kids who
40:52.950 --> 40:55.915
just have completely unmonitored screen time with their families at home,
40:56.862 --> 41:00.698
um, that get into really dark corners of the internet.
41:00.874 --> 41:04.421
And, and what's crazy, since generative AI has become a
41:04.921 --> 41:08.739
thing, is, uh, some of the dark corners of the internet don't look like dark
41:09.239 --> 41:12.559
corners of the internet, uh, with some of these chatbots that
41:12.607 --> 41:17.229
look like toys that are marketed to young people that kids are getting
41:17.422 --> 41:20.359
emotionally connected to in really unhealthy ways.
41:20.520 --> 41:23.806
Sometimes sexually, but even just emotionally,
41:23.982 --> 41:27.493
even if there's no sexuality to it. The fact that they think this thing is
41:27.525 --> 41:32.382
their friend and, uh, they, they start forming attachments
41:32.735 --> 41:36.518
that are really unfounded and addictions. It can be
41:36.566 --> 41:40.205
like smoking crack. And, and then they are designed to keep
41:40.269 --> 41:43.924
you on there. A lot of these, uh, even smaller AI companies
41:44.101 --> 41:47.725
run a model where they serve advertising on their sites. And so they're
41:48.225 --> 41:51.531
incentivized to keep people there as long as possible so that they can make
41:51.643 --> 41:55.689
money. It's, it's how they make money. Uh, same with like social media.
41:55.754 --> 41:59.045
And so that's one of the really harmful things that I'm seeing. You also see
41:59.545 --> 42:03.589
cases of AI psychosis, not just with children but with older people as
42:03.766 --> 42:07.266
well, with this tool that's taught to affirm them, affirm them, affirm them.
42:08.021 --> 42:11.345
A lot of people didn't know for years, uh, Facebook, Instagram,
42:11.473 --> 42:14.378
all those algorithmically are serving you content.
42:14.523 --> 42:18.166
YouTube is algorithmically serving you content that
42:18.214 --> 42:21.424
is designed to keep you glued to the screen so that they can
42:21.504 --> 42:24.859
serve you more ads. And AI is much
42:24.955 --> 42:28.245
the same way. They're incentivized through subscriptions. They want
42:28.745 --> 42:31.439
you to sit there as long as possible. And now they're going to start introducing
42:31.696 --> 42:35.211
ads on some of the bigger platforms, which again, the platform
42:35.259 --> 42:37.987
is incentivized to get you to sit there as long as possible.
42:38.437 --> 42:41.892
So affirmation, telling you what you— they— it
42:42.068 --> 42:45.314
thinks you want to hear. Uh, I've seen people,
42:45.828 --> 42:49.058
uh, go down rabbit holes and fall into
42:49.138 --> 42:53.171
echo chambers because they have watched certain things,
42:54.023 --> 42:57.349
uh, on YouTube, for instance, and then they start getting fed— like
42:57.397 --> 43:01.350
the whole QAnon phenomenon, uh, which now this video
43:01.850 --> 43:04.194
is going to go crazy places algorithmically because I just mentioned that.
43:05.029 --> 43:09.511
Um, but, uh, I knew really
43:09.639 --> 43:13.237
smart, bright, professional people during COVID who
43:13.737 --> 43:16.980
got into these conspiracies and just sort of mentally went off the rails.
43:18.040 --> 43:22.232
Uh, and we see the same kind of behavior with chatbot
43:22.732 --> 43:26.730
use. And so one of the reasons, Doug, conversations like
43:27.230 --> 43:31.182
we're having publicly are so important is because people need
43:31.682 --> 43:35.365
to be educated to the dangers. Because there
43:35.578 --> 43:39.514
are bright people— it has nothing to do with education level.
43:40.942 --> 43:44.318
It's just how do we think about these things, whether you have
43:44.594 --> 43:48.213
advanced degrees or not? How do we
43:48.713 --> 43:52.377
think about these things? People need to understand the dangers and understand what
43:52.877 --> 43:57.513
they're getting into. You are using a tool that is an
43:58.013 --> 43:59.657
incentivized to keep you there as long as possible and tell you you're right all
43:59.786 --> 44:02.942
the time, even when you're not. And that's very dangerous if you don't
44:02.990 --> 44:06.326
understand that. Doug, thank you,
44:06.407 --> 44:09.215
Wes. And that was rich.
44:10.781 --> 44:14.170
Doug, I've got a couple of questions for you. I'm trying to limit
44:14.670 --> 44:18.342
it just to what's most salient here.
44:19.349 --> 44:21.851
I remember in my experience, Um,
44:22.590 --> 44:26.106
coming up, you know, we played outside,
44:26.299 --> 44:29.253
we rode our bikes, we did all that kind of stuff.
44:29.654 --> 44:33.267
Um, and, and we weren't, uh, wealthy, so we didn't
44:33.767 --> 44:36.864
have the, you know, Nintendo and all that kind of stuff. My friends did,
44:36.896 --> 44:40.268
but we didn't have it. So it, it— my
44:40.493 --> 44:44.250
upbringing had a lot to do with interpersonal relationships.
44:44.587 --> 44:47.959
You know, I really had to develop that. And I can remember
44:48.040 --> 44:51.879
even in my faith and growing into Christ and beginning preaching,
44:52.650 --> 44:56.249
again, my background was research-based
44:56.749 --> 45:00.972
and study-based and reading books, etc. But I remember I
45:01.472 --> 45:05.614
was late teen, uh, going to a bookstore and seeing
45:05.791 --> 45:09.791
a book in the— you know, it was a Christian bookstore— and seeing,
45:09.904 --> 45:13.518
you know, these commentaries that had, you know, sermon outlines for
45:14.018 --> 45:17.048
the year. And I'm thinking Wait a minute, it took me, you know,
45:17.289 --> 45:20.978
months or weeks to come up with this lesson, and here's a book
45:21.058 --> 45:24.956
that has hundreds of already prepared sermon outlines.
45:25.614 --> 45:29.768
And you're looking on the same aisle, you know, 1001 Sermon Illustrations,
45:29.880 --> 45:33.249
and I'm thinking, wait, I could just take this out of this book
45:33.749 --> 45:38.093
and take this out of this book. I've got my sermon, I've got my illustration,
45:38.221 --> 45:41.557
which that book also has a few jokes in it. Like, this is already
45:41.590 --> 45:44.798
put together. I'll fast forward to, you know,
45:45.023 --> 45:48.167
Logos. There's, there's a biblical, uh, tool, you know,
45:48.231 --> 45:51.761
commentary, Bible studies, all that kind of stuff. And I can remember,
45:51.777 --> 45:54.793
you know, going through some of the trainings of that and seeing,
45:55.306 --> 45:58.643
you know, they've got question generators, they've got all of this,
45:58.755 --> 46:02.188
and it's a great tool, no doubt. I get all that from the tool
46:02.688 --> 46:06.648
space. I'm asking your distinction
46:07.097 --> 46:10.609
between those two as it relates to laziness,
46:10.673 --> 46:13.726
etc., compared to generative AI?
46:15.332 --> 46:18.256
Oh, that's such a great question, Anthony. Thank you so much. I, like you,
46:18.321 --> 46:21.074
I grew up in a, in a home that, you know, we didn't have all
46:21.574 --> 46:24.202
the latest technology, rode our bikes, threw rocks at each other. You know, it's a
46:24.218 --> 46:28.151
wonder we survived. But so those
46:28.183 --> 46:31.703
were intentionally kind of hard. Like, actually didn't— there was
46:31.735 --> 46:34.560
not— there wasn't anything in the way of growing up kind of and wrestling with
46:35.060 --> 46:38.733
hard things. So our kids, in a way, have it harder because they have
46:39.233 --> 46:42.404
so much technology, as Wes was talking about. So yeah, that's a really good question
46:42.597 --> 46:45.931
as far as what's the distinction. So first of all,
46:46.043 --> 46:49.442
plagiarism has been a problem ever since, you know, way before
46:50.211 --> 46:53.353
even the internet, right? I mean, if you're preaching someone else's sermon and you don't
46:53.853 --> 46:57.345
say so, you're stealing from your congregation. You shouldn't do that.
46:57.970 --> 47:00.583
You know, if you're preaching whoever's sermon,
47:01.192 --> 47:03.968
and you don't give them credit for it, that's wrong.
47:04.080 --> 47:07.481
That's bearing false witness, I would say. That's a
47:07.610 --> 47:11.444
breach of your integrity before it. So we shouldn't
47:11.524 --> 47:16.561
ever do that. Now, should we get ideas from other— I think pastors
47:16.978 --> 47:20.765
disciple other pastors. I'm sure you do. I'm sure you lead and encourage
47:20.829 --> 47:23.508
younger pastors who, you know, here's what I do.
47:24.438 --> 47:28.354
How do you show up and prepare a message every Sunday? That's a crushing burden
47:28.546 --> 47:31.902
for most people, right? And so, you know, to have a shortcut,
47:31.918 --> 47:35.451
to have a technique and a process, I get the
47:35.951 --> 47:39.995
attraction of that. The distinction that I would say is,
47:40.348 --> 47:43.447
well, obviously, if you're crediting those people, you should totally credit
47:43.479 --> 47:46.723
them. But the difference also between those books and generative AI
47:46.835 --> 47:50.223
is that the books were written by people. And so the people who wrote them
47:50.723 --> 47:53.802
knew what they were talking about, knew what they intended to say. Were they trustworthy?
47:54.219 --> 47:57.443
Well, that's where discernment comes in. That's where we need discipleship and we need to
47:57.943 --> 48:00.971
know, well, don't read— you shouldn't read from that guy. He's a prosperity gospel.
48:01.035 --> 48:04.499
You shouldn't read from that guy. He's like, you know, he's a cult leader,
48:04.884 --> 48:07.803
you know? So, you know, you have to have discernment. So just because a human
48:08.303 --> 48:11.925
said it, that doesn't make it legit either, right? But generative AI is
48:11.957 --> 48:15.709
specifically not grounded to truth at all. Like it's trained
48:16.209 --> 48:19.398
on human-generated data until it doesn't have enough, and then it's going to have
48:19.898 --> 48:22.557
to be trained on AI-generated data. And that's where it's going to actually degrade.
48:22.878 --> 48:26.279
It's not going to get better. Um, but so,
48:26.408 --> 48:30.082
so not only do you have to have the discernment of, of whether
48:30.582 --> 48:33.900
a human said this, but every single word was mathematically chosen, not based on
48:33.996 --> 48:37.638
whether the mean— whether it meant, um, something, but based
48:37.686 --> 48:41.408
on whether that word was more probabilistically likely to show up
48:41.617 --> 48:45.242
before, after the previous word. And also that would keep you, as Wes was
48:45.742 --> 48:48.178
saying, keep you using this more. Like, will this encourage you to keep me using
48:48.274 --> 48:51.820
it more? That's what it's chosen for, not for truth. So it's, it's way,
48:51.900 --> 48:55.717
way more risky to use generative AI for any
48:55.830 --> 48:59.214
kind of advice, especially, um,
48:59.503 --> 49:03.160
spiritual advice. Like, tell me what John
49:03.209 --> 49:06.802
3:16 means. Like, don't ask Anthony what
49:06.818 --> 49:09.657
John 3:16 means. Do not ask generative AI,
49:10.411 --> 49:12.705
um, because you will get an answer that sounds great,
49:13.635 --> 49:16.523
good enough, close. I'm busy, here we go, let's, let's— I got a sermon to
49:17.023 --> 49:21.356
preach. Like, do not, do not do that. And the temptation is so strong because
49:21.404 --> 49:24.118
it does prey on our weaknesses,
49:24.696 --> 49:28.100
um, because we are busy, we are stressed, and if I can save this time
49:28.600 --> 49:31.985
or whatever— but again, you're becoming a different person when you become dependent upon
49:32.017 --> 49:35.470
that technology. So I hope that answered your question, Anthony.
49:36.032 --> 49:38.665
And I would have, I guess, a different view.
49:39.147 --> 49:42.615
Uh, I believe taking the book with
49:42.679 --> 49:46.324
outlines, uh, that's part of how I learned to preach.
49:46.709 --> 49:50.145
And that's part of when I went to college, how they taught us to preach,
49:50.242 --> 49:53.870
is we examined sermons. And so I guess if
49:54.370 --> 49:58.575
somebody's pouring their heart and soul into preparing a really good sermon and
49:58.655 --> 50:02.332
then they're presenting that orally, I don't see a big difference between
50:02.589 --> 50:06.282
analyzing that oral presentation and analyzing a written
50:06.782 --> 50:10.037
presentation like that's put out in a book. Those are both human,
50:10.615 --> 50:14.257
you know, it's both human content. Um, and so
50:14.321 --> 50:18.444
I don't mind learning from that. Uh, there are pretty big outfits.
50:18.492 --> 50:21.765
I know Rick Warren puts out tons of sermon kits.
50:21.845 --> 50:25.872
Max Lucado and a lot of other authors put out curriculum
50:26.372 --> 50:29.610
kits where they have, uh, curated sermons
50:29.642 --> 50:33.316
with outlines, DVDs, uh, you know, small group
50:33.816 --> 50:37.218
curriculum, all that stuff. I don't necessarily think it's wrong, uh,
50:37.443 --> 50:42.131
to utilize those kits sometimes. What I think is wrong is,
50:42.469 --> 50:46.258
uh, if you get a sermon outline as part of a
50:46.758 --> 50:49.229
kit or part of the book you mentioned, Anthony, or something like that, you need
50:49.729 --> 50:53.773
to make it your own. You need to wrestle with the text. You need
50:53.805 --> 50:58.060
to dig into those scriptures. You need to make sure those illustrations
50:58.560 --> 51:02.088
align. Or insert your own content, you know. But I
51:02.588 --> 51:06.132
don't, I don't morally have a problem with, with using those
51:06.245 --> 51:09.053
things. And I guess that's why, um,
51:09.470 --> 51:12.969
similarly, I— with AI though, what Doug
51:13.469 --> 51:16.917
said is completely valid. Like, you got to be so
51:17.417 --> 51:20.801
careful because it will just inject things into
51:20.913 --> 51:23.690
the conversation and it will, uh,
51:24.123 --> 51:27.960
potentially make something up based on your previous conversation
51:28.136 --> 51:32.406
history and things like that. And so that's not human-curated
51:32.906 --> 51:36.388
content, that's the algorithm doing what the algorithm
51:36.500 --> 51:40.241
does. And when you're doing something as weighty as
51:40.289 --> 51:43.965
sermon prep, you just need to be so, so careful
51:44.465 --> 51:48.268
to guard for truth. And I'm more comfortable with a human-curated,
51:48.766 --> 51:52.362
um, piece of curriculum than I am just just spitting
51:52.458 --> 51:56.151
it into an AI unvetted. Yeah. And seeing what it spits
51:56.651 --> 51:59.892
out. I have a research degree, so I mean, I can go check all that
51:59.957 --> 52:03.537
stuff, but not everybody knows how to go check. I've got,
52:03.634 --> 52:07.246
I've got a library of over 20,000 books. I can go check
52:07.746 --> 52:11.598
it. Yeah. Not everybody can. And so I think just a mass use
52:11.726 --> 52:15.612
of, of that stuff is not, is, is not wise
52:15.676 --> 52:19.173
for sermon prep. You know, I, I Hopefully I can, I can
52:19.221 --> 52:22.844
say this without successful contradiction. I think all
52:22.956 --> 52:26.339
of us on this call, this, this, this, this,
52:26.419 --> 52:30.315
uh, uh, podcast are 40 plus.
52:31.292 --> 52:34.915
Yeah. Okay, okay. So, so the world that we
52:34.995 --> 52:38.410
know— just barely, right? Yeah, no,
52:39.147 --> 52:42.305
I wish. The world that we
52:42.386 --> 52:45.496
know Um, you know, a good deal of it.
52:45.656 --> 52:49.263
We know a lot about the world 30 years ago.
52:49.583 --> 52:53.928
Like, even though we were 10-ish, 15-ish, etc., we know that world.
52:54.697 --> 52:57.967
And the, the world that we grew up in, as I mentioned,
52:58.384 --> 53:02.296
we spent a lot of time mentally, we spent a lot of time interpersonally,
53:02.312 --> 53:06.143
we spent a lot of time with books. We did not derive
53:06.720 --> 53:10.656
our identity a lot from when
53:11.156 --> 53:14.466
I say external sources, external being, you know, the internet,
53:14.563 --> 53:17.956
the radio, the whatever, you know, we— if it was external, it was
53:17.988 --> 53:20.854
people, you know, it was your family, your parents, your friends, etc.
53:21.794 --> 53:24.190
But now, kids,
53:24.385 --> 53:29.046
we've got a world where, you know, if they were born 26
53:29.546 --> 53:33.909
years ago, their whole life has been technology.
53:34.198 --> 53:36.976
You know, they don't know a world without a cell phone. You know, I,
53:37.489 --> 53:41.847
I'm watching movies with my son now that, you know, were pre-2000,
53:41.879 --> 53:45.709
and he's like, why didn't he just call him? It's like, he didn't
53:46.209 --> 53:48.945
have a cell phone. Like, we had phones you actually had to go pay to
53:49.074 --> 53:52.759
use, you know. So, so with that,
53:53.096 --> 53:56.509
a concern that I look at is the kids
53:56.621 --> 54:00.194
now, they've grown up with Google, so they've grown
54:00.290 --> 54:03.959
up with being able to go to the internet and just
54:04.056 --> 54:07.246
get this information or get link, link, link, link, link of information.
54:07.919 --> 54:11.894
Now there's going to be a generation that comes up that they only
54:11.943 --> 54:15.742
know going to the chatbot. You know, they, they don't
54:15.758 --> 54:19.028
have— so, so I, I say that some of the filters,
54:19.300 --> 54:22.314
Wes, that you have, Doug, you have, Daniel, we all have,
54:22.971 --> 54:26.322
we have those filters because we grew up in a different world.
54:26.658 --> 54:30.201
Like, we knew— Wes, you made the statement early on, like, you know,
54:30.345 --> 54:34.016
we We knew, or at least we got quickly on—
54:34.432 --> 54:37.734
we don't just trust it because it's on the internet. Why? Because we've lived in
54:38.234 --> 54:41.934
a world of tangible. We know, right? They're coming up in
54:41.982 --> 54:45.428
a world where it doesn't. And I don't—
54:45.928 --> 54:49.932
that's where just my concern— not much of a question, but more
54:50.432 --> 54:53.266
of a response to what you guys have put out to us, that it's like,
54:53.282 --> 54:57.096
man, it is a tool. Um, and, and I guess where I was
54:57.128 --> 55:00.064
coming on it, my question is as a tool.
55:00.883 --> 55:03.693
I could look at those books, and you're right, Wes, and be able to say,
55:03.709 --> 55:07.787
man, that's a great way that he broke down that point, man. I can learn
55:07.948 --> 55:11.946
the skill of taking a text and handling
55:12.042 --> 55:14.788
it this way, word study and point by point.
55:15.109 --> 55:18.545
Not that I'm picking out of the air, but what the text says. I get
55:19.045 --> 55:22.623
that. But then there's some folk which we can't control, but there's
55:22.655 --> 55:26.281
some folk that will Hey, I got my sermon outlines for the
55:26.781 --> 55:30.770
next sermon series. Boom, here they are. You know, I, I've got my
55:30.994 --> 55:35.050
illustrations for the next sermons. So how that goes
55:35.082 --> 55:38.545
into AI is, hey, I sit down to
55:38.593 --> 55:41.158
my computer and I say, okay, um,
55:41.335 --> 55:46.160
December's coming, I need 4 Christ-centered,
55:46.849 --> 55:51.035
uh, Restoration Movement-inspired um,
55:51.292 --> 55:55.065
sermons, uh, that are not, you know, what— however
55:55.565 --> 55:58.790
they may phrase the prompt. And here are the outlines.
55:59.946 --> 56:03.142
And, and, and I'm just using my blade here,
56:03.158 --> 56:06.915
Wes. Just like with that book, I may
56:07.415 --> 56:11.186
use the outline to preach. You know, AI didn't generate my
56:11.266 --> 56:14.478
full introduction, my full narrative. I just used it to
56:14.978 --> 56:18.211
preach. I'm— it's just a concern. I'm not
56:18.711 --> 56:21.238
saying it's right or wrong. I'm just looking at— it's the concern. I'd like to
56:21.254 --> 56:24.893
hear, because we're coming up on time, I'd like to hear both
56:25.393 --> 56:30.094
of you. Wes, we'll start with you, and then Doug, how you see that scenario
56:30.594 --> 56:30.682
I just laid out.
56:35.547 --> 56:36.400
I think, um,
56:38.687 --> 56:41.762
as long as you are wrestling with the text
56:42.885 --> 56:45.381
and being changed by the Word of God,
56:46.105 --> 56:49.985
you have got to take everything back
56:50.130 --> 56:54.419
to the Word of God, whether that's an outline
56:54.919 --> 56:58.517
you get from a book or an outline that is generated,
56:58.695 --> 57:01.563
which I struggle with that a little bit.
57:04.320 --> 57:07.586
There is skill. You know, it's one thing to do that every once
57:08.086 --> 57:11.386
in a while, but man, there's just skill that you develop wrestling with
57:11.886 --> 57:15.410
the text Uh, in, in learning to
57:15.910 --> 57:19.410
do that yourself, that I think you are robbing yourself of your
57:19.586 --> 57:22.687
own development if you consistently outsource
57:22.800 --> 57:25.852
that. Um, and so I think
57:26.352 --> 57:30.206
there's, there's just skills, uh, for a teacher. Like when I— what's
57:30.706 --> 57:34.109
the passage in Ecclesiastes that talks about the, the teacher wrestling
57:34.141 --> 57:37.692
with every word, like laboring over
57:37.820 --> 57:41.738
putting that together? Solomon, the most wise
57:41.754 --> 57:44.627
man in the world— one of my favorite books in the Bible is Proverbs,
57:45.542 --> 57:49.040
those little short pithy statements. You know, he didn't just pop those
57:49.137 --> 57:52.909
out. Like, he labored over those words.
57:52.989 --> 57:56.520
How do I communicate this truth in a
57:57.020 --> 58:01.287
way— and there's skill, and skill is developed through work
58:01.511 --> 58:06.407
and through labor. It's not developed through constantly
58:06.488 --> 58:10.727
going and taking what somebody else has done and
58:10.807 --> 58:14.002
making, you know, making that your own. It's one thing to use that to learn.
58:14.821 --> 58:18.177
Like I just mentioned Solomon, I learned from him by reading his
58:18.209 --> 58:21.950
Proverbs. Yeah, but reading his Proverbs, reading,
58:22.368 --> 58:25.788
uh, what he put out into the world helps me develop my
58:25.900 --> 58:29.850
own skill, helps me learn from a master craftsman.
58:30.636 --> 58:33.168
How I can become a craftsman myself.
58:34.562 --> 58:38.039
And so if you are constantly hiring a
58:38.087 --> 58:40.955
contractor to come do your building,
58:41.772 --> 58:45.298
you are never going to develop the skills to become a builder
58:45.394 --> 58:49.448
yourself. And for teachers, that is just so important
58:49.560 --> 58:53.518
that you don't rob yourself of that skill development
58:53.550 --> 58:57.171
where you can only preach if you download an outline from
58:57.671 --> 59:02.382
the internet. That's not the kind of preacher I want filling my pulpit.
59:03.661 --> 59:05.684
Wow. Uh,
59:06.963 --> 59:09.180
yeah, I don't think I could have said that better. I think I would have
59:09.680 --> 59:12.774
just— I just wouldn't use generative AI at all for that. Um,
59:13.761 --> 59:16.335
I can't— I want to respond, Anthony, if I could, to what you were talking
59:16.351 --> 59:20.071
about, about the kids. Um, since Wes answered the sermon
59:20.571 --> 59:24.016
prep one so well, um, I mean, let me just— I'll just quickly add
59:24.194 --> 59:26.797
that on the sermon prep, you are discipled by what you do.
59:27.358 --> 59:29.732
We are formed by our practices.
59:30.566 --> 59:33.613
So be the kind of person who is formed by the word,
59:33.837 --> 59:36.676
who is formed in the kind of person who has wrestled like Wes so well
59:37.176 --> 59:40.573
said. And that's what your people need from
59:41.073 --> 59:44.486
you. They need you to be the real deal. So, but Anthony, you said
59:44.518 --> 59:48.495
something along the lines of our kids are growing up in a world where this
59:48.624 --> 59:51.173
is just their reality, right? This is So, um,
59:51.767 --> 59:55.327
chatbots are their new reality. Social media was the reality before. It is
59:55.343 --> 59:59.352
different, and it is different. However, I just want to push back on the fact
59:59.852 --> 01:00:03.842
that we don't have to necessarily let that be for our kids. As for me
01:00:03.906 --> 01:00:07.402
and my house, we will serve the Lord. Yeah, we do not have to accept—
01:00:07.595 --> 01:00:11.058
we— big tech wants to define every era now.
01:00:11.379 --> 01:00:15.116
We've let these companies become the most powerful corporations on the planet. They're literally
01:00:15.228 --> 01:00:19.044
dominating our lives. The reason they've The reason our lives are full of this technology
01:00:19.060 --> 01:00:22.586
is because they've done this to us and we've let them. We don't have to
01:00:23.086 --> 01:00:26.385
let them. We don't necessarily have to become Amish, but the Amish have some wisdom
01:00:26.834 --> 01:00:30.024
in that they are very intentional about what they let into their community.
01:00:30.617 --> 01:00:34.432
We're not. Fifth, Barna says that 51%
01:00:34.624 --> 01:00:38.680
of practicing Christians would agree with this statement: AI understands
01:00:38.776 --> 01:00:43.168
me. That was a study in April. If you ask 51% of practicing
01:00:43.200 --> 01:00:46.883
Christians, Hey, does AI understand you? They would say yes,
01:00:47.256 --> 01:00:50.361
51%. That means 1 out of 2 of my brothers and sisters in Christ,
01:00:51.046 --> 01:00:54.584
1 out of 2 of the people in your congregation, maybe the pastors
01:00:54.617 --> 01:00:58.478
here, if you've named your chatbot and
01:00:58.978 --> 01:01:02.010
you think it understands you, um, this is— we are deceived.
01:01:02.365 --> 01:01:05.396
We are accepting the world as big tech is laying it out for us.
01:01:06.367 --> 01:01:08.709
I believe the Bible when it says there's a prince of the power of the
01:01:08.725 --> 01:01:12.556
air. I believe the Bible when it says We are children of God,
01:01:12.588 --> 01:01:15.526
but the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. God is sovereign,
01:01:16.264 --> 01:01:19.363
but for a time he's given the prince of the power of the air some
01:01:19.668 --> 01:01:23.104
sovereignty, some power and control. We're seeing that in Silicon Valley.
01:01:23.248 --> 01:01:26.636
They're exploiting us. They're deceiving us. We do not have to give them our
01:01:27.136 --> 01:01:30.585
kids. We do not have to give them our churches. And what
01:01:30.810 --> 01:01:34.711
our kids and what our churches need most of all right now is Holy
01:01:34.743 --> 01:01:38.564
Spirit dwell— indwelled human contact that leads
01:01:38.596 --> 01:01:42.014
them to love Jesus. Every machine
01:01:42.046 --> 01:01:45.253
that big tech creates wants to get in the way of that and
01:01:45.753 --> 01:01:49.038
block that, and that is not good. So whatever we have to do to not—
01:01:49.263 --> 01:01:52.486
and not in my house. Yeah, they're growing up with chatbots, but not
01:01:52.986 --> 01:01:56.111
in my house. Yeah, they're growing up with pornography, not in my house.
01:01:56.961 --> 01:02:00.778
They're growing up with social media, not in my house. Why? Because it's leading
01:02:00.794 --> 01:02:04.193
them astray. And we can do that. You have permission to
01:02:04.693 --> 01:02:08.209
say no. You don't have to accept it. And I just would encourage pastors
01:02:08.580 --> 01:02:11.518
to do that in their own families and to preach that to their congregations.
01:02:12.770 --> 01:02:15.994
I have one final question, and then Anthony, if you could close.
01:02:17.907 --> 01:02:21.667
Wes, could you tell us very briefly about Connect My Church?
01:02:22.084 --> 01:02:25.683
And then Doug, if you could tell us very briefly about the upcoming
01:02:25.716 --> 01:02:29.190
book that you've got coming out. Go ahead, Wes. Yeah, so I own a
01:02:29.690 --> 01:02:32.807
couple of companies. One of them is Connect My Church. That was
01:02:32.840 --> 01:02:35.808
the second company that we started after marketing agency.
01:02:36.632 --> 01:02:40.261
That I started years ago did well. And Connect My Church helps
01:02:41.032 --> 01:02:44.356
congregations, churches, nonprofits scale their
01:02:44.404 --> 01:02:47.696
operations through websites. We use
01:02:48.196 --> 01:02:51.502
AI tools. We do all kinds of stuff. The goal of Connect My Church,
01:02:52.112 --> 01:02:56.126
we started it so that we could raise capital to fund what
01:02:56.626 --> 01:03:00.542
we really want to do, which is create
01:03:01.042 --> 01:03:05.055
custom AI tools that can be utilized on the mission field to
01:03:05.555 --> 01:03:09.518
assist with people. This is a little device,
01:03:09.887 --> 01:03:13.322
solar-powered device. This is something that was put out
01:03:13.822 --> 01:03:17.561
by Sunset Bible Institute. It is an MP3
01:03:18.061 --> 01:03:23.228
player that gave me an idea. They have put out about 20,000
01:03:23.276 --> 01:03:26.808
of these through their networks on the mission fields. They have had thousands of
01:03:27.308 --> 01:03:31.399
baptisms, hundreds of churches planted, lots of preachers trained just because they have a
01:03:31.899 --> 01:03:34.722
little MP3 player that plays the Bible and some of their courses.
01:03:35.701 --> 01:03:39.313
What would happen if a device like that could be utilized that you could actually
01:03:39.813 --> 01:03:43.582
ask questions to, that could give you intelligent answers based
01:03:44.082 --> 01:03:48.077
on an enclosed library? Not a generative AI large
01:03:48.237 --> 01:03:51.913
language model, but more of a small language model
01:03:51.994 --> 01:03:56.151
that is specific to a very specific library that's available
01:03:56.183 --> 01:03:59.619
for people. And so this is an educational tool that we're hoping
01:03:59.715 --> 01:04:02.976
to make, and that's why we started Connect My Church so that we could utilize
01:04:03.088 --> 01:04:06.574
technology like that to put it out on the mission field and
01:04:06.622 --> 01:04:10.221
especially in places where the internet is censored and
01:04:10.721 --> 01:04:13.417
people's lives are in danger when they share their faith.
01:04:13.915 --> 01:04:16.951
This is a huge demand that missionaries have that we're hearing.
01:04:18.188 --> 01:04:21.369
So that's what it's all about for us. Thanks, Wes,
01:04:21.545 --> 01:04:25.031
and I will say the book that Doug is about to talk about, I've gotten
01:04:25.531 --> 01:04:29.557
to read a good portion of it. Very eye-opening, very well
01:04:29.686 --> 01:04:32.820
written. And yeah, Doug, tell us about it. Oh, thank you, Daniel.
01:04:32.884 --> 01:04:36.147
Yeah, my new book is called Unintelligence: The Lies
01:04:36.179 --> 01:04:39.923
Behind Today's AI and the Truths You Need to Thrive. It's a distinctly Christian
01:04:39.955 --> 01:04:43.388
book. It will be eye-opening. It is,
01:04:44.793 --> 01:04:48.089
yeah, I think it'll be a really, really helpful way
01:04:48.186 --> 01:04:52.063
of viewing all things around generative
01:04:52.563 --> 01:04:55.557
AI, all things around big tech. Um, in a way that you may not have
01:04:55.589 --> 01:04:59.171
thought about before. Um, it's hopefully releasing. I'm not sure when this will come out,
01:04:59.283 --> 01:05:02.624
but it should be coming out at the end of October, beginning of November of
01:05:02.656 --> 01:05:06.543
2026. Uh, you can find out more at thatdugsmith.com
01:05:06.591 --> 01:05:08.534
is my website, T-H-A-T,
01:05:08.743 --> 01:05:12.807
thatdugsmith.com. And you could sign up for my email
01:05:12.839 --> 01:05:16.212
list. I send out an email every month, uh, just once a month. Um,
01:05:16.308 --> 01:05:19.456
won't spam you, uh, but you can find out when my book comes out there
01:05:19.956 --> 01:05:23.199
if you'd like. Wow, thank you. Thank you,
01:05:23.296 --> 01:05:25.577
Wes. Thank you, uh, Doug, for,
01:05:26.333 --> 01:05:29.642
um, uh, what a spirited conversation, uh,
01:05:29.723 --> 01:05:33.659
well thought out. Um, and, um, you know, as we try
01:05:34.159 --> 01:05:36.632
to discuss here on Scripture in Black and White, you know, we try to keep
01:05:37.132 --> 01:05:40.649
it black and white, you know, very plain. Um, and, and you all helped us
01:05:41.149 --> 01:05:45.019
to see, um, you know, how some view the benefits, how there
01:05:45.051 --> 01:05:49.035
are concerns with AI. But what I loved about
01:05:49.244 --> 01:05:53.147
both of what you presented was that the urging is
01:05:53.244 --> 01:05:56.456
that we fall in love with Jesus early and
01:05:56.956 --> 01:06:00.456
deeply, and that we are constantly and consistently guided
01:06:00.488 --> 01:06:03.990
by God's word, not the generated
01:06:04.087 --> 01:06:07.797
words. So I thank you both for that. Thank you to our
01:06:08.297 --> 01:06:11.909
listeners for listening to us here and watching us at
01:06:12.409 --> 01:06:15.683
Scripture in Black and White. Be sure I would encourage to
01:06:16.183 --> 01:06:19.696
at least 5 people to share this with because you know that
01:06:20.196 --> 01:06:24.689
in the world in which we live, uh, we're moving so much to everything AI
01:06:25.443 --> 01:06:27.755
and all things, uh, generated. Um,
01:06:28.654 --> 01:06:32.234
Doug West, I was looking the other day for a screen protector for my
01:06:32.282 --> 01:06:35.605
phone and one of them said AI-powered.
01:06:36.150 --> 01:06:39.746
Now I, I had to think about that.
01:06:40.132 --> 01:06:43.422
Yeah, yeah, AI-powered screen protector. So even in a
01:06:43.438 --> 01:06:47.199
world in which our screen protectors are, are featuring
01:06:47.458 --> 01:06:50.870
AI technology, uh, we've got to be on guard. But we
01:06:51.370 --> 01:06:54.675
thank you both, uh, and thank you all for being with us. And so be
01:06:55.175 --> 01:06:58.667
sure to share, like and share, uh, in Scripture in
01:06:59.167 --> 01:07:00.443
Black and White. We'll see you next time.