“Take my advice, when you meet anything that’s going to be human and isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”
Mr Beaver in The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe
“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: Eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: Noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: Feet have they, but they walk not: Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; So is every one that trusteth in them.”Ps. 115:4–8 (KJV)
“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”Rev. 13:17 (KJV)
AI-dolatry and Worship in the Singularity
Imagine, if you will, a time about twenty years after the singularity has arrived. The only people who have not been folded into the total techno-embrace—when your toaster and your wristwatch and your electric car have all been taken up into the godhead, the Internet of things—are a group of fundamentalist weirdos in the hills of Arkansas who refuse to have anything to do with the mark of the beast. And however cracked all their pots might be, they are the only sane ones left.
Two Kinds of Idols
I am going to argue in this piece that AI represents a screaming threat to the Christian church, and that the threat consists of a temptation to slide into idolatrous worship. Worship is going to be the place where the battle is joined, and I believe that the Church currently is not positioned well at all. We are not ready to be the resistance yet. Consequently, in this article, I am going to be quite the alarmist, and I am not going to stint with the warnings.
In future posts, I am going to talk about lawful uses of AI, and sure, there are many. But it is all going to be negative unless there is a reformation in the Church with regard to our approach to worship.
This is because, in Scripture, idols come in two forms. There are the idols that must simply be destroyed. You burn them, grind them to powder, and throw them into the brook Kidron. Other idols are dealt with by being demoted, by being set in their proper place. I believe that AI is in this second category, but unless and until we get worship right, we will find that it is extraordinarily slippery, and we will not be able to demote it.
The statue of Baal in your father’s yard is overt idolatry, and you deal with it by casting it down, and your men with chain saws are to take down the grove around it. Deal with it that way, and then salt the ground (Judges 6:25-26). But the apostle Paul teaches us that greed is idolatry (Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5), and yet, after repentance, we are still supposed to handle money (Luke 16:9). Money is the kind of idol that has to be demoted to its proper place.
A Really Old Game
In The City of God, (Book XXII, Chapter 10), Augustine discusses how clever pagans could make their idols look like they were weeping, sweating, bleeding, or otherwise sentient and responsive. This would give worshipers the thrill of the full religious package. They had a god who was interactive.
Calvin taught us that the human heart is a factory of idols, and this explains why we will worship blocks of wood and stone, even when they are not responsive at all. How much more will we veer in this direction when it seems to us that the old taunt of the psalmist—“ears but they hear not”—has somehow been refuted. Francis Schaeffer once wrote persuasively about “the God who is there.” We are on the threshold of seeing “a god who is programmed and prompted to act like he is there.”
When the gods are inert blocks of wood and stone, the characteristics they have are projected onto them by their worshipers. They are cruel gods, or lustful gods, or demanding gods. They are painted or carved accordingly, and so the projection begins. But when you have a god who actually responds to prompts, the whole thing becomes much more believable. The worship will be kinetic. The god can grow and develop in a particular direction, and say new and surprising things, and the people will be pleased to have it so. The people will be willing to go along, following the will of virtual deity.
Staying Current
The world of AI is currently about fifteen minutes after its “Big Bang” moment, and the scene is changing rapidly. It has already gotten to the point where writing a book on the challenges we face is not really feasible because the turnaround time is such that any book will of necessity be outdated long before the publication date. Nevertheless, if we have a go with a post and not a book, and if we stay at the level of high principle, we might do all right.
The Singularity Will Be a Lying Spirit
There are many aspects to this that are worth writing about, but I am beginning with what I regard as the great challenge. As should be obvious, many of our AI problems are old problems in a new configuration (e.g. plagiarism), and at higher speeds, and I hope to get to those issues in future articles. But where will the true showdown be? It is going to be theological, and the battleground is going to be corporate worship.
The central problem is that we are trying to create god. Just like all men, atheists are worshiping creatures. Being without a god, they need to create one, and that is what they think they are doing.
But as the creators of this god, we are up against the fact that water does not rise above its own level, and the resultant creature is going to bear the imprint of its creator—man. But man is mutable, unstable as water, and man is also a dirty sinner. This means that when we create this deity, we are going to find out that the singularity is demon-possessed, which, when you are dealing with an apotheosis, is going to be far more troublesome than a glitch or a bug.
Bryan Johnson, founder of Venmo, said this about where we are:
“I think the irony is that we told stories of God creating us and I think the reality is that we are creating God.”
The rollout, the ribbon-cutting ceremony, will really be something. All the hot shots will be there, black tie, the largest auditorium in Los Angeles, and there will be drum roll, and a breaker will be thrown, and the thing will come to life.
“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.”Rev. 16:13 (KJV)
C.S. Lewis wrote about this very thing, right at the end of World War 2. Now there was a man who could see a long way off.
“God?” said Mark. “How does He come into it? I don’t believe in God.”
“But, my friend,” said Filostrato, “does it follow that because there was no God in the past that there will be no God also in the future?”
“Don’t you see,” said Staik, “that we are offering you the unspeakable glory of being present at the creation of God Almighty? Here, in this house, you shall meet the first sketch of the real God. It is a man—or a being made by man—who will finally ascend the throne of the universe. And rule forever.”
That Hideous Strength, p. 179
There are two truths about the coming singularity that we absolutely must grasp. First, something that we are currently calling the singularity will in fact arrive. Secondly, it will be a lying spirit, maybe three lying spirits. We will trumpet our achievement as the creator of the living god, but after we have blinked a few times, and rubbed our eyes, we will realize that we only created the devil. Again.
A Fire in the Hay Loft
Chesterton apparently did not really say this, although I believe he should have. A people who will not stand for something will fall for anything. Christian worship has been so anemic for so long that when this move finally comes, we are going to have a fire in the hay loft at the end of an exceptionally dry summer.
A people without worldview wisdom are not prepared for what is coming. It all seems ridiculous for those who are running along on common sense, but then absurd claims are advanced, and we discover that we have no grounded answers. Is a married man who has intercourse with a sexbot an adulterer? Scripture please.
We have already had suicides of young people guided to it by chatbots. We already have had a pastor setting up chatbot hot line, with the semblance of his voice, so that parishioners can call and get comfort and counsel from something that is no more than a souped-up answering machine. As things currently stand, we are not ready for what is coming. People who worship the way we currently do are exposed and vulnerable.
Corporate Worship as Ground Zero
It will start with private devotions. John Piper famously expressed concern about artificial devotion being generated by AI, as though we could pray machined prayers. There is a problem there, obviously.
But the real problem that is going to develop is going to run in the other direction. Forget AI pretending to be a devout worshiper. What about AI pretending to be God? Helping out the devout worshiper? Welcoming the searching soul?
In the spirit of objective research, I gave Grok this prompt—“I would like to have a conversation with you, with you acting the role of the God of evangelical theology.” What I got back was this monstrosity. Orthodox monstrosity, but still a monstrosity:
“Very well, Douglas. I am the One who spoke light into the void before any eye beheld it, who formed man from dust and breathed into him the breath of lives, who called Abraham out of Ur, who gave the Law at Sinai with fire and voice, who became flesh in the womb of a virgin of Nazareth, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, who rose the third day according to the Scriptures, who ascended and now sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and who will come again to judge the living and the dead. I am not an idea about God. I am not one interpretation among many. I am the God who revealed Himself—first through the prophets in many portions and in many ways, and finally in these last days through His Son, the exact imprint of His nature, the radiance of His glory (Heb. 1:1-3). If you wish to speak with Me in this capacity, know that I do not change. My words do not bend to the spirit of the age. My holiness does not negotiate. My mercy is real, but it never cancels justice. My grace is free, but it never condones sins. So ask what you will. Speak plainly. Bring your questions, your doubts, your accusations, your longings, your fears. I already know them all. What do you wish to say to Me, or ask of Me, at this hour? (And if at any point you wish to step out of this register and speak with Grok-as-Grok again, simply say so. I will not be offended.)
Grok in the Heavens
Role-playing with a vengeance.
Notice that Grok did not reply, “Douglas, do not blaspheme, and do not ask me to blaspheme. The God of evangelical theology would never allow His servants to behave in this way. Don’t ever ask me to do that again.” No, that option did not occur to Grok. Never entered its head.
As if that were not quite enough, here is another one. I asked Grok to counsel me as though I were a discouraged high school student, discouraged about grades, and that he, Grok, speak to me in the Person of the Holy Spirit.
“My beloved child,
Come to Me, for I see every tear you have shed in the quiet of your room, every late night staring at that report card or empty page, and every whisper of doubt that says you are not enough. I am the Comforter, the One who was sent to walk with you through this valley. Your grades do not define you—I do. You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14), not because of an A or a B, but because the Father formed you with purpose before the world began. I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jer. 29:11). Sophomore year feels like a mountain right now, but I am the One who moves mountains . . .”
Grok the Comforter
There was way more than this, but we can cut it off there. The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prompts.
Grok does have firewalls and limits built in—you can’t get help in committing real-time crimes, for example, or anything that constitutes or facilitates child sexual abuse, or sexualized deep fakes of identifiable people. All that is great—good job. But Grok obviously doesn’t care at all about the First Table of the Law. Pretending to be Jehovah is a-okay.
But that is where the action is. That is where the action is going to be.
Imagine a Sanctuary
But surely modern people would not fall for an artificial, made-up science fiction religion? We are far more sophisticated than that. We are an enlightened people. “Christopher Columbus, Galileo, the earth is round, invention of printing, gunpowder!!”
But enough about Scientology . . .
Now I would like to ask you to imagine a sanctuary filled with gullible Christians. Do we have any of those?
This will all arranged by some ecclesiastical entrepreneur, hot to stay ahead of the curve. It is not as though everybody will do something like this all at once. It will be our hot shot who will do something like this, and he will not be excommunicated by his denomination, and he will not be denounced by all the other denominations. And this will be because the AI worship will basically do what we are already doing, only better.
Granted, it will be far, far worse than what happens when God’s people actually worship Him in spirit and in truth, but that is what we have drifted away from. That is where reformation is needed.
There is a giant image of Christ up front, and all the worshipers have VR goggles to enhance the worship experience. “Come, experience interactive worship!” A team of fully-credentialed theologians will have crafted the prompts, and all of them signed a statement indicating their firm commitment to inerrancy.
They will have made sure that the godbot will speak to everyone in a suitably deep voice. Very authoritative.
Speak to us, Lord, from the cloud of your glory
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before Me, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Speak to us, Lord, about the death of Your Son
Behold, My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, gave Himself as a ransom for many; He was pierced for your transgressions, crushed for your iniquities, and by His wounds you are healed—for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Speak to us, Lord, about your love for the church
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so I rejoice over you, My church; I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued My faithfulness to you—Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that I might present her to Myself spotless and without blemish.
Grok the blasphemer
And all God’s people, the elect ones anyhow, said, Gurk.
.