Point of View November 20, 2024 – Hour 1 : AI and the Church

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:20] Thank you for joining me. It is a Wednesday edition of Point of View. In just a few minutes, we're going to talk about this issue of artificial intelligence. I think you're going to find that very helpful, especially if you're thinking about how you might use it in your own life or in your church or ministries and those kinds of things.

[00:00:34] Next hour, we'll get into the whole issue of pro-life and learn from a pro-life center in Savannah, Georgia. I think you'll appreciate that.

[00:00:43] While I'm talking about Georgia, for our Georgia listeners, of course, we have the illegal immigrant who was now convicted of murdering the Georgia's nursing student, Lakin Riley.

[00:00:52] We'll talk more about what that means. And also, some of the testimony that came out in Congress, remember the FEMA scandal?

[00:00:59] Well, that had to do with the fact that one FEMA representative said, avoid going to the homes where there's a Trump sign.

[00:01:07] And then we found out that she was not a one-off. This has been going on for some time.

[00:01:12] Now, this one FEMA contractor told families in Georgia that they better remove their Trump yard sign.

[00:01:20] Otherwise, who knows, they might not even get serviced at all. So we're learning a lot more about that.

[00:01:25] And of course, I posted a couple of very good articles, one from former representative Jim Ross Lightfoot, about how much experience do some of these cabinet members need to have and many other topics we will cover over the next two hours.

[00:01:40] But let's get to this issue of artificial intelligence.

[00:01:43] I'll hold up our booklet that we produced a while back on artificial intelligence to give you a quick read.

[00:01:48] But this book is anything but a quick read. It's 250 pages of great material written by Jason Moore.

[00:01:54] He is an author, a keynote speaker and really kind of a sought after trainer for churches when they're working in the area of media and production.

[00:02:03] And he's worked in areas of resource development, training, coaching and a variety of other areas.

[00:02:09] He's the author of 13 books. But this latest one, A.I. and the Church, a clear guide to the curious and the courageous.

[00:02:17] Jason, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View.

[00:02:21] Kirby, it is great to be with you.

[00:02:22] Well, let's get your background for just a minute because you are a graduate of the Modern College of Design.

[00:02:28] You are an individual that has really been kind of looking at how we can use artificial intelligence.

[00:02:35] And as a person that's worked in the area of graphics and design, this is a very important tool to have in your toolbox, isn't it?

[00:02:43] It is.

[00:02:44] You know, I am just for my entire career been a fan of any tool that will help us to better communicate the gospel and help people understand the transformational power of Jesus Christ in their lives.

[00:02:58] And it just so happens that technology is one of the things that can help us do that effectively.

[00:03:03] So I've been at it a long time.

[00:03:05] And A.I. is the latest tool that can help.

[00:03:07] One of the things that you say is something I've said when we get into this issue of artificial intelligence.

[00:03:13] And that is people say, well, I'm kind of scared of A.I.

[00:03:16] And so, well, you have one of those in your pocket and you have a chapter with that title, because in some respects we already have what I think would be best called a weak form of A.I.

[00:03:28] But explain that if you might.

[00:03:30] Yeah.

[00:03:31] So there are kind of two forms of A.I.

[00:03:33] The current one that exists is narrow, artificial narrow intelligence or weak A.I.

[00:03:39] And what is to come someday, maybe theoretically, is what is called strong A.I. or artificial general intelligence.

[00:03:48] And so we've been hearing in the news that this may come as soon as next year or the year after.

[00:03:55] And that's basically when artificial intelligence would think cognitively, basically at the same level as human beings.

[00:04:02] Well, again, one of the things that you talk about early on is Alan Turing.

[00:04:07] Anybody that's watched the movie about his life can certainly understand this idea of computers.

[00:04:13] And this is, I think, an important part of that, because just as when computers came on the scene, since I'm a little older than you,

[00:04:21] I can remember when we didn't have computers in churches.

[00:04:24] I can remember when we started bringing computers into churches.

[00:04:27] I can remember even with the previous host of Point of View, Marlon Maddox, when I brought a laptop computer in one day and I said,

[00:04:35] you know, I think we're probably going to want to use these more in the future.

[00:04:37] And he was like, well, maybe.

[00:04:39] I don't know.

[00:04:39] It's kind of hard to see whether or not that's going to be that helpful.

[00:04:42] So in some respects, every new technological development, you have the early adopters.

[00:04:47] And then, of course, you have all the way to the other end, the laggards.

[00:04:51] But it seems to me that using artificial intelligence wisely is going to be a real aid to the church and to individual Christians, won't it?

[00:05:03] Yeah, I think it will.

[00:05:04] But while my mantra is embrace the technology, I also think we have to be careful to restrain how we use it because it is such a powerful tool.

[00:05:16] We don't want to give up too much of our agency to the artificial intelligence.

[00:05:21] One of the things I really caution about in the book, although I do encourage us to really use these tools, to be careful to not allow it to become like our proxy Holy Spirit,

[00:05:32] where we are going to the AI technology before we're studying scripture or praying or any of those things.

[00:05:39] I don't think a pastor should be saying, hey, Chad GPT, write me a sermon on this topic.

[00:05:44] It will do that.

[00:05:46] But there's a difference between a pastor doing the exegetical work, wrestling with the scripture,

[00:05:52] and then using artificial intelligence to help sharpen that content for historical context and all sorts of things.

[00:06:00] I mean, asking critical questions, there's a big difference between you wrestling with the scripture and just farming your ministry out to AI for it to do that for us.

[00:06:10] So we've got to be careful about where the line is.

[00:06:14] But I think that if we can stay on the right side of the line, there are some really incredible things that artificial intelligence is going to allow us to do.

[00:06:21] And it's accessible for churches of all sizes, you know, little rural country churches.

[00:06:26] I'm dealing with pastors sometimes that are nearing retirement age, and they're finding these tools to be really helpful in saving time,

[00:06:34] but also helping them be more effective.

[00:06:36] And it's a really exciting time to be the church because these tools, I think, are unlike anything we've had before

[00:06:46] and will help us to communicate the gospel in effective ways.

[00:06:49] Yeah, my argument is computer technology should be a servant, not a slave or not a master.

[00:06:55] I say in one of the little booklets here, humans are created as moral agents,

[00:06:59] and so we should never cede our moral responsibility to computers.

[00:07:04] God's going to hold us responsible for moral and immoral decisions we make,

[00:07:08] and just because it shows up on a computer, that is the case.

[00:07:11] But certainly one aspect of that that is so significant that we talk about so often

[00:07:18] is in terms of putting the Bible in the hands of people with different languages.

[00:07:23] It has become much more effective, and Bible translation is just coming out at warp speed.

[00:07:31] Or another good example is that I have seen very good AI where if I'm speaking right now,

[00:07:37] it will not only instantaneously translate my words, but even sort of pattern where my mouth is

[00:07:45] to almost make it look like I'm speaking Chinese or Spanish or Portuguese or whatever it might be.

[00:07:51] And so there are some tremendous benefits we're going to talk about.

[00:07:55] But I think, to be fair, we'll come back and talk about some of the negative ones

[00:07:59] before we get into how these could really begin to help the church and help individuals.

[00:08:05] And if you've always kind of wondered, okay, what's this chat GBT?

[00:08:09] What's this idea of strong or weak AI?

[00:08:13] And what can we do in terms of the kind of use of this technology?

[00:08:18] All sorts of very important questions are part of this new book, AI and the Church,

[00:08:23] A Clear Guide for the Curious and Courageous.

[00:08:27] And if you're certainly in the media area right now in your church, 250 pages,

[00:08:32] lots of material and some good context, of course, with our author, Jason Moore.

[00:08:36] So let's take a break.

[00:08:37] We're going to learn a lot more from him.

[00:08:39] And we will also open up the phones for your questions.

[00:08:42] 1-800-351-1212.

[00:08:44] We'll be back right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] Now that the 2024 election is in the rearview mirror,

[00:09:07] there are some steps we need to take to improve our future elections.

[00:09:11] Much of this is needed to be done four years ago,

[00:09:13] but any time you talked about improving our electoral process,

[00:09:16] you were usually accused of trying to change the election.

[00:09:19] Now that this election was more decisive,

[00:09:21] it provides an opportunity to make some needed changes.

[00:09:24] That's why I invited Hans von Spakowski to my radio program.

[00:09:28] He was a member of the Federal Election Commission,

[00:09:30] is the Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation Center for Legal and Judicial Studies,

[00:09:35] and is the manager of the think tank's election law reform initiative.

[00:09:39] When he is asked about the state of election integrity,

[00:09:42] he responds that we are in better shape nationally than we were last time,

[00:09:46] but much depends on which state you live in and vote in.

[00:09:50] Sadly, he also pointed out there's also a problem with the state attorneys general

[00:09:53] and secretaries of state who are unwilling to enforce good state election laws.

[00:09:58] On my program, he talked about the fact that he is often tasked with briefing European election observers.

[00:10:04] They are shocked and astounded to find out that two states with some of the nation's largest populations

[00:10:10] do not require ID to vote.

[00:10:12] Every state has work to do.

[00:10:15] He has put together an election integrity scorecard

[00:10:17] that analyzed all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

[00:10:21] It provided an assessment of laws, regulations, and administrative practices of each state,

[00:10:25] and he has reported that no state scored 100 when he launched the scorecard,

[00:10:29] and that is still the case.

[00:10:31] Our goal for elections in this country should be to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

[00:10:36] Before the next important election, let's get to work.

[00:10:39] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] For a free booklet on a biblical view on big data,

[00:10:50] go to viewpoints.info slash data.

[00:10:53] That's viewpoints.info slash data.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] Back once again, we're talking with Jason Moore.

[00:11:06] We have a link to MidnightOilProductions.com

[00:11:09] and a couple of other links that you will find very helpful.

[00:11:12] The book is entitled AI and the Church, A Clear Guide to the Curious and Courageous.

[00:11:17] And since we talked about language, just before we get into some of the concerns,

[00:11:20] it's worth mentioning that we've moved from what might be called machine language

[00:11:25] to sort of natural language processing, eventually large language models.

[00:11:30] This, I think, is very helpful, especially if you travel overseas.

[00:11:34] I think many people have seen commercials where somebody pulls out their smartphone

[00:11:37] and will say something, and then it will be in a different language,

[00:11:40] and the people will then say it back, and you actually can use your phone or other devices,

[00:11:47] might be your laptop computer, to engage in a conversation with somebody with a language

[00:11:53] that you have never learned.

[00:11:54] And that is a tremendous advance because that is going to aid all sorts of communication,

[00:12:01] and as I pointed out just a minute ago,

[00:12:03] certainly has been a great blessing for those people doing Bible translation.

[00:12:09] Absolutely.

[00:12:10] I have some friends that are part of the new Global Methodist Church,

[00:12:17] and they had their convening conference,

[00:12:19] and I was told that they used an AI software called Wordly, I believe,

[00:12:24] that in real time would translate whatever the speakers were saying

[00:12:29] into multiple different languages, I think over a dozen different languages.

[00:12:34] Yes.

[00:12:34] And it was happening in real time, which is pretty incredible.

[00:12:38] And you mentioned before the break a technology that I have experimented with called Haygen,

[00:12:45] H-E-Y-G-E-N, and it will let you record video in your native tongue.

[00:12:50] For me, that would be English.

[00:12:52] Right.

[00:12:52] And then take it and translate it into another language,

[00:12:55] and it sort of deepfakes your mouth to move with the new language,

[00:13:00] and it clones your voice.

[00:13:01] So it looks as if you are speaking in another language in a very native,

[00:13:07] and I've been told even kind of a local dialect sort of way that is pretty remarkable.

[00:13:14] I think we have to be careful.

[00:13:16] We don't want to fool people into thinking that Jason learned Spanish overnight,

[00:13:20] but I think that by saying through the power of AI,

[00:13:24] I get to deliver this message to you in your native language so that you can really understand

[00:13:31] in a deeper way what we're communicating here.

[00:13:34] So there's some pretty exciting possibilities through that technology.

[00:13:37] I was just in Lareda, Texas, and some of the people that were at this conference of college students

[00:13:43] who were more of the adults did not speak English very well,

[00:13:46] although we had lots of material on the screen.

[00:13:48] I think you probably could follow along.

[00:13:50] We had a person in the back translating and doing it the old-fashioned way,

[00:13:54] but I thought, boy, if we could begin to have something that is closer to that, that is the case.

[00:13:59] But, of course, you mentioned deepfakes, and that brings us into Chapter 4,

[00:14:03] Concerns and Resistance, because everybody is aware of the fact that

[00:14:08] long-range, we start thinking about the Matrix or Terminator, all those kinds of things.

[00:14:13] Those are further out.

[00:14:15] But we do have, right now, things like deepfakes and scams, and you write about that.

[00:14:21] So what are some of the concerns?

[00:14:24] Yeah, well, you know, I think the first concern I hear all the time from people

[00:14:28] is that this technology is of the devil, you know, that the devil is in the technology.

[00:14:34] And it's interesting.

[00:14:35] I mean, I talk about in the book, in doing a little bit of a deep dive into the way technology

[00:14:40] has shaped the culture around us over many, many decades, people always tend to be a little

[00:14:47] skeptical and a little scared of any new technology.

[00:14:50] I write in the book about how forks were originally seen as an implement of the devil in France.

[00:14:57] They said it's like the devil's pitchfork and that God created food, which is a gift,

[00:15:03] and we shouldn't touch it with an artificial implement.

[00:15:07] Same thing was true for when telephones came around.

[00:15:10] They thought that evil spirits traveled through the phone lines and villages in Sweden refused to have

[00:15:17] phones installed because they thought the devil was present in that technology.

[00:15:21] And then, of course, when the Internet came out in the 90s, there was a lot of conversation

[00:15:25] about this being used by the devil.

[00:15:28] And I'm not so sure they were wrong about that one some of the time.

[00:15:32] But, you know, every technology, I think we have to separate the technology from what can be done

[00:15:41] with the technology.

[00:15:43] I don't think that AI is inherently good, nor is it inherently evil.

[00:15:47] It is what we do with it that can be inherently good or inherently evil.

[00:15:52] And I really believe that God can use anything to communicate.

[00:15:57] I mean, if we look at Scripture, we see where God spoke through a burning bush.

[00:16:01] God spoke through a disembodied hand writing a message on a wall.

[00:16:04] God spoke through Balaam's donkey.

[00:16:07] If God tells us he will speak through the very rocks themselves.

[00:16:11] And so if God can speak through all of those different technologies or those items, I believe

[00:16:18] God can arrange the bits and bytes in our software and our computers to communicate as well.

[00:16:25] But we don't want to confuse the technology, again, for the Holy Spirit.

[00:16:29] And I think that we've got to be careful to not become overly reliant.

[00:16:34] There are certainly ways that people are misleading people.

[00:16:38] Fake news is a lot easier with this technology.

[00:16:42] You may have heard that last year during the primaries, they cloned Joe Biden's voice and did a robocall all across New Hampshire.

[00:16:51] And the robocall said, don't come out and vote.

[00:16:55] Save your vote for next November.

[00:16:57] And there were a lot of people that were really confused by that because they didn't even know this technology existed.

[00:17:03] So one of the things that we have to be really careful about now is you used to be able to say seeing is believing.

[00:17:11] But seeing is no longer believing in a world where AI is everywhere.

[00:17:15] Because I can make – I could take a picture of you and your voice and clone it, and I could make you say just about anything,

[00:17:21] which is, I think, a little frightening.

[00:17:24] And at the same time, wouldn't it be incredible to hear Noah tell his firsthand account of rounding up those animals and following God's mission for him?

[00:17:36] There are ways that we can use this technology for the good, and there are ways that it certainly can be used for the negative as well.

[00:17:44] Well, I was going to say, a friend of mine said that we may all have to come up with a safe word.

[00:17:54] My friend Kenny Jang talked about the fact that now you can have a 30-second – gosh, probably 15-second phone call,

[00:18:02] and someone can clone your voice in that amount of time and call somebody in your family and say,

[00:18:08] Hey, I'm stuck somewhere.

[00:18:09] Can you Venmo me 50 bucks, but I don't have my account, so can you –

[00:18:14] You know, they can use your voice to fool people.

[00:18:17] So, you know, we've got to be careful.

[00:18:20] And I think we have a responsibility to the people that we serve in the church to help them understand that this technology exists

[00:18:27] and not to just believe everything that you see and hear today.

[00:18:32] Well, again, I think you've just raised some good questions.

[00:18:35] I'll hold up the most recent book I've written here on discerning the future.

[00:18:38] And, of course, it's got chapters on artificial intelligence, but also on big data.

[00:18:43] There's a sense in which you could create, Jason, a person who is more like you than you know.

[00:18:48] In other words, with all the data that we have and everything, that you could – you really could pass the so-called Turing test

[00:18:56] because this AI computer would know more about you maybe than you do about some of your likes and dislikes

[00:19:04] and all the things that are necessary to validate that you are who you are more than just a Social Security number.

[00:19:10] So we've got to really pay attention to that, and I think that's one of the great challenges we face in the future.

[00:19:16] And I thought I might mention something else.

[00:19:18] I'm holding up right now a copy of your book, and AI developed the cover, did it not?

[00:19:24] Because we also had a publisher, I'll hold up my book, actually produced mine.

[00:19:29] Now, unfortunately, the AI on this one didn't work so well, so one place they had a typo, so we covered it over.

[00:19:35] Sometimes computers do make mistakes.

[00:19:37] But nevertheless, this is kind of intriguing about how if you're thinking about graphics –

[00:19:43] and after the break, I want to get into that more because a lot of the pictures you have here

[00:19:47] and a lot of the graphics that are being created really get us into this whole area of our imagination.

[00:19:55] As a matter of fact, my producer has written one of our booklets on the subject of imagination,

[00:19:59] but that gets us into, well, how much creativity can we allow a computer to have?

[00:20:04] Then what kind of copyright would an individual have?

[00:20:08] And, of course, you get into that in some detail.

[00:20:11] And all the image generation, it is fascinating.

[00:20:14] But, again, as you just warned us a minute ago,

[00:20:18] don't necessarily always believe that just because you see it is true.

[00:20:23] We're living in a year – probably in an era where we are going to have to be more skeptical

[00:20:30] and discerning than any other way.

[00:20:33] Let me just, as we come into a break, mention we do have a link to your website.

[00:20:37] And if people would be interested in maybe booking a seminar, maybe having some consultation,

[00:20:43] maybe learning a little bit more about branding or a media project,

[00:20:47] all of that is available on our website.

[00:20:49] If they find themselves saying, I'd like to get a copy of the book,

[00:20:52] well, again, they can get it from you, but we also have a link on the website

[00:20:56] so that if somebody would like to get it in paperback or Kindle, it is available.

[00:21:00] So, again, the book is AI and the Church, A Clear Guide to the Curious and Courageous.

[00:21:07] And when we come back, we're going to talk about some of the image generation

[00:21:10] and kind of the next level of generation of what this is going to look like.

[00:21:16] We live in a really unusual time and an opportunity to use these tools effectively.

[00:21:23] Let's see how we can use them for the glory of God.

[00:21:25] We'll be right back.

[00:21:26] The Bible tells us not to worry.

[00:21:34] And yet, there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today.

[00:21:39] Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry.

[00:21:43] God gives us a next step.

[00:21:46] He says we need to pray.

[00:21:48] But sometimes, even knowing what to pray can be difficult.

[00:21:52] And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement,

[00:21:58] a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation.

[00:22:03] Each week, you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans,

[00:22:09] along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others.

[00:22:13] We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email

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[00:22:21] Will you commit to pray for America?

[00:22:25] Go to pointofview.net.

[00:22:28] Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe.

[00:22:33] Again, that's pointofview.net.

[00:22:37] Click on the Pray for America banner.

[00:22:40] Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America.

[00:22:47] Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:51] You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:09] And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:13] Continue our conversation today with Jason Moore as we talk about his book,

[00:23:16] AI and the Church, A Clear Guide to the Curious and the Courageous.

[00:23:20] Let me just mention we also have a link to his Twitter page, Facebook.

[00:23:24] Of course, we have the web page and much more.

[00:23:27] And I might also say that even though we just briefly touched on some of the ethical concerns,

[00:23:33] one of the longer chapters in the book is navigating ethical concerns.

[00:23:37] But I thought since we have already at least mentioned a few,

[00:23:41] and certainly we can get into some more later,

[00:23:42] I wanted to come to your section on embracing the AI toolbox.

[00:23:47] Because some people might say,

[00:23:49] okay, up until now I said,

[00:23:51] I'm just going to stay away from it.

[00:23:52] I'm not going to get into one of those self-driving cars.

[00:23:55] And I don't know about this AI stuff anyway.

[00:23:57] And now you maybe piqued my interest in how I can use it.

[00:24:01] And I thought I'd start with the fact that you illustrate the fact that the cover was something that was generated.

[00:24:08] Actually, it generated a number of different,

[00:24:11] and I think it's wonderful that you show people on your book.

[00:24:14] And so I would encourage people to get a copy of the book to see,

[00:24:18] once you actually fed in some key words into this particular program, ideogram,

[00:24:24] you then come up with all sorts of different variations of the cover.

[00:24:30] And I think it's an illustration of how effective this could be used for everything from sermon,

[00:24:37] bulletins to I do keynote or whether you do PowerPoint or whatever, presentations.

[00:24:43] There's just a tremendous power in some of that,

[00:24:46] especially for those of us that don't have the kind of graphic expertise that you have.

[00:24:51] Some of this can be done by a computer, can't it?

[00:24:55] It can be.

[00:24:56] And I write in the earliest part of the book that that really scared me when I first started using this,

[00:25:02] was that I thought I witnessed my extinction the first time I ever played with the fact that I could put in words

[00:25:08] and images would come out.

[00:25:11] It's still not quite perfect.

[00:25:13] You have to do a lot of editing on text and things like that, but it's getting better all the time.

[00:25:18] On my cover, I would say AI probably did about 40% of the design, and I probably did 60% or so enhancing that.

[00:25:29] One of my philosophies when I think about AI is that AI should be a do it with you, not a do it for you.

[00:25:35] So it's really a collaboration between us and the artificial intelligence.

[00:25:39] But if people want to get started with this, Google has an app called Gemini, which will generate images,

[00:25:47] and you can ask it to create an image and you can kind of put in some text.

[00:25:52] The one that I use for the cover, my favorite one of all when I'm doing design work, is called Ideogram, I-D-E-O-G-R-A-M.

[00:26:01] I believe you can generate 10 images a day for free.

[00:26:04] I'm on a paid account.

[00:26:05] There's another app called MidJourney, midjourney.com, which does really convincing stock photos.

[00:26:15] So anybody, any of your listeners who have ever looked for stock photo probably know that it can be really hard to find what you're looking for,

[00:26:23] especially when you're trying to illustrate biblical stories and things like that.

[00:26:27] But the beauty of these apps is that if you can learn how to talk to them, and I have a whole chapter on how to do that,

[00:26:36] you can pretty much design whatever's in your head.

[00:26:38] And so it excites me that you don't have to have my 30 years of experience as a professional graphic designer

[00:26:44] who has mastered Photoshop and Illustrator and other tools.

[00:26:49] You can bring your concept, your big idea, to the table, and AI can help you render that and execute it.

[00:26:56] And one of my favorite statistics is that we are 65% visual learners as a culture,

[00:27:04] and that learning increases by 400% when you use image to teach.

[00:27:08] So if you want people to remember your sermon, your Bible study, your whatever,

[00:27:13] if you have an image to go with that, people are much more likely to retain it,

[00:27:17] and that's where transformation begins to happen.

[00:27:20] And again, if you're using social media, memes are sometimes so much more.

[00:27:25] You know, they always say a picture is worth a thousand words,

[00:27:27] and sometimes a graph, as I've said, is worth a thousand words because it illustrates so much,

[00:27:33] and it just clicks instantaneously.

[00:27:36] Now, you can also, of course, do generative video.

[00:27:39] Now, that's not quite as good, but again, these are just incredible advances

[00:27:45] that you probably couldn't even have imagined about when you were actually in school learning about design, could you?

[00:27:52] Absolutely. So right.

[00:27:55] And one of the things I talk about in the book was that when I, the church that I got my start at,

[00:28:01] I began as a graphic artist, and we were pretty intentional about trying to create representations of Jesus

[00:28:09] that were not super narrow or limited.

[00:28:12] Oftentimes, we kind of create Jesus in our likeness.

[00:28:14] He was from the Middle East.

[00:28:16] So, you know, having him be a blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy with a mullet and that kind of thing.

[00:28:21] So I can remember many times 25 years ago taking an image into Photoshop and silhouetting and that kind of thing.

[00:28:30] The beauty of AI is that I can describe Jesus as a Middle Eastern person

[00:28:35] and say where he's standing and what the lighting looks like and all those kinds of things,

[00:28:39] and it will render it.

[00:28:40] We do have to be careful, talking about those ethical concerns, that there is sort of some bias baked into the technology.

[00:28:48] It's not that AI is biased, but it trained on human art and human writings and all of that, and humans are biased.

[00:28:54] So if I say Jesus, it probably is going to give me somebody who looks like he's from Alabama.

[00:29:00] But if I use the right words, I can describe a Jesus that might look more like Jesus looked from where he came from in the world.

[00:29:08] And so I find that to be a very encouraging and exciting thing that people can bring their ideas to life in ways that they couldn't before.

[00:29:18] And even as a graphic artist, I mean, it saved me so much time.

[00:29:22] Rather than having to construct something, I can use AI to build it, and it almost always matches what's in my head.

[00:29:29] And again, you work with pictures.

[00:29:31] I work with words, and the same kind of bias that you mentioned also exists because these AI computers were trained using certain kinds of text.

[00:29:41] And, of course, if a lot of the text is Wikipedia, it's not always accurate, but some of the others were other kinds of text.

[00:29:48] So it's just important to pay attention to that.

[00:29:51] But another aspect of what you talk about are chatbots.

[00:29:54] And I thought that is something that maybe we should delve into for just a little bit.

[00:29:59] We've talked about kind of words.

[00:30:01] We've talked about pictures.

[00:30:02] But then the interactive nature of chatbots.

[00:30:05] You even talk about how to come up with the best way to communicate with those.

[00:30:10] But can you give us some guidelines and direction there?

[00:30:13] Yeah.

[00:30:14] You know, generally speaking, one of the ways that we don't succeed in our interactions with AI,

[00:30:20] if you've ever tried it and thought, this just doesn't seem as impressive as everybody seems to make it out to be,

[00:30:25] it's probably that you haven't really learned to talk to it quite yet.

[00:30:29] And it does use natural language processing, which means that I can talk to it like I talk to a person.

[00:30:35] But the most important thing for your listeners to remember is that it's really not just a command or a query, but a conversation.

[00:30:44] And when you approach it like a conversation, it becomes a very different experience.

[00:30:48] So I have a whole methodology in the book that you can check out that talks about how to talk to it.

[00:30:56] Just a few things to remember.

[00:30:57] You want to help it know the task that you want to execute.

[00:31:02] You want to help it understand the role that it's playing when it interacts with you.

[00:31:07] You want to give it rich context about what your target is and who you're writing for.

[00:31:12] And there are a bunch of different things that when you bring all of that to the conversation, and also it's not about just one prompt,

[00:31:20] but giving it feedback and saying, no, that's not what I mean.

[00:31:24] How about this?

[00:31:24] Or a really important question to ask a chatbot over and over, regardless of which chatbot you're using, is do you understand?

[00:31:34] And if you'll ask the chatbot, do you understand, sometimes it will come back and say, I need a little bit more information.

[00:31:41] And that just helps to clarify the conversation, and you get better outputs when it understands you.

[00:31:46] One of the other things you do is help people choose the right chatbot, because I've talked about, and we just mentioned in passing,

[00:31:53] ChatGPT.

[00:31:54] Of course, you have Gemini, and you've got Grok, and Jasper, and a variety of others.

[00:31:59] And I've mentioned sometimes that each one of those might have a particular bias that you need to be aware of,

[00:32:05] but also you need to understand kind of what you're looking for, because each one of those has some strengths and weaknesses, don't they?

[00:32:13] Yeah.

[00:32:14] You know, so ChatGPT is sort of the most famous one because it was out first.

[00:32:19] It's a great sort of general chatbot.

[00:32:21] It's probably the one I go to more often than any other.

[00:32:24] But it also tends to, and this is a technical term that folks may not be familiar with yet, hallucinate.

[00:32:33] That is actually the term for when an artificial intelligence makes stuff up that's not real.

[00:32:40] It does that sometimes.

[00:32:42] ChatGPT tends to do that more than another app called Claude, which is by a company called Anthropic.

[00:32:48] What I really like about Claude is that its outputs tend to sound a little bit more human.

[00:32:55] It's really good at that.

[00:32:57] Grok, as you mentioned, that is the X or formerly Twitter.

[00:33:00] That's their AI.

[00:33:02] It tends to have a little bit more of an attitude.

[00:33:04] It's a little more like talking to a hipster or something.

[00:33:07] Gemini is definitely more straight and narrow.

[00:33:11] I find that Gemini or Google's offering tends to be so kind of conservative and locked down as far as what it will say that sometimes it's frustrating for me because it's like I'm always running up against kind of restrictions that it's put in place.

[00:33:29] So I find that using a combination of all of those is really helpful.

[00:33:33] We're going to take a break, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about what is in the book, AI and the Church.

[00:33:38] All that coming up right after this.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] Jason Moore with us for a few more minutes.

[00:34:02] If you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212.

[00:34:06] AI and the Church.

[00:34:07] And let's, if we can, go out to our first caller here in Arizona, Martha KNLB.

[00:34:12] Thank you for calling today.

[00:34:14] Thanks for taking the call.

[00:34:16] My question is the best way to use AI or chatbots for visually impaired people.

[00:34:24] My mom is blind from glaucoma, and Siri argues with her.

[00:34:30] So if she wanted to listen to Point of View or have Siri go to Point of View, Siri doesn't do it very well.

[00:34:36] Is there some recommendation or something that the fellow who knows all about AI can tell me about that?

[00:34:44] That's a great question.

[00:34:47] Most of the apps now are either what is known as multimodal or are becoming multimodal, meaning that they can communicate in multiple different modes of communication.

[00:35:00] So it used to be that you had to type everything in with your fingers.

[00:35:05] ChatGPT actually has an app for a phone that you can talk to.

[00:35:10] You can basically put your prompts in by asking a question, and it will give you the responses back as audio.

[00:35:19] So it will talk to you.

[00:35:20] And it has very fluid conversations.

[00:35:22] They just updated the conversational nature of it, and it's really quite impressive.

[00:35:28] So I would encourage you to check out the ChatGPT app on your phone, and you'll be able to prompt just like you would with your fingers but with your voice instead.

[00:35:37] Thank you.

[00:35:38] Okay.

[00:35:39] Just before we run out of time, you did mention the idea of hallucinations.

[00:35:42] And really, again, this chapter on navigating ethical concerns is important.

[00:35:47] And that's a thing to look out for because what you have occasionally is with these chatbots, they'll just make things up.

[00:35:54] So you have the issue, first of all, of citing.

[00:35:57] There are some classic cases of citing law cases that never existed in a particular legal brief.

[00:36:03] And then you also have the related issue of plagiarism, where in some cases it not only makes things up, but in another case actually cites something and does not give good context.

[00:36:16] So then if you put that in your paper or your legal brief or your sermon, whatever it might be, you have some difficulty.

[00:36:24] So there are some reasons to say, once again, this is a tool for your toolbox, but there are some things that you need to understand about how ineffective those tools sometimes can be.

[00:36:37] Is that fair?

[00:36:38] Absolutely.

[00:36:39] I quote the quote that Ronald Reagan made famous, which is trust but verify.

[00:36:45] You definitely need to double-check your sources.

[00:36:48] I found when I was writing the book, which I shared, disclosed right up front that I was using these tools as I was writing the book, that when I was doing something like the history of AI, I would ask ChatGPT to maybe give me the history.

[00:37:02] And then I would put it into Gemini and have it look it over, and then I would put it into Quad.

[00:37:08] So I actually had the chatbots all sort of checking each other.

[00:37:11] Very good.

[00:37:12] And sometimes it would tell me where I can't find any verification or background information that goes with that.

[00:37:20] So you definitely want to check your sources.

[00:37:22] Definitely read through those scriptures that it gives you, because I've even had the earlier models make up scripture.

[00:37:31] So you've got to be careful and mindful in the same way you would if you were Googling something.

[00:37:37] You know, not everything that's online is accurate either.

[00:37:40] You mentioned Wikipedia earlier, and there's a lot of false stuff there.

[00:37:44] Yes.

[00:37:44] So, again, in the very back you have, of course, some of the advanced tools.

[00:37:48] You have things about AI video and other tools and resources and the rest.

[00:37:53] So there's just some great material in the book.

[00:37:56] But I suspect there are probably a few people now, Jason, that might say, well, I'd like to contact him and find out a little bit more.

[00:38:02] We have a link to MidnightOilProductions.com.

[00:38:06] Can I give you one other link?

[00:38:08] Please do, because we want to have as many of those posted as possible.

[00:38:11] Yeah.

[00:38:13] AIinthechurch.ai will get you right to information on the book, which you can reach out to me there.

[00:38:19] But also you can download a sample chapter there, which is 10 ways to use AI in the church.

[00:38:25] And so that will be an opportunity for you to kind of pick through and see, like, how does this actually work?

[00:38:30] Again, AI in the church, clear guide to curious and courageous.

[00:38:34] But if people go there, what's available to individuals that want to contact you and learn a little bit more about how to use these technologies or maybe have you do a seminar or maybe provide some consultation?

[00:38:47] What's available for some of our listeners?

[00:38:50] I absolutely do training.

[00:38:52] I speak at conferences.

[00:38:53] I do one-on-one sessions.

[00:38:55] But maybe the most fruitful thing that people might be interested in participating in is I lead a six-month AI cohort process.

[00:39:03] So up to 10 churches together in the same cohort from all over the country.

[00:39:08] We do six one-hour sessions.

[00:39:10] Every church in the cohort gets a one-on-one where I will help you through anything that you'd like to learn about AI.

[00:39:17] There's a lot of great group learning, churches of all sizes and shapes, and those sorts of things.

[00:39:23] So that, to me, is one of the most fruitful and fun ways to really learn what this technology is.

[00:39:30] I might just mention, too, Chapter 10 is 10 ways to use AI in the church.

[00:39:35] So if you're in church ministry, if you're a Sunday school teacher, a small group leader, a pastor, you can certainly see that.

[00:39:42] And then you've got a final chapter there that deals with the future of AI.

[00:39:45] And if you think some of this is mind-blowing now, just imagine when a little bit more of that is refined.

[00:39:54] And in some respects, some AI computers teach other AI computers.

[00:39:59] As you just talked about a minute ago, some of the chat bots correct some of the other chat bots.

[00:40:04] We're just in a whole different world.

[00:40:06] And it's one of the reasons why I encourage people to really think about a career in computers and in this area of AI.

[00:40:13] It is the future.

[00:40:14] And that's one of the reasons we talked about it today here on Point of View.

[00:40:17] So, Jason, thank you for writing the book.

[00:40:19] And thank you for giving us an entire hour today to talk about it.

[00:40:23] Well, thank you so much for having me on.

[00:40:25] It's been great chatting with you.

[00:40:26] And keep up the great work.

[00:40:28] We're going to take a break.

[00:40:29] And when we come back, we're going to talk about some other issues, which I think you're going to find very helpful.

[00:40:34] Let me just mention again my little booklet, Free of Charge, on artificial intelligence.

[00:40:40] Some you can read in 10 minutes.

[00:40:41] Whereas, of course, his book, AI on the Church, it will take you a long time.

[00:40:45] It's 250 pages, just chock full of great material.

[00:40:49] And so if you wanted to learn a little bit more about that, that is certainly the case.

[00:40:54] While we're talking about the arts, I thought I'd also mention that some of you may have an opportunity to go to He Rules the World.

[00:41:02] Some people have called it a musical or even a rock opera.

[00:41:05] But it has been put together, written and directed by Peter Emerson.

[00:41:09] But also an individual we've had on this program, Kevin Sorbo, provides the narration.

[00:41:15] And it takes really some of the old Christmas songs, animation, things like that.

[00:41:21] It premieres, first of all, December 11th at the Waco Hippodrome Theater.

[00:41:25] But later on, as we learn a little bit more about other ways in which you can view that, we'll certainly focus on that.

[00:41:32] But if you've got something to write with, let me give you the website so that you can do the investigation that you would like to do.

[00:41:39] And the website is very simple.

[00:41:41] It's www.herulestheworld.com.

[00:41:45] Pretty easy to remember.

[00:41:47] Herulestheworld.com.

[00:41:48] That, of course, is this musical that I think you will be interested in.

[00:41:52] And as you know so often, we try to educate you about certain kinds of media, whether it is movies or music or whatever, because I think that is so very important.

[00:42:03] And I just thought I'd mention again, if you go to that website, herulestheworld.com, you'll have all the information you need in that regard.

[00:42:11] And when we come back from the break, we're going to be talking about Thrive Savannah, Georgia.

[00:42:15] And we'll be talking about an individual that has been the executive director and is the executive director of United for Life to His Glory and the Thrive Express Savannah.

[00:42:25] And that is an organization that I think is just so powerful and really has taken the time to put a state-of-the-art medical center right across the street, literally from the local planned parent, who are just another model of what I think you should be doing in your community.

[00:42:41] But as we go to our break, don't forget that if you found some of this very interesting, like to listen to it again, or pass it on to someone who's interested in design and graphics,

[00:42:50] you might click on that button that says watch or listen and send some of that material on because I want to educate us on how to use these technologies wisely here in the 21st century.

[00:43:05] Let's take a break. We'll be back with more right after this.

[00:43:11] Many years ago, they began saying that we live in the information age.

[00:43:16] Well, today, there is so much information coming at us from every direction.

[00:43:20] The hardest thing is to discern which issues are really important and how can I make a positive impact without wasting my time trying to figure out accurate information.

[00:43:32] Let me give you a suggestion to help with that.

[00:43:35] Visit pointofview.net.

[00:43:38] Look at the tabs across the top.

[00:43:40] Find the one named Viewpoints.

[00:43:42] Kirby Anderson and others on our team are constantly watching for news to identify those issues that you really need to know about.

[00:43:50] They boil things down in a brief summary and then you can decide if it's something on which you want to learn more and get involved.

[00:43:57] Again, when you go to pointofview.net, click on Viewpoints, you'll see exactly what I mean.

[00:44:04] You'll see the issues that we are covering right now.

[00:44:07] And when you like what you see, I honestly think you will, you can slide on over, enter your email, and get them automatically sent to your inbox each day.

[00:44:17] That's it.

[00:44:18] Take a minute now.

[00:44:19] Be informed.

[00:44:21] Pointofview.net.

[00:44:22] Click on Viewpoints.

[00:44:28] Point of View will continue after this.