Wake Up, Look Up

[Music]

hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach

wyrock and in today's episode we're

asking the question can AI be your

therapist this is brought on by an

article I read in the Wall Street

Journal this week about AI chat spots

and the mental health risks that can

come from going to them listen the uh

APA the American Psychiatric association

is actually pushing back against this

pretty hard uh there are a number of AI

chatbots out there that will purport to

be uh anything from a friend to an

advisor to a confidant and increasingly

people are going to these chat Bots for

their help for their help in thinking

through their emotions and their mental

health as a result uh people are

experiencing a variety of consequences

some of them pretty devastating in fact

there are two cases right now where

teenagers turn to AI chatbots for help

with their mental and emotional health

and ended up taking their own lives in

both cases at least their families are

arguing that the AI encouraged them to

take their own lives that's because uh

artificial intelligence can create a

kind of an Echo chain it tends to mirror

the emotions and thought process

processes of the person engaging it

which means that over time a student

could make the argument and even have

that argument bounced back to them that

taking their life will actually lead to

everything being better uh in this the

other problem here is these chat Bots

are not accountable in the way that uh

psychiatrists or mental health

professionals would be I mean who do you

hold accountable when a teenager uses a

chatbot and then takes their own lives

not the developer they weren't building

a psychiatrist it can be tough then to

course correct uh to to fix the system

and of course the APA has a vested

interest in wanting to preserve their

career and not see AI do away with it

but you and I most likely are not mental

health professionals and so what does

this mean for us well one is just

recognize that people around you might

be leaning in to AI in this way uh your

husband your wife your kids who knows

actually seeking help um on their mental

and emotional health relational advice

professional advice from artificial

intelligence we all know that AI has

huge potential what we may not realize

is we're still kind of in the infancy

stage and and my encouragement is that

you actually dialogue with people around

you are they using AI what are they

using it for what are they experiencing

because artificial intelligence becomes

less dangerous if we're talking about it

if we have kind of a human

accountability to it that's also though

because God has designed it to be that

human interaction brings something to us

that no technology ever can after all

it's you and I in Galatians 62 that are

told to Bear one another's burdens AI

can give me advice AI can help me

process data it cannot help me carry my

burden it cannot enter in empathetically

to my feelings to my story in the way

another human being can even as I share

the difficult things going on in my life

and watch you react to those difficult

things there's even a power in your

emotional response that validates my

anxiety or my fear or my concern or my

negative emotions we have been built to

help each other get through life the

vulnerable PE vulnerable people need

Shepherds not algorithms that's Jesus's

Point sort of in John 10 that he is the

Good Shepherd people need someone who's

not just helping them figure out where

they are but actually leading them to

life that's the metaphor of a Shepherd

leading them to Grass and water to all

that they need to flourish only Jesus

and the people of Jesus are ultimately

equipped to get us there because it's

Jesus himself who does the leading

listen AI is a helpful tool I'm excited

about all the ways it is going to

advance us but it's a poor substitute

for Community it's a poor substitute for

Christ but I can't help but think that

more than throwing rocks at Ai and

telling it to stay in its own lane that

you and I need to do a little repenting

and recognize that part of the reason

people are going to AI chatbots to talk

about their mental and emotional health

is because I haven't done the work of

convincing them that I'm a safe place to

go and more and more we have to realize

we are becoming self-centered and

isolated people more prone to hit next

on Netflix than to actually have a

meaningful conversation and the void

that we create when we don't bear each

other's burdens is a void ultimately

that AI will fill and fill poorly do the

people around you know that you care

when's the last time you asked them how

they're doing when's the last time you

ask them how you could pray for them

when's the last time you actually prayed

with them right then listen people who

are loved well people who are cared for

well people who have those around them

under the leadership of Jesus sharing

their burdens are people I think who it

won't even occur to go to AI for advice

and for empathy let's make AI obsolete

in this way that our love for each other

makes them irrelevant hey thanks so much

for watching this episode of wake up

lookup

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