Wake Up, Look Up

Foreign. Hello, everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weirock, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, who really sent that text? This is prompted by an article I read on CNN's website about how Gen Z is outsourcing hard conversations to AI. And if I'm honest, when I read that title, I thought, that is not a Gen Z thing, that's an everyone thing. Increasingly, people are doing what's now being called social offloading to AI, Meaning if you have a hard conversation coming up, a breakup, uh, uh, you're. You're letting go of someone at your company, you're, you're quitting a job, you're ending a partnership, whatever it is. Uh, people are increasingly turning to tools like ChatGPT to generate that. And then without acknowledging that, sending it in an email, sending it in a text as though it came from them. Uh, the article took a very negative look at this, saying that this is a sign that we're losing the ability to connect to each other. This is evidence that Gen Z is emotionally underdeveloped and that's going to show up in future years. Look, maybe all that's true, but to me, that's a little bit shaking your fist at the sky. It's the old man saying, get off my lawn. Uh, AI tools like ChatGPT are here. They're here to stay. They're not going anywhere. We are only headed further in this direction. So, sure, I could do an episode on how it's always better to talk to someone in person. It's always better to use your own words. And in general, I think that's true. But you're not going to limit yourself to that. I'm not. We're not. That'd be like saying, uh, don't send an email or don't send a text. Uh, 20 years ago. It's like you could say that we were going to keep going in that direction. Instead, I want to say this. Uh, if you choose to use AI as a tool to craft an email or to craft a text message, here is one theological point you absolutely need to understand. You, you are as responsible for the content of that email or text morally as you would have been if you had written it yourself. Uh, Jesus says this in Matthew 12:36. People will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every empty word they have spoken. You might say, ah, but if Chat said it, I didn't say it unless you had Chat write it for you. Listen, the truth is that ChatGPT is just a tool. Tools, uh, like it, it's there, uh, like a car you drive or a, uh, utensil you use to pick up your food. They do what you tell them to do in the way you tell them to do it. So if AI crafts an email for you and you don't look it over and you don't wrestle with each sentence on whether or not it's actually conveying what you want it to convey, and you click send, you have now said that. Which means that whatever the consequences of that, or whatever the truthfulness or lack of truthfulness, the loving kindness or the lack of loving kindness, those are things I think the Bible rightly lays at your feet. So it's not so much that we shouldn't be using AI or ChatGPT to craft messages, is that we need to make sure we read them, we need to make sure we think through them. We may need to offer our own edits so that we get the fourth or fifth version of what Chat generated and not just generate and send. Because if we're not careful, not only are we going to say things that we're responsible for that we're going to wish we didn't, but we're going to hurt each other. Uh, we're going to hurt each other either by being cold and sterile and uncaring, or by being so obvious that we didn't even care to think through a message. We just sent a boilerplate artificial intelligence text or email. Uh, just because you're using ChatGPT doesn't mean you can't do a read through. You can't ask yourself, is this kind. Are they going to hear this in the way that I mean it? Is this actually the best way of saying that sentence? I guess what I'm saying is if you choose to use these tools, and I know you're going to, and so am I, let's make sure we use them in a gospel centered way. Let's remember that the whole law boils down to this. Love God with all that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself. That might not be ChatGPT's operating guidelines, but but it is ours. So as we use these tools, let's not give ourselves the excuse that we aren't responsible if we didn't actually do the writing. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Lookup. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.