AI and the Church: How should we proceed?

It's been almost a year since OpenAI's ChatGPT burst on the scene and made "AI" a watercooler topic. ChatGPT's release was followed almost immediately by dozens of other "generative" AI tools for image generation, audio generation, even video. And since then, if your inbox and social feeds are like mine, you've been inundated by hundreds of products that use these now readily available tools to solve a (perceived) problem. It's enough to cause a new sense of "AI fatigue," FOMO (fear of missing out), and the constant sense that we may never be able to catch up with the learning "opportunity" provided by constant development in AI.

?For me, it's had an emotional impact alternating between excitement for the future, fear that AI will take away all of our jobs, loneliness because you feel left behind in learning these new things. Perhaps you have concerns about the ethical issues of intelligent machines.

?For those in ministry, we worry that AI will eliminate the relationship in the discipleship process. In a time where mental health experts in the church, broader academic and healthcare worlds, and even the government have recognized an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, and the resulting depression, anxiety, and even despair - will AI bring further isolation?

?Worries aren't unfounded.

• There are already AI apps in the market that allow people to "design" their perfect friend and create a very realistic avatar. They can chat with the friend whose interaction will be custom designed to match their preferences. Imagine a spouse who is always impressed with everything you say, never disagrees, and who flirts with you even after the honeymoon has worn off. In a way, it's the natural outcome of a cancel culture that says people can't be friends with anyone who disagrees with anything. The only way to have friends who perfectly agree is to design them yourself. If you think that can't be a good thing, I think you are right.
• Some companies have announced that they were able to replace entry level customer service jobs with bots to automate at least the initial responses to customer requests.
• Fast food joints are testing AI order takers in the drive through. While this may replace some workers, it also provides the benefit of multi-lingual support at the drive through.

The upside?

On the other hand, what an amazing thing that we now see technology that can help us to be more productive in many ways. Even the free versions of ChatGPT and Claude can serve as a powerful "virtual assistant" to help put thoughts together and do other day to day tasks quickly. I've used both to help generate outlines for articles and proposals. I've put my own writing in as a prompt and asked Claude to help me adjust my tone to be less defensive, to be more concise, or to be more fun (or serious) in my tone. I've asked ChatGPT to create Excel formulas that would have taken me hours of Googling and trial and error to create on my own.

?What if, in the hands of talented technologists, AI can help connect people to each other and to God? What if AI can serve up the best of historical, biblical scholarship to help people connect the dots of the problems they experience in real life to the wisdom of Scripture? I'm not talking about replacing the Holy Spirit in people's lives, but rather using those technologies for good and edification.

?What's coming?

I was privileged to join over 150 software developers, ideators, and other technologist in Boulder, CO recently for a "hackathon" hosted by Gloo (https://gloo.us). Thirty-nine teams submitted working prototypes of new AI enabled software - all with the aim of helping the "big-C" Church to better, more effectively and efficiently do the Great-Commission. Submissions included tools to help pastors prepare for sermons, tools to help guide individuals in their own spiritual journeys, and tools to help churches manage church more efficiently.

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The teams used large language models trained specifically on historically respected theologians and created portals for churches to tune the training to match their own theological positions. Others designed frameworks to ingest a church's own content, including sermons, articles, books, doctrine statements, and repurpose that content in a variety of ways for different channels. Still others looked at ways to use the church database to better personalize care and shepherding tasks by noticing patterns in congregant and parishioner engagement and assigning tasks to the right clergy, staff, and volunteers based on the AI's training.

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I was struck by the community and vulnerability of the participants. They brought their best ideas to the table and shared the secret sauce to a room full of people who would also be capable of executing on the ideas. Gloo started a $25-million fund to catapult AI in the church, and Gloo as a company has vast capability to execute on the ideas shared this weekend. I was impressed by the trust of the community to come together around the mission of using these new technology advances to serve the Church.

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We'll disagree on what is good. In fact, there were a couple of entries that I think can be very impactful, but that I hope are not. Sometimes we can be effective and efficient at the wrong things.

?Principals for the future

That leads into how we think about AI and the conversations we need to be having. Gloo has done a good job of framing some key values and guidelines, so it's worth summarizing here (my paraphrasing).?

• We have a moral imperative to use these tools for good. To me, this means we have to be in the conversation. We have to be active in the AI conversation. We must not just let AI happen. And, to the degree that they can be useful for good, we should use them for good. To the degree that the can be used for evil, we should push back - and hard.
• We must keep human relationships primary, or as Gloo puts it - "we value the primacy of relationships." To God, to others. We need to use AI in ways that do not hinder relationships. AI shouldn't replace relationships. And we, in our own, personal use of technology, should not let it be a surrogate for our relationship to God and each other. It is not the Holy Spirit, not God, not a pastor, not a mentor, not a discipler or a disciple, not a friend, not a companion. It can't pray for you, care for you, bring you dinner, or hold your hand when you need a hand. There may be technologies that could be more efficient than a person, but that harm or neglect relationships, and in those cases, we should consider thoughtfully whether or not to use the technology.
• Trust is critical, and we have to use AI in ways that further trust. That means protecting data, giving agency to people in the ways that they choose to share and not share their data, making it easy for them to know what data they have shared and how to un-share it, and making it clear how their data will be used.
• God is not surprised by any of this, so we can go forth without fear, seeking wisdom in the process.

Coming soon...

There are many conversations happening about the practical things we need to be doing as churches, organizations and individuals. In future posts, I'll cover some of these:

• How should your organization's "acceptable use policy" address Artificial Intelligence.
• How should you manage budget and spending when purchasing AI tools (they add up!)
• How should you manage approvals of AI tools in your IT environment, especially as they start to integrate with other things. Cybersecurity, data sharing, and supportability are all areas that need definition and contemplation.
• What are some of the best tools to solve problems that need solving?

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?#gloohackathon #churchtechnology #citn #church #churchexecutive #executivepastor #pastor #aiandthechurch #churchAI

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