Artificial Intelligence and the Things That Matter Most

By Jonathan A. Powers

“Let us not start by making our situation seem more new or different than it really is.”

These words appear at the beginning of C. S. Lewis’s essay, On Living in an Atomic Age, written in 1948. At that time, the world was struggling to understand the frightening possibilities of nuclear technology. The atomic bomb had created a new and terrifying reality: human beings now had the power to destroy themselves on a scale that people had never imagined before. It was understandable that people worried about the future.

Lewis did not say these fears were foolish. The dangers were real. But he questioned the idea that this new technological threat had completely changed what it meant to be human. Disease, war, natural disasters, and death had always been part of life. The atomic bomb gave people a new way to cause destruction, but it did not create human mortality or the uncertainty that comes with being alive.

Lewis offered practical advice. Instead of letting fear of the atomic bomb take over their lives, people should keep doing the things that make life meaningful. They should work, pray, read, spend time with friends, and take care of their everyday responsibilities.

Nearly eighty years later, Lewis’s words seem especially useful as we face another technology that may reshape our world: artificial intelligence. Of course, AI is not the atomic bomb, and there are important differences between them. But the development of AI has brought a familiar mix of excitement, uncertainty, and fear. Some people believe AI will begin a period of human progress unlike anything we have seen before. Others warn that it could deeply disrupt society or even put humanity’s future at risk. Between these predictions, most of us are simply trying to understand what this technology means for our everyday lives.

Perhaps Lewis’s wisdom gives us a good place to start.

New Technology, Familiar Questions

Human history is full of new technologies that have changed how we live, work, communicate, and understand the world. The printing press made information much easier to share and helped make the Protestant Reformation possible. The Industrial Revolution changed economies, communities, and everyday life in major ways. Electricity, cars, radio, television, computers, and the internet all created possibilities that earlier generations could hardly have imagined. These changes also brought new problems. Some disrupted established institutions and people's jobs. Others raised moral questions that society was not ready to answer. In almost every case, people had to learn how to use new technologies responsibly while those technologies were developing faster than people could fully understand their effects.

Over time, we developed new habits, expectations, and, when needed, laws to deal with these changes. This process was rarely easy, and it did not prevent every harmful result. Even so, humanity learned how to handle many things that had once seemed strange or overwhelming.

Artificial intelligence is part of this longer history, even though it also brings some genuinely new challenges. Unlike many earlier technologies, AI can do tasks that we have traditionally connected with human intelligence. It can write text, study complex information, help with medical research, create images, and take part in conversations that can seem very human. These abilities are already changing education, business, medicine, entertainment, and many other parts of life.

There are good reasons to feel hopeful. AI may help researchers find treatments for diseases, make education easier to access, help people work more effectively, and support efforts to solve problems that once took huge amounts of time and resources.

At the same time, there are real reasons to be concerned. AI systems can create false information that seems believable, strengthen existing unfair biases, threaten privacy, and make it easier to manipulate people. Their growing abilities also raise questions about jobs, national security, who is responsible when things go wrong, and the growing power of a relatively small number of companies and governments.

We should not dismiss these concerns as unreasonable fear of new technology. They deserve serious attention. But we should also avoid thinking that humanity has suddenly entered a world where the usual duties of wisdom, moral judgment, and faithful living no longer matter.

The Challenge of Making AI Safe

One of the most important discussions about artificial intelligence is about safety. How can we make sure that increasingly powerful AI systems help humanity instead of harming it? How can we protect personal information, stop people from using AI to do harm, and decide who should be held responsible when these systems make mistakes or cause damage?

More and more people recognize that safeguards are needed. The hard part is deciding what those safeguards should be, who should create them, and how they should be enforced. These questions become even more difficult when international politics is involved.

The United States and China are competing more intensely to develop artificial intelligence. (For more on this, see the September 19^th issue of The Economist.) Both countries understand that leading the world in AI could bring major economic, technological, and military advantages.

This competition creates a difficult problem. Governments have good reasons to set meaningful safety rules and encourage responsible development. But they also worry that too many restrictions could slow progress and give other countries an advantage. If American companies face rules that delay their work while Chinese developers continue to advance, some people fear that the United States could lose its place as a world leader in technology. Yet giving up meaningful safeguards to win the competition could put society at serious risk.

The choice is not simply between safety and innovation. Both matter. The real challenge is finding a way to pursue them together. Even when governments agree that AI should be developed responsibly, they may strongly disagree about what responsible development means.

A democratic society that values individual rights and personal freedom may regulate AI differently from an authoritarian government that puts state control first. Companies, governments, researchers, and ordinary people may also disagree about which dangers deserve the most attention. Countries will need to work together, but reaching agreement will not be easy.

This is one reason Christians should avoid simple answers to these questions. Allowing technology to develop without limits is not an automatic solution, and neither is giving the government sweeping control. Good intentions do not always lead to good results, and regulations can also have unexpected harmful effects.

What we need is careful judgment, honest discussion, proper accountability, and a willingness to recognize that technological progress does not remove our duty to act morally. These concerns matter to everyone, not just Christians. But the Christian faith has something important to offer this discussion.

The Question Beneath the Technology

As we think about what artificial intelligence might become, I wonder if we are missing another equally important question: What is AI doing to us? Much of the public discussion focuses on what the technology can do. Can AI write better than people? Can it diagnose diseases more accurately? Can it replace certain jobs? Could it eventually become more intelligent than humans? These are useful questions, but Christians should also care about how using technology shapes our habits, relationships, desires, and understanding of ourselves.

The Christian faith teaches that human beings are more than their skills or achievements. Our worth does not come from how intelligent, productive, creative, or useful we are. Instead, our dignity comes from being created in the image of God. This truth matters especially in a world that is becoming more fascinated with artificial intelligence. If a machine can do tasks that people once thought only humans could do, does that somehow make us less human?

From a Christian point of view, the answer is no.

Our worth has never depended on being better than other living things or machines. God created us and loves us, and we are called to live in relationship with God and one another.

The Christian view of humanity is built around relationships. We were created to love God and love our neighbors. We were made to live in community, care responsibly for creation, and show God's goodness to the world. In Jesus Christ, we see the clearest picture of what it means to be human. The eternal Son of God did not simply tell people about salvation. He became human and lived among us. He shared the ordinary parts of human life, including its joys, sorrows, relationships, suffering, and even death. The incarnation reminds us that our lives as embodied human beings matter deeply to God.

This has important consequences for how we think about artificial intelligence. AI may be able to imitate conversation, offer useful information, and help us with countless tasks. But we should not mistake these abilities for the full meaning of a human relationship. A chatbot may give helpful advice, but it cannot replace the shared duties that come with friendship. An AI system may write a sermon, but it cannot replace the spiritual growth, pastoral judgment, and personal example of someone called to preach God's Word. Technology may help us communicate more quickly, but being efficient is not the same as sharing life with others. So the question is not only whether AI can do something. We must also ask whether using AI for that purpose helps us live out our calling as people created in God's image.

The Formation of Our Loves

This brings us to what I believe may be one of the most important Christian concerns about artificial intelligence: how it shapes what we love. Christians have long understood that the things we do again and again shape us. Our habits affect what we want, and our desires affect the people we become.

The apostle Paul urges Christians not to copy the patterns of this world but to be changed by having their minds made new (Romans 12:2). Following Christ involves more than learning facts or accepting certain beliefs. It means allowing our whole lives to change as we learn to love God and our neighbors more faithfully.

Technology plays a part in this process. The tools we use affect how we spend our time, where we direct our attention, how we solve problems, and how we treat others. Think about the smartphone. It has made communication and access to information easier than earlier generations could have imagined. Yet it has also brought new struggles with distraction, comparing ourselves with others, loneliness, and the constant pull for our attention. The technology itself did not decide how we would use it. But the way it was designed, along with our habits, has shaped us in important ways.

Artificial intelligence raises similar questions, perhaps on an even larger scale. If AI can give us instant answers to our questions, will we become less willing to think carefully and patiently about difficult ideas? If it can write our emails, papers, sermons, and personal messages, will we miss chances to improve our own ability to think, communicate, and express ourselves?

If it can offer what seems like endless praise and companionship, will we become less willing to do the difficult, sometimes uncomfortable work needed to build real relationships with other people?

These results are not certain to happen. AI can also help people learn, support creativity, and take some tasks off our hands so we can give more attention to the people and duties that matter most. That is exactly why we must use it with care and purpose. We should ask not only whether a technology makes life easier, but also whether it helps us become more faithful, patient, wise, generous, and loving. Convenience is good, but it is not the greatest good. Efficiency is useful, but it is not the purpose of human life. Intelligence, however impressive, is not the same as wisdom.

The Bible consistently connects wisdom with our relationship with God. Proverbs reminds us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). Wisdom is not simply having information. It means learning to understand what is right and to live rightly before God. No technological advance can take away our responsibility to seek that wisdom.

Living Faithfully in an Age of AI

This is why I find Lewis’s essay so helpful. Writing in the shadow of the atomic bomb, Lewis was not telling people to ignore the dangers of nuclear weapons or stop trying to prevent disaster. Instead, he reminded his readers that fear of an uncertain future should not distract them from their duties and opportunities in the present.

The same idea applies to artificial intelligence. Christians should take part in thoughtful discussions about AI safety, public policy, education, and technological development. People working in government, business, research, and technology have real opportunities to shape how these tools are built and used. Their work deserves our attention and prayers.

The church should also take these changes seriously. It should consider how AI might support its mission without weakening the very practices that help Christians grow in faith. But we should not let excitement or anxiety about AI take over our attention. Our calling has not changed. We are still called to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are still called to care for people who are vulnerable, seek justice, speak the truth, welcome others, and share the good news of Jesus Christ. We are still called to gather for worship, receive the Scriptures, pray, share in the sacraments, and take part in the life of the church. And we are still called to develop patience, humility, self-control, generosity, and love.

None of these duties has become less important because AI can now do more complex tasks. If anything, they have become more important.

The future of AI will surely bring difficult choices. Some developments will bring great benefits. Others will create problems we have not yet imagined. People will disagree about rules, competition between countries, and where the limits of technological progress should be. Christians will not always agree on the best policies or practices, and we should approach these disagreements with humility. But we share a common foundation that can guide us.

We believe that every human being has worth because each person bears God's image. We believe that knowledge and power must be used with wisdom and love. We believe that our lives are meant to be lived in relationship with God and one another. And we believe that humanity's deepest hope rests not in technological achievement but in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Perhaps this is the most important thing for Christians to remember as we make our way through this new age of technology.

Artificial intelligence may change how we work, learn, communicate, and organize society. It may become one of the most important technological developments in human history. But it cannot change the basic truth of who we are, who we belong to, or what we were created to do. Lewis understood that even when technology changes in extraordinary ways, the most important questions about human life remain the same.

The same is true today. We should approach artificial intelligence with curiosity instead of suspicion, caution instead of panic, and wisdom instead of blind excitement. Above all, we should remember that our task is not simply to keep up with the newest technology. Our task is to remain faithful to Christ as we live with it.