I’m no longer sure if anything I see online is real.
I’ll read an article, and I wonder, “Did AI write that?”
I reply to an email and wonder if I’ve been talking to a machine for the last month or two.
I watch a video my friend sent me, looking for glitches in the matrix.
This stuff used to be the realm of science fiction, but here we are living at the real-life dawn of Artificial Intelligence, and Arnold Schwarzenneger is too old to save us.
It has never been easy to be a man, but since the dawn of ChatGPT, I’m not sure it’s ever been this confusing.
So what can a Christian man do with AI?
Is it a tool or a ticking time bomb? Does God want us to leverage it or run from it?
The question isn’t, “Can we use it?” but “Should we?”
Let’s start with some fundamentals.
Technology isn’t inherently good or bad; it’s a tool. Just like a sharp knife, it can be used for good things like carving a turkey, or bad things like murder—it’s how it’s used and who is using it that makes the difference.
So, which one is AI?
Well, both, actually.
So what can a Christian man do with AI? Is it a tool or a ticking time bomb? Does God want us to leverage it or run from it?
AI is a revolutionary tool. It can write whole books and papers with a simple prompt. It can create deep fake videos of any idea you can imagine. It can analyze data, replace jobs, create whole apps and websites, teach you, train you, act like your best friend, and even become your own personal medical and relationship advisor. Some experts say it will be doing the lion’s share of human work in 10 years or less.
I am blown away by it and terrified of it, simultaneously.
One moment, I’m thinking of what we could do if we use it properly; the next, I’m wondering if my son will have a job when he graduates.
We don’t know yet how much of the AI mania is hype and how much is reality. But in its current state, here are some things I’m thinking about as it relates to AI and being a man:
1. Men Need Depth, Not Ease
Most of us wouldn’t consider this a flaw, but the biblical authors likely would:
AI is instantaneous, free, encyclopedic, and tailored to your own personality. I’ll say it again, it’s too easy. The problem with something so simple and fast is that most spiritual and personal growth is slow and meaningful.
Teaching your son to be a man doesn’t happen overnight. Learning the skills and character necessary to lead your family isn’t downloadable. AI can’t take your teenager on a fishing trip that will change his future.
The problem with something so simple and fast is that most spiritual and personal growth is slow and meaningful.
Deep down, we all know that in life, there are no shortcuts. Growth requires real people and the passage of real time to grow character, connection, and spiritual disciplines.
AI is fast and shallow, and if we build our lives too much around it, we will never go through the deep and slow process of becoming a godly man or a true follower of Jesus.
Character growth takes time and pressure—much like the creation of a diamond. You can’t shortcut the development of our souls, or it will begin to show in the people we are becoming. AI can easily train us not to wait on God, press into prayer, or work things out with real people in real life.
If we’re honest, most of us were already pretty bad at these things. Waiting on God, pressing into prayer, building slow, deep relationships, and cultivating inner stillness were already significant gaps in the typical man’s armor.
If we’re not careful, AI could start to hollow us out from the inside.
Social media was supposed to make us more connected, but the truth is, we’ve never been more lonely.
In the same way, AI is supposed to make us better, but what we really need is to be deeper.
2. Men Need Their Humanity, Not Substitutes
We were promised that AI would do the dishes and mow the lawn for us so men could write and build what we loved to build all day.
Yet, as of today, AI is doing the writing and photo creation for us while we still have to mow the lawn.
God created us to create. He endowed us with His incredible creativity and paired it with agency (ability), and the results have been astonishing! Just walk through a museum or tour the ruins of ancient Rome.
However, if we keep outsourcing the very things that make us human, like writing to a friend, learning, creating storylines, and painting beautiful pictures, we are outsourcing the very things about a man that were made in the image of God.
If we’re honest, these are very real and deep risks to becoming the men God called us to be.
3. Men Need Wisdom, Not Fear
It’s not all bad news. AI is amazing at some tasks we’d all be happy to hand off to a digital assistant. I regularly use AI to transcribe a YouTube video that was meaningful to me, which I didn’t have time to take meticulous notes on. It’s an amazing medical research tool (which more than occasionally gets things wrong). It’s a time-saver when searching for obscure things online, and it offers incredible organizational opportunities. It is a huge productivity enhancer when used correctly!
So how do we harvest the good while avoiding the dangers?
I like the way that Harvard professor Robert Putnam describes it. He says AI is either good or bad for us, depending on whether we use it as an element or an alloy.
An element is a core metal, such as iron. Single elements are weaker when alone. When we singularly use AI alone to replace humanity in our lives, it leads to loss, isolation, and depression.
Alloys are different. Alloys are mixtures of mostly one metal, with a little of another to strengthen them. Steel is an alloy where carbon is combined with iron, and its strength increases dramatically.
Like an alloy, AI can enhance relationships and work when used sparingly and wisely, not simply because it’s easy and effective. However, we must prioritize what makes us human and what causes us to grow. We must not outsource our humanity or shortcut the slow, meaningful process of becoming the humans God is calling us to be.
I’ve been thinking deeply about this quote from C.S. Lewis:
“Yet the temptation will grow, as all temptations do, wrapped in the veil of progress. We will ask these machines to decide for us, not because they are wise, but because we are weary. And in doing so, we risk forgetting what it means to be human.
“The great danger is not the rise of the machine, but the fall of man—into complacency, into moral laziness, into believing that conscience can be outsourced. Let us, then, remember that while intelligence can be artificial, virtue never is. The soul is not programmable, and neither is goodness. That remains, eternally, our responsibility.
“The danger lies not in the machine becoming more human, but in man becoming less.”
If you’re wondering how C.S. Lewis could comment on a technology that appeared decades after he died, there is only one answer:
This quote was actually written by AI.
If that doesn’t make you think, I’m not sure what will. Powerful and dangerous in equal measure. Let’s be men who use this tool wisely.
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