Disclaimer: This blog was not “written” by ChatGPT.
On November 30, 2022, Microsoft-backed OpenAI unveiled the first model of its artificial intelligence chatbot called ChatGPT. The bot’s responses to user questions are pulled from “textbooks, websites, and various articles” in an uncanny “conversational manner ... primarily designed for customer service.”
But the problem—or to some, the goldmine—is that its scope is much wider. ChatGPT isn’t only shaping up to be the virtual assistant of the year: ChatGPT can generate code to build an entire website, come up with a love poem to kick off your marriage proposal, and even produce a book of approximately 8,500 words in less than an hour. It also passed several medical and law school exams.
In its first five days, ChatGPT amassed “one million users”; in two months it “had over 100 million monthly active users—a feat that TikTok achieved in nine months and Instagram in two and a half years.” As reported by Reuters, it is “the fastest-growing consumer application in history.”
Chatbots Aren’t Perfect
But before we kiss those high school essays goodbye, there are some notable setbacks. For one, chatbots aren’t always accurate. Labeled “hallucinations” by insiders, these responses are described as “convincing but completely fictitious.” In other words, chatbots, including current darling ChatGPT, are capable of being really good liars.
Additionally, despite “fairly rigorous safeguards,” ChatGPT nonetheless can be an accomplice to cybercrimes, such as phishing, scamming, and malware. There’s also the old fear of making human labor irrelevant across numerous sectors.
The biggest red flag is the moral implications. What effect will this tool have on cheating, plagiarism, and the spreading of large-scale misinformation? The main tagline on OpenAI’s home page reads: “Creating safe artificial general intelligence that benefits all of humanity.” How safe is a chatbot that has already prompted the creation of several not-so-foolproof programs to guard against the unethical use of it—one from the developer itself, no less?
And yet ChatGPT’s breakthrough launch has prompted a surge toward this brave new world: “UBS Global Wealth Management forecasts that the AI hardware and services market will grow by a 20% compound annual growth rate and hit $90 billion by 2025.” Strategists at Bank of America claimed, “AI is the new electricity.”
God’s Gift of Free Will
On February 24, Pew Research Center released a report on “The Future of Human Agency,” a canvassing of “540 technology innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers, academics and activists” in which a majority 56 percent “agreed with the statement that by 2035 smart machines, bots and systems will not be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making.”
While the minority held a more reassuring viewpoint, such as the belief that a loss of control would actually benefit humans’ time, efficiency, and security, the majority, on the other hand, spotlighted existing warning signs—such as human behavior.
“The last 40 years of investigation of human psychology have revealed how easily people can be externally directed and how much work their brains will do to rationalize their actions as having been self-determined,” one executive stated. “Many will revel in such ‘freedom’ from decision burden,” one consultant predicted. Author Richard Watson, quoting an acclaimed MIT professor, summarized, “I think it was Sherry Turkle who asked whether machines that think could lead us to becoming humans who don’t.”
Many observed that people are already, imperceptibly, yielding their trust and willpower—not to a soulless AI overlord in some dystopian future—but now to the tech-driven systems of today. The responsibilities you yield presently are slowly but surely preparing you to relinquish others in the future.
The Bible says that in the last days, two beasts, symbolizing nations (Daniel 7:17, 23), will partner to gain control of the world (Revelation 13:11, 12). The second beast “causes all … to receive a mark …[,] that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark” of the first beast (vv. 16, 17).
Interestingly, Cindy Cohn, one of the executives canvassed by Pew, suggested: “Marginalized people will likely be subjected to a range of decisions about their lives that are made by machines, bots and systems, with little control. I expect that this will be the case in situations involving public support, access to health care and necessities such as food, energy and water, law enforcement, national security.”
While the secular world is making predictions echoing Bible prophecy, what is the church doing? Are we asleep in Laodicean comfort (3:17)? Are we like the Israel of old who willfully gave up their individual freedoms in exchange for the security of an earthly king (1 Samuel 8:9–20)? Do we belong to the masses so ready to discard their God-given free will as a responsibility too hard to bear?
“Humanity can no longer be considered to be the measure of all things, the crown of creation. We are participants in an eternal evolutionary waltz that enabled us to strut and fret upon the Holocene stage,” Pew noted one commenter as saying.
A good-sized contingent canvassed by Pew believes that relinquishing our decision-making ability is an inevitability. It is not. In God’s eyes, you are the crown of His Creation. In fact, God gave His life for you (Romans 5:8) so that you could have a choice in the most important decision of your life (Deuteronomy 30:19). Discover how your choice is the deciding factor in these end times with this free online book The Beast: Who Will Worship It?