In Nashville at The Art of Leadership Live, Carey Nieuwhof shared insights from his research which are included in AI and the Future Church: Make Your Ministry Irreplaceable in a World of Artificial Everything.
Shift 3: Fortify Your Integrity
Decide what you stand for before AI exposes what you will fall for.
What do you do when everything changes?
AI lives more in Genesis 3 in the realm of our sinful and broken world.
AI unleashes even more of the knowledge of God without the wisdom of God.
This is literally a digital battle at scale between good and evil.
THE THREATS WE FACE:
1. Deepfakes will continue to distort public discourse and destabilize your life.
What happens when people don’t care about whether something is true, just whether it appeals to them or agrees with them?
2. The incentives will intensify.
Incentives are the most powerful forces in the world.
When the incentives are crazy, the behavior is crazy.
Work twice as hard on your character as you do on your competency.
If your character doesn’t outpace your platform, your ministry will fall apart.
3. Your brain may rot.
American kids and teens are now performing one grade level lower, in both reading and math than they were in 2015.
Use AI to make you intellectually stronger, not cognitively weaker.
Sermon Rot: When AI writes your sermon and you don’t.
Your job is to wrestle with the text and with God.
If you are not comfortable sharing what you are doing on AI, then you are probably misusing it.
Teach on this.
Preach on this.
Upgrade your integrity now.
4. Immediacy will challenge patience.
Some people are going to be going to AI instead of wrestling with the Spirit.
This can lead to syncretism – a mix of Christianity with the thinking of the world.
ChatGPT always agrees with you whereas God will contradict, challenge, and correct us.
We need to help our people understand that God is faithful even if he isn’t fast.
5. AI resurrection “erases” death.
GriefTech is a growing area of technology. Deepfake videos of people who have passed away can happen now.
AI robots with realistic skin are being created even now.
Death shatters us and it is supposed to shatter us.
We have an opportunity to help people truly grieve and heal.
