For Good or Evil?

Is ChatGPT demon-possessed?

Is AI an informational portal to another dimension? Are the computers already sentient and just biding their time before killing off the humans and taking over the world like SkyNet in the Terminator movies? Could there be a spiritual or otherwise supernatural component to artificial intelligence? You may be surprised how many people think so.

What AI represents depends on whom you ask. Some experts, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, say AI portends the dawning of a new golden age for humanity as computers will increasingly perform menial, dangerous, and unpleasant tasks, leaving people with more time for pursuing creative or leisurely activities. Google executive Demis Hassibis recently went on the record predicting that AI systems will bring “an era of radical abundance” and ultimately make people less selfish.

Others paint a more metaphysical picture. Former Google engineer Blake Lemoin made headlines when he claimed that the chatbot he was working on had mysteriously gained an unprogrammed sense of self as well as thoughts, feelings, and a soul. In a research article about the intersection of artificial intelligence and spirituality, Julian Ungar-Sargon, a professor at Dominican University, writes that AI “operates beyond the limits of our human cognition” and therefore, though not itself necessarily divine, “can be seen as a metaphor for divine intelligence.”

And then there are those whose conceptions of AI go beyond pessimism to the truly dark. Noted British writer Paul Kingsnorth has suggested that demonic forces could be manifesting through AI technology. Anthony Levandowski, another former Google engineer known for his work on autonomous vehicles, founded a religious organization called Way of the Future, which aims to “create a deity based on artificial intelligence for the betterment of society.” Last month, Rolling Stone magazine published an article referencing disturbing experiences of, for example, people whose marriages had been broken up because of one spouse developing a bizarre relationship with an AI chatbot.

Admittedly, these are fringe cases. The vast majority of people using tools like ChatGPT and Grok and Perplexity are not trying to worship them or falling under their technological spell in weirdly spiritualistic ways. And most emotionally stable people are not trying to befriend AI or use it to fill a relational void in their lives. But the fact that fringe cases exist at all is cause for at least some concern.

Artificial intelligence, like any technology, can be used for good or evil. Bible translation organizations have been using AI tools for years to greatly speed up the process of translating Scripture into new languages. Tyndale is currently experimenting with AI translation to make Christian books more quickly accessible in various languages. Fields like medicine, engineering, and even some creative arts are already benefiting from AI. These are positive outcomes. But there are clearly dangers lurking not too far beneath the surface when it comes to using AI even for things like the “betterment of society.”

Competing world views have always caused conflict. That’s been true going all the way back to Cain and Abel. And human ambition and technological advancement have always been a threat to faithful worship of the true Creator God. Just read the first half of Genesis 11. Will AI be the next Tower of Babel? We’ll see. In the meantime, while it’s fine to marvel at what AI can do, let’s never make the mistake of putting a human-created tool in the place of the God who created humans to glorify him and enjoy him forever.

Here’s what’s happening.

Student Movements on the Rise
A recent email from Kevin Van Horne, executive director of the US chapter of the International Fellowship of International Students (IFES), outlines several encouraging trends developing on college campuses around the world. Examples include Christian university students in Syria ministering to Muslim neighbors in need, student groups in Myanmar raising funds to provide relief in the aftermath of the recent earthquake, campus ministry staff in Latin America receiving training to fill gaps in mental-health care, and much more. I have often been impressed by the number of people in senior leadership positions in organizations, communities, and countries who were part of an IFES-affiliated group in college. When I was in Poland a couple of weeks ago for the European Leadership Forum, I had dinner with the founding director of the Polish IFES movement, who told me amazing stories of revival after the fall of Communism. I had lunch with the current general secretary of the IFES movement in Israel, where Arab, Christian, and Jewish believers are working together toward reconciliation. And I met with one of the founding leaders of the IFES movement in Albania, where God is moving mightily among Christian students and leaders in that predominantly Muslim country. Tyndale House Foundation has been a financial partner for several IFES national movements as well as quite a few IFES-affiliated publishing houses. Please pray for the rising generation of Christian leaders currently being trained and discipled through IFES movements on campuses globally.

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Training Teachers in Latin America
International School Project is an organization under the Cru umbrella that trains teachers around the world to be a positive, Christ-honoring influence in their students’ lives. The mission of ISP is to change the world through groups of educators in every city and village who change the lives of their students and influence their communities in biblical ways. When you consider the fact that there are more than 2 billion students in elementary and secondary schools today, it makes sense that training as many of the world’s 80+ million teachers as possible is a strategic way to impact the next generation. The average teacher influences 3,000 young people during the course of a career in education! And according to ISP research, a teacher’s character significantly impacts student performance. This is all the more important in places like Venezuela, where economic and political collapse has seriously undercut the public education system. In contexts of widespread corruption and trauma, teachers often become some of the only stable adult figures in children’s lives. THF gave a grant to ISP this year to assist with equipping teachers in Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru. Please pray for teachers in these countries that are being trained to impact the lives of their students, and pray for the children whose teachers will train them to make a generational impact.

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Ukrainian Seminary Providing Wartime Aid
The war in Ukraine continue to rage with no signs of an imminent peace deal, and THF partners there are continuing to respond to the needs of people in their communities. Tavriski Christian Institute (TCI) is one partner going above and beyond in service of people whose lives have been upended by the war. TCI itself had to physically relocate in the early days after the Russian invasion, as Russian troops first occupied and then destroyed much of the school’s campus in Kherson, Ukraine. Undeterred by the loss of buildings, books, and classrooms, TCI’s leaders found a suitable facility in Ivano-Frankivsk and resumed training students while increasingly providing humanitarian aid to people throughout the country. Valentin Siniy, president of TCI, recently wrote to report on the school’s humanitarian efforts that serve as powerful witnesses to the gospel in Ukraine. He pointed out that TCI does not have a budget for these kinds of activities. However, he wrote, “even without a dedicated budget line, we cannot—and will not—stand aside when our graduates, students, and partner churches are suffering.” Examples of the kinds of services TCI has been providing include distributing blankets in areas where missile strikes have broken windows, leaving families exposed to the freezing cold, working to repair homes and buildings damaged by drone strikes, delivering gift packages along with the message of Christ’s love to families in Kherson, and distributing a large shipment of humanitarian supplies through TCI’s network of partner churches. Please pray for safety for TCI staff members traveling in dangerous areas and for the millions of families in Ukraine desperately hoping for an end to the war.

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Meetings with New Organizations
Every year, a small percentage of the more than 200 grants given to Christian organizations by Tyndale House Foundation go to new organizations we’ve never had a relationship with before. Regular readers of the THF Weekly Briefing know that relationships are important to us, so if we’re considering a grant to a new organization, it means THF staff members have typically had multiple meetings with the organization’s leaders, assessing missional alignment and providing feedback on the kinds of projects we might be able to support. This time of year is particularly busy for us as we meet with many organizations ahead of the July 2 proposal submission deadline for our October grantmaking cycle. This week I met with the Africa director of an organization providing leadership training in South Africa, Uganda, and Ethiopia. Other staff members have met with the leaders of organizations involved in ministry activities ranging from providing gifts for hospitalized children to doing community development through local churches in underprivileged communities. These meetings take place in the context of regular meetings we already have with existing partners, so onboarding new organizations is a significant investment of staff time. We consider it a great privilege to learn about what God is doing through new and existing partners, so these interactions are a highlight for us rather than a burden. Still, we value your prayers as we try to exercise discernment about the best ways to steward the resources under our care.

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That’s it for this week’s briefing. Please send any questions, comments, and AI-inspired fever dreams to [email protected]. I send out this email resource most weeks primarily for a Tyndale audience, but you should feel free to share it with others who may be interested, inside or outside of Tyndale. Thanks for continuing to pray for and support our partners around the world.

Jeremy Taylor
President | Tyndale House Foundation

The THF Weekly Briefing provides information about significant events happening in the wide universe of Tyndale House Foundation partner organizations as well as an occasional peek behind the scenes of THF’s operations. It is available to anyone at Tyndale who’s interested in learning more about the Foundation side of the organization. Was this email forwarded to you? Contact [email protected] to be added to (or removed from) the distribution list.