Thought for Today
Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created-- people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."
Matthew 24:33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates . . . 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 36 "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Is AI about to destroy humanity? This morning on the network morning news show Greta likes to watch, I saw and heard an interview with a writer concerning the recent warnings from many of the AI developers about the dangers of AI.
First, F.W.I.W. (for what it’s worth), the dangers of a creation’s running amok and messing everything up are not new. As I listened to that interview this morning, I obviously thought about the story of Noah. The Creation Story of the first 3 chapters of Genesis reveals to us that God’s Creation was good, e.g., “1:4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.” By the 6th chapter of Genesis, things became so irreparable, God decided to cause the Flood and start all over again.
During my own lifetime, the idea of a creation’s running amok has proven a staple meme in dystopian written fiction and in movies. Some of us saw the movie War Games. Others of us saw at least 1 or more of the Terminator movies or the Matrix movies.
During my own lifetime, we have all lived with the threat of nuclear devastation. The idea of a basic building block for everything goes at least as far back in history as the early Greek philosophers. For millennia, scientists and philosophers have tried to understand the basic elements of matter. Few of them did so with the hope of being able to use their discoveries to destroy the entirety of all that matter. By the early 20th century, however, scientific knowledge had progressed enough for many to realize the potential energy which could be released through manipulating those atoms, splitting them into their component parts. Sadly, human (mis)behavior redirected much of our attention to developing how to use that energy for destructive purposes.
Is the threat of AI destroying humanity real. Yes, the potential does exist. Most of us are incapable of completely understanding exactly how powerful and potentially dangerous a tool AI is. Sadly, the same thing is true for most of our nation’s leadership and most of the world’s leadership.
I am a Christian. I have read the book, the Bible. I have read about “the Day of the Lord.” I have read about ‘final judgment.’ I know the words of John of Patmos, “Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”
But, I do not anticipate that John’s passing away will come in a nuclear cataclysm. Neither do I anticipate the Ragnarök of Norse mythology or a Wagnerian Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)
My thoughts and understandings of how the fist earth will pass away are forming through my own understanding of John 3:16-17 and those other passages of scripture I so often reference. I believe the new heaven and the new earth of Revelations will be the result of that for which Christians so often pray. Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Imagine the day when that for which we pray will actually come about. Imagine a world where God’s will is done by and for all of God’s children. A world where all of us love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our strength, and with all our minds; where we all our neighbors as ourselves. (Luke 10:27)
As you hear the doom and gloom of all the prognostications of destruction, remember, “Genesis 9:13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.”
Love, watch for God’s rainbows, trust God,
Pastor Ray