Ep. 56: What Does Christianity Say About AI? w/Andy Steiger

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, this is Andrew from THE INDOUBT SHOW. I hope you’re having a wonderful day wherever you are in the world listening to today’s program. We’ve got a great show for you today. We have Andy Steiger, who is the founder of Apologetics Canada. Which reminds me, if you are local, Abbotsford, March 1st and 2nd we will be at Apologetics Conference. We are going to be doing THE INDOUBT SHOW live. It’s going to be amazing. Go to indoubt.ca to get your tickets.

But we have Andy, and we’re talking about AI, artificial intelligence. It keeps developing and changing ever so quickly, and so we want to keep having these conversations to make sure that we are equipped and have a biblical perspective of how to handle some of the changes and how far is too far when it comes to technology. We hope you enjoy the program. God bless.

All right, well, we have Andy Steiger here from Apologetics Canada. How are you doing today?

Andy Steiger:

Doing great, man. It’s so good to be with you today.

Andrew Marcus:

This is a very important topic, and I know you did a topic on this recently at Northview and it was just a packed house.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, I’ve been speaking on this actually…

Andrew Marcus:

Quite a bit.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, quite a bit, because as you know, my PhD work is in the area of what it means to be human, and a significant portion of my study was in AI. For example, just this last year alone I was out in Texas with John Lennox speaking on the subject of AI. In fact, John Lennox and I did a couple of others as well in Canada.

Andrew Marcus:

Cool.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, it was cool. It was actually great to be with John Lennox. It could very well be his last time in North America. I mean, he’s getting up there in years.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. What a privilege and an honor. I want to go through a breaking news little segment, if that’s okay. Can we do a little breaking news because something just happened and I’d like to just discuss it a little bit. Right now we have breaking news. The first human patient received an implant from Elon Musk’s company, this brain interface company called Neuralink. I know they’ve been doing a lot of testing. I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the tests where they were doing it on the monkey and the monkey was like texting, I want to snack, with the screen. Have you seen that?

Andy Steiger:

No. No.

Andrew Marcus:

The monkey had a Neuralink chip in his head …

Andy Steiger:

And he’s texting.

Andrew Marcus:

And he uses his brain to text the letters, I want a snack.

Andy Steiger:

Okay. That is new to me.

Andrew Marcus:

Monkeys texted quite a bit faster than me to be honest. I was a little bit overwhelmed, but no, it wasn’t faster. I’m just joking. But anyways, on Monday a few weeks ago, the platform informed the first patient has received a plant in his head. What does this mean? What is Neuralink? It spikes all the neuron detections, all the things in your brain so you’ll be able to, people who are blind will be able to see. People who are lame will be able to walk. Even the way he talks about it, he says the blind will see and the lame will walk. It kind of sounds a little similar.

Andy Steiger:

Yes, Jesus ask for sure.

Andrew Marcus:

Very much so.

Andy Steiger:

Well, because that’s a good point. Even Google will talk about that the dead will be raised to the cloud sort of idea that you can even have eternal life through technology.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, and they’re trying to make it so that you’ll basically never die.

Andy Steiger:

Right?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, so very, very fast …

Andy Steiger:

Which we got to talk about. This is good things.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, really good things to talk about. Let’s talk about it right now. How do we respond? We’re going to be seeing this more and more in the news. How do we respond when people are trying to push this agenda of you can never die, or all these literal healings and miracles in the eyes of the world.

Andy Steiger:

Well, let’s back up just a little bit too because there’s two conversations taking place parallel as we’ve been getting into this already. One is you’ve got AI technologies that are happening, but then you’ve also got these AI technologies that are being integrated with humans, so these are kind of two different things that are going on. It’s not just that the lame might walk or the blind see, but maybe the blind see even better or the lame walk even better. This tends to fall under the category of human enhancement, which I think makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable. Should you be enhancing a human? Then the big question is how far is too far? I think the Neuralink’s a big one because I think a lot of people are kind of like, I don’t know, is it too far? But let me throw something at you. Tell me how you guys would respond to this. Can you even imagine a human without technology? What would that even look like?

Andrew Marcus:

Well, it’s all around us all the time, but if we just go back to when there wasn’t a lot of technology and try to envision what it would be like.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, I mean, for example, you’re wearing clothes right now. You have shoes on.

Andrew Marcus:

So I’d be naked.

Andy Steiger:

Okay, so first of all, you’d be naked.

Andrew Marcus:

We’re going to Genesis 2.

Andy Steiger:

Right? Now all of a sudden we’re going seriously back to Genesis. Now you got no tools so I guess you’re naked in a garden eating fruit. I guess. But my point being, it seems as though God at some level has baked technology into this whole equation.

Marcus Miller:

Right.

Andy Steiger:

Have people always been meant to be a part of technology?

Marcus Miller:

Computers are a further extension of technology, but technology is really human advancement in creating things, right?

Andy Steiger:

Yeah. Computer’s a tool. It’s a tool that people create. AI is a tool that humans have created and we can use it for good or evil.

Andrew Marcus:

This is the reality, and a lot of people are feeling uncomfortable with Neuralink or all these things that are happening when it blends with human existence, but people were always afraid or laughing or uncomfortable with telephones, cell phones, computers, internet.

Andy Steiger:

Or try this one on. You’re wearing glasses right now. That’s an enhancement of some kind, especially if you have binoculars. But then other people have contact lenses. Other people get laser eye surgery, and now there’s the idea, well, we can pop the hood on the human genome and fiddle with things. It’s kind of this weird frog in the kettle moment technologically where we’re like, we’re okay with technology clearly, but we’re just not sure how far …

Andrew Marcus:

Far we go.

Marcus Miller:

Right.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay, so going back to the glasses then. Okay, I have these glasses to enhance and make my sight better, but now what about virtual reality glasses? All of a sudden now it starts to get a little bit, like Apple has their new, you were just talking to me about this the other day. They’re new …

Marcus Miller:

Right. Yeah. The Apple Vision Pro, which augmented reality and virtual reality that you’re now seeing people on the subway. There’s that one clip of this guy that’s just moving his hands around. It looks ridiculous, and people were pointing out how silly he was looking, but everybody was in the comments of it were saying, well, everybody laughed when the iPhone was invented and people glued to their phones. Once you actually experience it, then it’s very quick how the pendulum swings to people embracing those technologies.

Andy Steiger:

I’ve been seeing more and more pictures of people that are being posted online of somebody in a subway or people in various capacities of life wearing these goggles and you’re like, oh my goodness, is this the kind of world I want to live in? But back to Neuralink though, I think it’s important though that we realize this isn’t new. We’ve been here. I mean, we’ve had implants for people to hear for a long time now.

Marcus Miller:

Or pacemakers.

Andy Steiger:

Pacemaker. My point being the water is a lot hotter in the kettle, the frog in the kettle thing, so we’ve been in the kettle for a lot longer than people think.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, I agree. It just looks different now, and new technologies being used, pacemakers are so fantastic and a great, anyone who’s struggling with heart issues will want that.

Andy Steiger:

Here’s the problem, by the way that I see, is that these are really new ideas. For example, I’ve done a lot of work in the area of philosophy. We can go back and we’ve got a millennia worth of thinkers to lean on as we’ve navigated various issues in society. When we’re dealing with the issues we’re dealing with today, these are like sci-fi level issues where Aquinas and Augustine weren’t thinking about neural links and the like. We’re dealing with theological challenges that we don’t have a robust tradition to lean on, and that has made it, I think, a little bit more challenging for us to navigate. How far is too far?

Andrew Marcus:

Absolutely, and just for those who are listening who are like, I don’t know what Neuralink is because I’ve never heard it before in my life. I’ll just give you a quick little rundown what it says here in this. It says, Neuralink aims to help people with paralysis communicate by allowing them to remotely control devices using brain activity. In the future, Neuralink may help enhance user memory and cognitive abilities, restore a user’s motor, sensory, and visual functions, as well as treat neurological disorders.

Andy Steiger:

Think about that one. This is where, okay, enhance your memory. Well, we got things all around us. Even I’m holding the Bible here to enhance my memory. If I can’t remember the whole Bible, well I can write it down and now I’ve got access to it sort of idea. Well, this is technology. This is an invention, the book is an invention that we really cherish.

Andrew Marcus:

The printing press.

Andy Steiger:

And the printing press. By the way, that’s an interesting point that when the printing press came, we all of a sudden had to think about a world where everybody could have access to books and the theological challenges that came with that. Now how do we make sure people can read and how do we make sure they can interpret the Bible correctly?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Andy Steiger:

I think AI is going to be in a similar way. It already is bringing new challenges we got to think through. Not to be afraid, of course, but to think about, okay, what’s a biblical perspective of this? In many ways, that’s what we’re talking about right now.

Marcus Miller:

What would that be with Neuralink then?

Andy Steiger:

The biblical perspective?

Marcus Miller:

Yeah, with a biblical perspective on Neuralink being, I guess, just another technology that’s been introduced.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. Back to that idea, there’s not a lot of great thinkers to lean on that can help us with this. Right now, the Christian community has given a lot of thought to this. We would broadly put this in the area of what we call theological anthropology, or what does it mean to be human? Then once we start diving deeper into that, begin to apply that in various areas and Neuralink would be one of them. The quick answer would simply be that Jesus, we see in Jesus this argument, if you will, for what it means to be human. He addresses this from the Jewish perspective of what’s the greatest commandment? What’s the most important thing to get right in this life? His answer is the quote, Deuteronomy chapter six and Leviticus 19, so the Shema, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength,” and then he adds Leviticus 19, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Ultimately he’s saying the matrix by which we’re navigating life is relationship. It’s community. It’s my relationship with God and my relationship with one another. I would argue that as you and I navigate technology, we have to continually put it through that grid of relationship of community. Is Neuralink adding to my relationship with God and people? Is it helping or is it hindering? I think those are questions that we have to constantly ask. Even on my phone, my phone can be both. It could enhance. There’s a lot of great apps out there. I don’t know if you saw the Super Bowl, an app called Hallow came out. Right? It’s an app for prayer, that’s great, but it can also be something that distracts me from my wife, from my kids, from my Lord, so it can help or it can hinder. So we have to constantly be jostling with that.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Marcus Miller:

That’s just an amazing point I think. Just the fact we get caught up in, oh, new technology, Neuralink a chip in your mind or VR or robots, and everybody’s got these smartphones that really, maybe should concern us the most.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, yeah, it’s true. I mean another, speaking of implants, what’s happening in Sweden right now? Have you seen these little chips that are in their hands? It’s like a small rice grain.

Andy Steiger:

I’ve heard about this. Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s like as small as a rice grain. There’s thousands of people who have been doing it, but it’s very practical. Now they just tap their thumb to buy stuff. The keys to their car, everything’s electric with electric cars, etc., everything is in their hand, which makes people wonder, okay, mark of the beast. Everyone starts to worry, did I accept the mark of the beast? Which is an interesting conversation because you actually have to declare, mark of the beast isn’t like, oh crap, I got a chip in my hand, I didn’t realize. Mark of the beast is something different.

Andy Steiger:

Added to the fact that once again we’re down this road further than you would think. I mean, we already have our fingerprints that we’re using to open up our phones or safes and various other things. I mean, this is one of those things where we have to give it a lot more thought because we tend to encounter something new and be like …

Andrew Marcus:

And then just …

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, we want to hit the explode button. It’s like, well, you’re actually a lot farther down this than you think, and we need some theological tools like we were just talking about that can help us to navigate it. It’s either you navigate it or you go the Amish route and you pick a subjective level of technology that’s like, I will go no further sort of idea. Actually I’m not opposed to that. I think there are moments where, for example, let’s talk about the Apple VR. I have no interest in the Apple VR.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, me neither.

Andy Steiger:

Truthfully. I already told my kids don’t even bother asking for the VR. I have enough trouble …

Andrew Marcus:

Do they want it?

Andy Steiger:

No, thankfully. But if I were to make it available to them, I’m sure that they would want it.

Andrew Marcus:

Of course.

Andy Steiger:

Right? But I’m like, I have trouble enough parenting you on your screen time usage. I don’t want to have to deal now with a VR Plus. There’s a challenge that I think that we face with these new technologies that I really don’t like with regards to the VR, for example, where you’re obscuring half of a person’s face. Having just gone through a pandemic with the other half of a person’s face being obscured, I don’t want to live in a world that I can’t see your face. I don’t know how you guys feel about that.

Marcus Miller:

Yeah, I’d agree.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Imagine a pandemic with VR. Whole face is gone, man.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, seriously. Now you’re living in a faceless world. Reminds me of the book title of C.S. Lewis, Till We have Faces. That’s a whole other conversation, but faces are important. We want to be able to see each other. I don’t know about you guys, but there’s so much relationship that actually takes place by seeing another person and their facial expressions. If I’m taking that theology back through that matrix of relationship, my concern with some of this VR stuff, and I’m not anti-VR, but some of my concern is is this going to help my relationship with say my kids or is this going to hinder it?

Andrew Marcus:

It just seems like just seeing how much of an addiction screens are and all that kind of stuff, and just escaping reality to just go to this place, I just feel like it’s really dangerous.

Andy Steiger:

Well, this is one of the challenges with AI, so maybe we should jump into some of the AI benefits and challenges.

Andrew Marcus:

Let’s do it.

Andy Steiger:

First off, it’s just important for people to appreciate that AI isn’t some mystery thing that’s going on. AI is what we’d broadly refer to as machine learning. One of the maybe helpful ways to wrap your mind around what machine learning is, is right now, I have a sixteen-year-old, and I’m teaching him how to drive. There are three kinds of knowledge that happens there. Are you teaching any kids to drive yet?

Andrew Marcus:

No, but I get nervous already thinking about it. My boy’s five, and I’m like, oh, I got 11 years and then I got to, I’m a nervous passenger. I feel like in that situation it’s going to be pretty brutal.

Andy Steiger:

And I’m scared for my car.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, we’ll have to get a rental or something. There’s no way he’s touching my car.

Andy Steiger:

When you have a car, notice that there’s three kinds of knowledge at play. One kind of knowledge is you ride in a car and you can experience it as a backseat driver. I mean, how many backseat drivers think that they know how to drive a car just because they’ve experienced it? You’d be like, well, no, you definitely don’t know how to drive a car just because you’ve experienced it. Second kind of knowledge is more of a factual knowledge where you have to, like my son had to take a written test …

Marcus Miller:

A learner’s test or whatever it is.

Andy Steiger:

… and be able to demonstrate that he understands the rules of the road and how a car works. But again, we wouldn’t say, oh, by passing that test, you know how to drive a car. There’s this third kind of knowledge that we refer to as a tacit or silent kind of knowledge, that’s a doing knowledge. The only way to acquire it is by doing. You have to get behind the wheel and you have to drive. The same thing happened when we learned how to walk or ride a bike. You have to do it. Machines are no different. You cannot code step-by-step into a machine how to drive a car. It’s just not practical nor do I think it’s even possible. What you can do though is we created algorithms back in the seventies and eighties. This might surprise you. Our AI algorithms are not new. They’re actually pretty old. We just didn’t have the data to process them nor the processing power.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, interesting. Fascinating.

Andy Steiger:

But now the data and the processing power have come together so that the machine using these algorithms is able to learn to drive a car or to fly a plane, and here’s one of the challenges, of course. These algorithms can also be used to learn what you like to watch on YouTube or what kind of videos that you find are funny.

Andrew Marcus:

All the recommended videos is basically AI just learning what we like and then feeding it to us.

Andy Steiger:

That’s right, because you’re giving it the data. It’s able to process that and statistically figure out, this is what Andrew would probably like to watch. Next thing you know, you’ve wasted two hours of your life giggling at videos or whatever it might be. On the one hand, it’s really good at certain things. It can learn how to do certain things. There’s nothing magical happening. But on the other hand, if you’re not careful, well, it can become addictive because it knows me so well and what I like, it’s actually difficult for me to pull myself away from it.

Marcus Miller:

It all comes back to not necessarily what it is, but how you’re using it.

Andy Steiger:

I wouldn’t say, oh, AI is evil. I’m like, I’m thankful for AI. I’m thankful that we got drones that are really amazing at flying. They’re using AI algorithms. But at the same time, I need to be cautious realizing that those same algorithms that keep planes in the air can keep me online and keep me from, say, hanging out with my kids or talking to my wife or being a part of my church community. Again, these, in that they can be addictive, I got to be cautious because they can pull me away from community. In many ways, I think you guys would agree, or tell me what you think, that we live in a time where technology’s more and more being used to create counterfeit community.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes.

Andy Steiger:

Right now, one of the things that’s being done is social influencers, their profiles are being purchased because that’s data, that can then be put through algorithms and you can spit out or create, I should say, a virtual person. These are often referred to as digital girlfriends. One that is out right now is called Karen AI that Snapchat’s been working on where you can purchase a digital girlfriend named Karen.

Andrew Marcus:

No, you can’t.

Andy Steiger:

Snapchat’s putting tons of money into this technology so that it’s not just a texting relationship, but that this could be more of like, if you’ve seen the movie Her, where you could talk to this person on the phone or you could see an image of Karen that you’ve got this digital girlfriend. This is what I’m talking about where I’m saying this artificial community. That kind of tech makes me a whole lot more nervous than am I going to lose my job. Let me tell you another one that’s disturbing …

Andrew Marcus:

Oh gosh.

Andy Steiger:

… that I think gets us thinking again. This one was created in South Korea. They created a VR experience for a mother whose daughter died at the age of three. They recreated virtually her daughter so that she could put on VR glasses and experience her daughter. It raises profound questions, is that actually, and so you can watch that, by the way. It’s very disturbing. Her daughter would’ve been 11 because it had been some time since her daughter had died. She’s literally stuck in a moment with her daughter. What are your thoughts there?

Marcus Miller:

That’s very interesting to me. I mean, I think back to, I think it was one of the Marvel movies where Tony Stark comes out with this technology that’s very similar sounding, where it recreates a moment. I think the purpose was to heal a traumatic event where it recreates that event and allows you to be able to play it the way that you would want to to get over that.

Andy Steiger:

See, that’s the interesting part though, is that they’re spinning this, is, oh, you could heal. I can’t help but think that do you actually heal or are you just continuing …

Marcus Miller:

More harmful.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah. Are you just picking at a scab that you just never let heal? You can never move forward in your life. You’re stuck in that moment.

Marcus Miller:

And having experienced grief and knowing so many people that have also experienced grief, it’s so easy to get stuck in grief where you are just, you don’t heal and you get stuck in it. To have that technology could very well perpetuate that.

Andy Steiger:

Could you see it, even from your own experience, could you see something like that being addictive?

Marcus Miller:

I think very much. Even just, even if it was taking a video or something and making that into a VR thing where you feel like you’re with that person. I feel like that would just be disrespectful to the people that you’d have lost, to digitally create them. I mean, that’s the same thing with movies using AI and deep fakes to resurrect actors from the grave. Sometimes, I think typically they have to get their estate’s permission, but it still raises a lot of questions where people are like, is this right to be bringing back someone in any capacity like that?

Andy Steiger:

Notice that it’s not about the person that you’ve loved or lost, but it’s actually about you. Right? You’re not actually asking that question about them, is this respectful to them, because what you get, and I think this is the real danger in a world of ours where there’s this hyper individualism, that technology becomes a tool for you to turn inward on yourself, and now life and everything’s just about me. Ultimately, what I think this creates, and this is my concern with technology. Don’t get me wrong. I love technology, but if I were to have a concern with it, it would be loneliness. Is that we create a world of brokenness, of broken relationship, of separation.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s funny because technology and all the advancements of AI is almost like, in a sense, oh, we’re trying to bring the world together and almost create a fake sense of, oh, the opposite of loneliness. It’s actually going to bring us closer, but it’s actually …

Andy Steiger:

But ironically, it’s doing the opposite.

Andrew Marcus:

… doing the opposite. Yeah.

Andy Steiger:

If you look at the stats, loneliness is an epidemic that has swept the world. There was a stat that was just recently published, and maybe I shared this actually last time I was on a show, but there was a stat that showed that loneliness was a global phenomenon. This isn’t just something happening in the west or whatnot. The issues that we’re dealing with with technology are happening globally. Interestingly enough, I’m actually heading off to Malawi in May. We’re filming a new project on the issue of theology and technology.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, interesting. Cool.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, and all of our conversations with people in Africa are saying, man, the stuff that you guys are dealing with here in Canada, it’s what we’re dealing with in Malawi.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. As AI continues to develop and all these things are changing, technology’s changing, how can we as Christians, and how can the church engage with the development and integration of AI in a way that we still stay true to biblical values?

Andy Steiger:

Well, I think one of the things that’s going to need to happen is first, of course, I would say not that we’re afraid of technology, but that we seek to understand technology, and that in seeking to understand technology, that we seek to understand theology and that we understand those things correctly. Because if we don’t understand our theology, how do we expect to navigate technology? The prime example of this would be what you brought up earlier, that the lame will walk.

Andrew Marcus:

The blind will see.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, and that you’ll be raised to new life in the cloud. The question that needs to be asked is, well, is that what we want? Is that a biblical perspective of what heaven is?

Andrew Marcus:

Or to never die.

Andy Steiger:

Yeah, to never die, because this might shock some Christians. I hope it doesn’t, but this might shock some Christians that heaven and the Christian perspective is not about living forever. Eternal life, the way Jesus defines it, is relational life. He says in John chapter 17, “his is eternal life, that they might know you.” It’s community. You and I were created for eternal community, not for eternal life. In fact, I would say that if we’re not careful, our technology, we’re going to use it to create a world that isn’t a heaven, but the complete opposite. It’s a world of broken relationships that are perpetuated. They don’t end. We call that something different. We call that hell.

Andrew Marcus:

Wow. Well, Andy Steiger, thank you so much for joining us on today’s program.

Andy Steiger:

It was a privilege to be here with you.

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out THE INDOUBT SHOW on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcasts. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out indoubt.ca. We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.

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