3.1 The Benefits of AI – AI and the Bible

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Introduction

"Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral." - Melvin Kranzberg (First Law of Technology)

As we established in 1.1 Welcome to the World of Artificial Intelligence, no technology is inherently evil; rather, it is the user who determines its moral value. This concept applies to AI as it does to any other technology. You can use an axe to cut a tree for firewood to keep your family warm, or you can use it to kill another human being. You can use the printing press to make the Bible more accessible or to spread books about witchcraft.

For AI, this concept extends further and deeper because AI is not a single technology, but rather as diverse as its applications! For this reason, I have included two chapters: "Benefits of AI" and "Dangers of AI," in which I will first give a general outline and then talk about specific topics more comprehensively in separate blog posts and sections of this book project.

The Benefits

Healthcare

Healthcare is possibly the most personal field that AI could revolutionize. Everyone needs healthcare at some point, and it is critical for our physical well-being. Currently, most of our healthcare infrastructure is reactive, meaning that treatment is provided after an issue occurs. With the help of AI, however, this could shift to a proactive and preventive approach. Preventive healthcare addresses potential problems before they become serious. AI might recognize patterns in your data that point to an impending crisis such as a heart attack, stroke, diabetes complications, kidney failure, or similar issues. Preventive measures, like medication or minor surgery, could be implemented before the problem significantly affects you, which it might do within minutes, hours, days, or weeks otherwise. For long-term prediction, AI can potentially predict cancer, Parkinson's disease, or dementia years before they become serious and visible, allowing time to adjust your lifestyle or receive preventive treatment.

AI is already, to some degree, more precise than humans in detecting certain cancers, and this capability will likely improve in the coming years. It can reduce the cost of cancer identification by using just a single drop of blood. In drug discovery, AI can enhance the process by running simulations, potentially saving years of manual research.

In the future, we could have autonomous robots performing surgeries, saving time and costs for patients. If you need an operation, you could be immediately brought into the surgery room, regardless of the problem. You would no longer need to consult specialists or face a shortage of qualified doctors. Instead, hospitals could simply scale up by acquiring more surgical robots. These robots would be more precise and faster than humans, making fewer to no mistakes and always considering all patient data during surgery. Neuralink's surgery robot for brain implants is already a first step in this direction.

This is an advancement that could clearly benefit everyone. All of this might not be too far away—perhaps 10 years, maybe 20 years—but it will inevitably arrive at some point (unless, of course, Jesus returns before then!) for one primary reason: Money.

Whenever someone is employed or a technology is implemented into society, the world always seeks the cheapest, most efficient, most profitable solution. AI, theoretically being able to surpass humans on any task, would be cheaper, faster, and "better" at what it is supposed to do compared to humans. This principle also applies to the next significant point:

Education

Education might be the second most valuable application of Artificial Intelligence. Its potential ranges from simply enhancing teachers' workflows by providing materials, assisting in grading, or offering advice on teaching methods, to potentially replacing the teacher as a personal, 24/7 tutor that can theoretically be replicated indefinitely and will never tire of interacting with students.

Taking this a step further, we could envision a personalized AI teacher. This AI would understand your interests, recognize your most effective learning style, know what you already understand, and utilize any other information that could help it teach you more effectively. You would learn at your own pace, and this AI teacher would provide immediate feedback, guidance, and support.

I will not go in depth into the potential dangers of having this kind of personal teacher, as that is the topic of the next chapter. I encourage you to prepare yourself by considering possible risks!

For Christians, AI chatbots can be used for Bible study or sermon preparation. You can use them as brainstorming partners and to provide Bible references you might not have thought of yourself. They can give historical context and, in the future, link you to resources. However, keep in mind that AI is only useful in Bible study when it is a tool in your hand to assist you as you are obedient to the Word—your source—and led by the Spirit—your guide. It cannot be effective as a source in and of itself, nor as the guide in navigating the source!

Productivity

This benefit is somewhat different, as the goal is not to replace work entirely but rather to eliminate unnecessary and redundant tasks. AI aims to help workers achieve a better workflow and streamline their processes. Consider the example of a designer: Instead of working on a laptop, using a mouse and clicking numerous buttons to colorize a car, they could wear a VR headset and interact with an AI. The designer could point at a specific part of the car and verbally describe the desired changes, e.g., "make this a shiny red transitioning to gold on the other half". The AI would recognize what the designer is pointing at, process the voice command, and generate the color accordingly. This is technically possible right now; someone just needs to build and implement it.

Many of you might also be familiar with Tony Stark's AI assistant JARVIS in the Marvel Universe. This is an excellent example of AI increasing productivity, and there is actually someone called concept_bytes on Instagram who has begun to make it a reality.

Another example would be using AI in translation. Instead of painstakingly translating word by word and sentence by sentence, an AI could first translate the entire document, and the human translator would only need to review it and correct the few mistakes that were made.

In coding, AI can autofill based on the context of the entire codebase. It can review the code, fix small mistakes that otherwise could take days to find. It could add comments and provide guidance in making the code cleaner. The list of potential applications goes on and on...

Responsible Living on the Earth

Many secular scientists want AI to solve the climate crisis. If we look into the Bible, though, we can read that a climate change would not be the end to our world:

Genesis 8:22
22 While all the days of the earth remain, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Instead, God's judgment because of mankind's sin will be the end. The judgment of fire:

2 Peter 3:10
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be found out.

Does it change if AI should still be used in that area? Surely not! AI can (and maybe even should!) be used to live more responsibly on this earth. AI can help in optimizing the use of natural resources, such as water, food, and energy. It can develop more efficient ways of recycling and reducing overall waste. AI-powered drones could track and protect endangered species and habitats.

Additionally, AI can improve the efficiency and reliability of renewable energy systems, such as wind and solar power, by predicting energy production and optimizing grid integration of the produced energy so that it is available when consumption is high.

In agriculture, AI can help farmers optimize crop yields, reduce water usage, and minimize the environmental impact of agriculture through precision farming techniques. I've only scratched the surface of all the details on how AI can be used in this field!

Improved Inclusion and Accessibility

Inclusion is a term we've probably heard a lot in recent times. From a Christian perspective, it should never be a topic necessary to discuss, as we are all humans and we ought to love each other (Mark 12:30-31). Nonetheless, this doesn't change the help AI can provide for people with disabilities. Examples of assistive technology include speech-to-text applications, hearing aids, or GPT-4o to let blind people hear about the world around them, as in the case of "Be My Eyes". "Be My Eyes" is an App in which a blind person can hold up their phone with the camera open and GPT-4o will describe what it sees (look into my Sources & Further Reading section at the end to find a showcase video).

In addition to that, AI can enhance accessibility. AI translation is already possible to some degree across 100 languages, with bidirectional conversion between text and speech. Meta is making great progress in this area with their newest technology being Seamless Communication. It won't take long before AI removes any language barriers.

While we must remain mindful of why we have language in the first place, I don't see a problem in making use of it for evangelization. You no longer need to know a language very well to be able to have a full and detail-rich conversation. I myself would have needed it a few times by now.

Taking a step further, AI can help us humans in bringing the Gospel to indigenous people, learn languages faster, and even assist in translating the Bible!

Public Safety and Security

In the sector of safety and security, AI can be used across various levels of complexity, as in all the other use-cases. Today, AI is already used in some schools to detect students who carry knives or guns. In the United Kingdom, the police use AI to recognize people who use their phones while driving or are not wearing their seatbelts.

A more futuristic scenario, similar to the concept in the movie "Minority Report," would be predicting crime before it happens. In a surveillance state, AI would collect vast amounts of data to track people who, for example, have weapons and are psychologically unstable (or simply oppose this kind of system). Whenever the AI recognizes patterns that might lead to a crime against the state, it could alert the police, resulting in arrests just as crimes begin or even before they occur, based on sufficient predictive evidence.

On a more positive note, we have disaster prediction. AI could monitor and improve the coordination of resource allocation during emergencies.

In cybersecurity, AI can help prevent cyber threats by performing autonomous penetration testing, recognizing breaches, and developing safety measures. Both companies and individuals would benefit from this, though there is always a competition between those using AI for protection and those using it for malicious purposes. The outcome often depends on the resources invested on both sides.

A concept that goes beyond current applications is a fully autonomous traffic system. All vehicles would communicate with each other, optimizing traffic flow and reducing accidents to near-zero levels.

Scientific Research and Discovery

I will dedicate a separate blog post to this area because significant developments are already underway, and it's no longer merely about future prognostics. We are so close to AI being able to conduct autonomous research. AI is being applied to data analysis, simulation and modeling, synthesizing materials, robots, and is being integrated into every step of the scientific process.

For example, AlphaFold 3, the latest iteration of Google Research's AI system, represents a significant leap forward in protein structure prediction. This groundbreaking tool can now predict not only the structure of individual proteins but also their interactions with other molecules, providing a more comprehensive understanding of cellular processes. By accelerating protein structure determination, AlphaFold 3 is revolutionizing drug discovery, disease research, and our overall understanding of biological systems.

Creative Expression and Entertainment

Creative expression is a field that goes to the root of one of the major differences between humans and AI. Nevertheless, AI can open up more possibilities and is already doing so. Before the invention of books, imaginary worlds, stories, and ideas were spread mainly orally (the scale makes the difference). With the invention of the printing press and a significant part of the population becoming literate, creative expression was primarily exercised through books. From then on, people were able to share their stories and ideas much more effectively, in greater volume, and even preserve them!

Artificial Intelligence is now paving the way for the next step: image, video, and sound. Suddenly, one doesn't need to be an artist to create a picture; instead, you just need to know what you want to draw or see! What about a drawing of a goat jumping out of a window onto a trampoline with the northern lights in the background? Simply type it into an AI text-to-image generator, and you'll get the image. This is also how every one of my featured images on this blog is created. The same principle applies to video and audio. In the future, everyone will be able to express their creative thoughts and share them in these formats with others.

On the other end of the spectrum is entertainment, which can so easily become more than simple amusement. In 1 Corinthians 10:31 we can read that we are to do ALL to the glory of God. The “gray area” is that sometimes entertaining activities that are not morally wrong in and of themselves are determined by the motive of the person engaging in the entertainment. Some questions you can ask yourself if you desire to handle entertainment in a Godly way:

Can I engage in this entertainment for the glory of God? Does it specifically feed sinful appetites?

If an activity feeds sinful appetites, there is no way you can engage in it for mere amusement or personal pleasure to God’s glory.

Am I engaging in this entertainment for the glory of God?

This is the question to ask after the other question is clear, and it requires a lot of Godly wisdom and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, it can be a matter of how much time we spend engaging in a certain activity. Are we engaging in that activity to distract from things we should do? To take the place of a more needful activity?

AI will make it possible for you to customize movie endings or any scene according to your preferences. Entire books could be written tailored to your desired storyline. Additionally, AI has the potential to revive old-school text adventure games, this time with unlimited options. In video games, NPCs (Non-Player Characters) would be able to engage in relevant conversations with you, eliminating repetitive dialogues. Bring this technology to virtual reality, and you can create your own world with unique characters and personalized stories. You need to be really careful with those applications that you do not stumble and find yourself in a place of addiction or simply using them for pleasure instead of for the glory of God.

Emotional Support and Mental Health

A critical use case that sparks a lot of controversy, even in the secular world, is the use of AI for emotional health and mental support through 24/7 available chatbots with video call capabilities. Imagine a world in which you can have a video call on WhatsApp with an AI that speaks your language, sounds human, looks human, has correct lip-syncing and even displays emotions. The illusion of a human replacement that never gets tired of you

God’s Word is authoritative on all matters, including the topic of where humans can find true emotional help and mental support. God knows all things. He is the designer and creator of every human life. What does He point to as the source of emotional help and mental support? He points to Himself, His Word, prayer, faith in Him, gratitude, and praise for Him.

Ultimately, God must always be the source of help. Can artificial intelligence or psychologists be used by God in this area? That question may not have a simple yes or no answer. One thing is certain, though: they can never be a source of or substitute for what God's Word has clearly established as His design for providing mental and emotional help to people.

It is important that we are constantly holding the sword of the Spirit in our hand (Ephesians 6:17) which gives us knowledge of the truth in this area as we will face more and more substitutions for God’s design.

We should be able to discern whether an emotional support resource or mental health recommendation lines up with what we know to be the criteria for true help as it is found in God’s Word.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Galatians 6:2
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Philippians 4:6-7
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

There is more...

All of the examples above about the usage of AI are just a general outline. Why could AI be used in so many places? Because we can! AI is designed to simulate us as humans for the purpose of replacing cognitive workload. All of the benefits mentioned above is the reason why so much is invested into Artificial Intelligence. To many people today, it represents the hope for a better future of this world. We as Christians don't have this hope because we know that judgement is coming. Instead, the Bible tells us about a greater hope we can have in heaven (1 Peter 1:3-4)!

1 Peter 1:3-4
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and unfading, having been kept in heaven for you,

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Sources & Further Reading:

Some information and ideas for this blog post were generated with the help of Claude-3.5-Sonnet an AI assistant developed by Anthropic. While Claude-3.5-Sonnet offered valuable suggestions and explanations, the content presented here is the author's own work.

All Bible quotes are from the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) https://lsbible.org