Wise and Helpful Ways for Christians To Experiment With AI
AI is here to stay, and many Christians are wondering what to do with it. In this article I share some of the ways I use AI—along with the dangers that still concern me.
Explore technology
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A Simple Way To Ensure You Use AI Well (And Not Poorly)
Every new technology introduces both benefits and drawbacks to its users and to the wider culture. The world being what it is, there are always plusses and minuses, so that even as a new tech gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. We are quickly learning that Artificial Intelligence is no exception…
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Books to Help Parents With Tech
Christian parents are well-served with books meant to inform and equip them as they lead their families. Here are some of my top picks for parents who want to faithfully disciple their children to live well in a world of smartphones, social media, AI, and a host of other world-shaping technologies.
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Amplify Not a Fool by Responding to His Folly
Where you think your wisdom may make the fool better, it’s more likely that his folly will make you worse. You are more likely to stoop to his level than he is to rise to yours. Ironically, fools can be clever at times and wise men naive, for the fool has an intuitive understanding of…
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The Rise of AI Book Slop
We often hear these days of “AI slop,” a term that’s used to refer to the massive amounts of poor-quality AI-created material that is churned out and unceremoniously dumped onto the internet. This was once primarily artistless artwork and authorless articles, but has now advanced to much bigger and more substantial forms of content.
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What I Use (and Don’t Use) To Make this Site
A friend recently said something that disquieted me. He said that he assumes I make use of AI in creating the articles I post to this site or in selecting the articles I link to on other sites. I suppose it’s a fair assumption since so many people across so many fields are now relying…
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Four Good Questions To Ask Your Tech
Have you ever considered how much time we spend talking to our tech? How many times a day do we command Alexa, ask Siri, or give an order to ChatGPT? We are in constant communication with our devices and through our devices. And since we are already in the habit of asking them our deep…
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Is It Time To Stop Streaming Your Service?
It always surprises me how quickly an idea can go from introduction to expectation, from mere inquiry to accepted standard. And once an idea has become mainstream in that way, it is difficult to revisit and evaluate it.
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Like an iPhone, Only Much More So
Can I confess something to you? There’s one thing Aileen does that really bugs me. We will be talking together and enjoying one another’s company. But then, as we chat, I’ll hear the telltale buzz of her phone. And I can tell that I’ve lost her. I can see it in the look on her…
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Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age
There are books you may be drawn to, but probably do not actually need to read. (Seriously, at some point you need to stop reading books about methods of prayer and just pray!) Then there are other books you may not be particularly drawn to but probably ought to read. Among these are books on…
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The Real Cost of Social Media
Like it or not, we live in a world dominated by social media. While many older forms of media continue to exist and to exert their influence, all have in some way had to bow before the ascendancy of new media. It is pervasive, it is ubiquitous, it is addictive, and it is changing everything.…
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Our Hearts and Minds Turned Outward
Every coin has a head behind a tail, every die a 6 behind a 1, every stamp a sticker behind a face. And in much the same way, every technology has a virtue behind a vice, a benefit behind a drawback, something beneficial behind something sorely detrimental. The television that supplies important news also promotes…
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When We Failed to Count the Cost
It’s the age of the tattoo, isn’t it? It has become something of a rite of passage for older teenagers or younger adults to get inked. Whatever we parents think about this trend, I expect we’re unanimous in at least wanting our children to wait until they are old enough to count the cost—to grow…
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Parents: To Join Social Media Is To Witness Death
Social media was still in its infancy when it showed me a death for the first time. All these years later the details remain vivid in my mind. A colleague said, “Tim, check this out.” He turned his screen toward me to show a blindfolded man kneeling before his captors. They spoke a few words…
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If We All Stream Our Services, Will Anyone Ever Come Back?
I spend a fair bit of time traveling. At least, under normal circumstances I do. Sometimes these are little more than overnight trips to conferences across the U.S. border and sometimes these are extended journeys to the far corners of the earth. Wherever I go, and for however long I’m away, I am sure to…
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Never Read a Bible Verse (and Never Listen To a Sermon Clip)
Greg Koukl often passes along a cheeky little tip related to reading and understanding the Bible. “If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is…
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When Parents Feel Like We Are Mostly Failing Most of the Time
I am sure parenting has always been a complicated business. I’m sure each generation of parents has had to deal with issues specific to their unique time and context. I rather suspect, though, that parents who raise children at the cusp of a technological transformation face a special kind of challenge. It falls to them…
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It’s Time To Break Free From the Algorithm-Driven Life
A recent story from Wired helpfully explains the latest batch of changes Facebook has made to its algorithm—the algorithm that sorts through the billions of available articles, photographs, and videos to determine the few we will actually see as we scroll our news feeds. This is just their latest attempt to head off the never-ending…
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Advanced Technologies and Basic Christianity
A couple of weeks ago someone captured a photograph of a smiling or sneering, mocking or awkward young man standing face-to-face with a peacemaking or threatening, respectful or bad-mannered older man. This photo was posted to Twitter. And you know what happened next. But even though you know what happened, it’s worth considering why it…
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Kirk Cameron Wants You To Connect
There’s no doubt the world has changed rapidly over the past 10 or 20 years. There’s no doubt that children are being raised in a very different world than their parents were. There’s no doubt that our children’s children will be raised in yet another world. The pace of technological advance has accelerated to such…