Technology and Faith: Can We Trust AI?

By Elizabeth Prata

There have always been technological advances in history. The printing press in 1448 comes to mind. The 1978 British TV show Connections “demonstrated how inventions and historical events are interconnected is Connections. Created by science historian James Burke, the series explores how seemingly isolated events and inventions influence the development of others, shaping the modern world”.

But I am glad I’ve been alive at this time in the world’s history, because I’ve seen incredible advances in technology. I remember seeing the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was produced between 1965 and 1968 and released in ’68. The scene where the astronaut puts a credit card in the machine and presses numbers on a keyboard, and the screen lights up with a live video conference with his daughter, drew audible gasps and not a few scoffing laughs. Never in 1968 had the general populace imagined a live video call. I mean, in 1968 push button phones had barely been invented and were not widely used until the late 1970s. And now in 2025, a video conference across vast distances is common.

Credit cards were new then, too. The Diner’s Club card was invented in 1950. General credit cards for any kind of purchase, not just restaurants, were not commonplace in 1968. In fact, when 2001 A Space Odyssey began production in 1965, Mastercard was not even on the scene yet. It was invented in 1966 and was called Interbank. In 1969 it was rebranded as Mastercard.

Since the year of my birth I’ve seen satellites, space travel, the internet, streaming, optical fibers, digital cameras, cell phones, personal computing, sonograms, heart transplants, insulin production, cloning, limb reattachment… and so much more.

And now, artificial intelligence.

AI can make ‘art’ (it’ll be a while before I consider a digitally produced picture ‘art’, hence the scare quotes). It can answer questions. Automate tasks. Generate content. Even make predictions. Someone on social media had warned about Grok, Elon Musk’s AI as opposed to Google, the research engine. Google presents the researcher with links for further research, leaving it to the live brain intelligent person to make decisions about the quality of and value in the links presented, while Grok simply gives the answer.

A couple of years ago, I read a novella called “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster. I’ve written about it before, it made a big impression on me. It’s a science fiction story written in 1909. The Edwardian era had its own breathtaking advances as well. As we read in this essay about the time period when the novella The Machine Stops was written,

automobiles were becoming common; Louis Blériot successfully flew across the English channel in his prototype aircraft; Ernest Henry Shackleton’s expedition reached the South Magnetic Pole; London’s Science Museum was established as an independent institution; physicists Ernest Rutherford, Hans Geiger, and Ernest Marsden carried out their famous Gold Foil experiments, which proved an atom had dense nucleus with a positive charged mass. Edwardian society was modernizing industrially, scientifically, and technologically at an exponential pace.

The novella serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of over-reliance on technology and the dehumanizing effects of unchecked technological advancement. It seems to predict the very moment in which we find ourselves today, 116 years later.

If you’re interested in prescient science-fiction, this essay describes why The Machine Stops is so eerie, and it’s well-written too.

With all this happening in our world, and trust me, an old lady, it is moving faster and faster, I turned to Answers in Genesis for help on how to think about Artificial Intelligence. We know there are smart, unsaved people, sure, but without gaining knowledge from THE Source, Jesus, it is worthless. Wisdom from the world gains us nothing. In fact, most unsaved people descend into such sinfulness that their thinking becomes futile. (Romans 1:21-22).

The title of the 33-second video is AI Is NOT as Reliable as People Think, the synopsis states:

Multiple researchers have shown how people can easily use publicly available AI to intentionally create false but persuasive information, which is why we must not trust AI as our final authority for truth. God’s Word has to be our final authority in EVERY area.

It is worth watching. As I said, it is only 33 seconds long. We need to be mindful of where wisdom comes from and the final authority of that wisdom. The AiG video is a good exhortation.

For a longer treatment of the subject of AI, Patricia Engler, the local AI expert at AiG, wrote a two part essay, is titled

Part 1- AI: Useful Tool or Existential Threat?
What is AI, and how should Christians engage with it?

Part 2- The Effects of Artificial Intelligence

Only God is all-knowing, infallible, and the ultimate Truth. His Word, not the outputs of AI, must be our final authority. (Source).

AI is handy. It’s convenient. It’s not neutral though. Or is it? Did Grok achieve political neutrality? Is inherent bias completely absent in its algorithms? Time will tell. Meanwhile, we can consult the Bible for most of life’s conundrums. For the nitty gritty not addressed in the Bible, if you use AI, employ common sense and be wise.