John Piper on ChatGPT
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Pastor John, I was tinkering around the other day with chat GPT and I asked it to spit out a tweet for me about artificial intelligence and Christian joy.
00:00:14.000 | And to write it all in your voice. Here's what it said, quote,
00:00:18.000 | "Artificial intelligence may bring new levels of convenience and productivity, but let us not mistake it for true joy.
00:00:24.000 | Our ultimate satisfaction can only be found in Christ, who alone can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts."
00:00:32.000 | End quote.
00:00:33.000 | Simplistic connections here, but not too bad. It does actually sound like you, but get this.
00:00:38.000 | That second sentence as it's written, "Our ultimate satisfaction can only be found in Christ, who alone can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts."
00:00:46.000 | That statement has never appeared in your written works or anyone's.
00:00:51.000 | It has never appeared online anywhere, according to Google.
00:00:55.000 | From what I can see, it's an original sentence, which is wild.
00:00:59.000 | As you know, we're in the early stages of AI when large data sets can be crunched and synthesized
00:01:04.000 | and computers can essentially spit out what appear to be thoughtful responses to prompts.
00:01:09.000 | Your ministry has produced one massive data set, to put it crudely, and a day is not far off.
00:01:16.000 | The baby is here already when people will be tempted not to go to this podcast or to your sermons or to books to hear from you.
00:01:22.000 | They'll simply prompt for a summary answer to what John Piper might say on a given ethical dilemma or Bible text.
00:01:28.000 | And some AI model will spit out a summary response in text, or maybe even one day in your own spoken voice,
00:01:34.000 | or even in a video-generated response that looks like you talking.
00:01:39.000 | It's all still very early. Much is going to change.
00:01:42.000 | But I want your early thoughts here, and to get us there, I want to put one subtopic aside and make one assumption.
00:01:49.000 | First, there are legal issues all over this, so let's put those aside for now.
00:01:53.000 | Second, let's assume for the sake of today's episode that the generated text is actually pretty good
00:01:59.000 | and a reasonably accurate representation of what you have said in the past.
00:02:03.000 | What's your first gut instinct here at the highest level?
00:02:08.000 | What would you want the age of computer-generated John Piper AI to hear from you in your own living voice
00:02:16.000 | about how you want your legacy of works to be viewed in this coming age of artificial intelligence?
00:02:22.000 | Well, I like that last question, focusing my attention on the highest level, which I'll try to do.
00:02:29.000 | But it's remarkable that this shows up right now, because just a few weeks ago in the faculty forum
00:02:36.000 | at Bethlehem College and Seminary, where I teach and serve as chancellor,
00:02:41.000 | the issue of artificial intelligence and specifically, chat GPT, was part of the planned discussion.
00:02:47.000 | And in preparation, one of our professors sent around the results of his request from chat GPT,
00:02:55.000 | which stands for chat generative pre-trained transformer, I learned.
00:03:00.000 | And he had given the chat bot this instruction, write an essay on Augustine's view of disordered love.
00:03:10.000 | And it produced a 400-word essay that I read, in which I suppose would get a passing grade
00:03:17.000 | in your typical lit class in the university and for sure in high school,
00:03:22.000 | which of course is a great concern for teachers.
00:03:26.000 | And there are, I learned also, plagiarism detection programs like Turnitin,
00:03:33.000 | T-U-R-N-I-T-I-N, all one word, Turnitin, which claim to be able to spot
00:03:39.000 | artificially produced essays at about 99% accuracy.
00:03:43.000 | So who knows, maybe with the advancing possibilities of cheating and calling AI productions your own work,
00:03:50.000 | there will be equal advances in software to detect that deception.
00:03:55.000 | And as you point out, really not just as potential, but as realities,
00:04:01.000 | there are people right now producing artificial John Piper quotations and artificial John Piper voices,
00:04:09.000 | which are close enough to accurate that the average person won't know the difference.
00:04:14.000 | But your question at this point, thankfully, because I'm no expert, is not about legal issues.
00:04:21.000 | It's not about detection possibilities.
00:04:23.000 | It's about what's your first gut instinct here at the highest level.
00:04:28.000 | What would you want the age of computer generated John Piper AI to hear from you
00:04:34.000 | in order for your own living voice to inform the world,
00:04:39.000 | what you want your legacy of works to be viewed as in the age of AI.
00:04:45.000 | So my gut doesn't reach out first to my tongue.
00:04:51.000 | My gut reaches out first to my mind, where there's a lot of Bible up there circulating around.
00:04:58.000 | And my gut consults with my mind and says, "Hey, mind, what does the Bible say or imply about this?"
00:05:09.000 | So here's my distillation about my answer or response to that way you pose the question.
00:05:16.000 | Really high level. The biblical vision of Christian hedonism really does provide a remarkable framework
00:05:28.000 | for responding to artificial intelligence.
00:05:31.000 | This was a surprise to me because I haven't thought about it before.
00:05:35.000 | Remember, Christian hedonism says that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
00:05:46.000 | Now, what that does is elevate the spiritual affections of the human heart to the highest possible level
00:05:58.000 | in the unique role that human beings play in the purposes of God in the creation of the world.
00:06:06.000 | God created the universe in order to put his glory on display and to communicate himself
00:06:16.000 | to his creatures for our understanding and our enjoyment.
00:06:21.000 | Psalm 19, 1; Isaiah 43, 7; Romans 1, 19-21; Romans 9, 20 and 23, and on and on.
00:06:29.000 | The purpose of God to glorify himself in creation reaches its God-intended climax
00:06:38.000 | when human beings not only rightly understand but rightly feel the nature of God's reality
00:06:51.000 | and the preciousness of his fellowship.
00:06:55.000 | God glorifies himself in the life of humans when those humans understand him truly in their minds
00:07:06.000 | and rejoice in him duly in their hearts.
00:07:11.000 | If either of those is missing, mind understanding or heart rejoicing,
00:07:18.000 | God is not glorified as he ought to be.
00:07:22.000 | And if either of those is missing, the other one is flawed.
00:07:28.000 | Right ideas without right rejoicing are barren, mechanical, and yes, you could say artificial,
00:07:37.000 | even in the human mind, not just in the computer.
00:07:41.000 | They're artificial in the human mind if they are not penetrated with rejoicing duly.
00:07:48.000 | Rejoicing without right ideas, on the other hand, is like froth on a drink and not fruit on a vine.
00:07:57.000 | For right thinking to glorify God, it must be attached to right rejoicing in God.
00:08:05.000 | And for rejoicing in God to glorify God, it must be rooted in right thinking about God.
00:08:14.000 | In other words, the spiritual affections of the human heart are of the essence
00:08:22.000 | in the achievement of the purposes of God in creating the world.
00:08:30.000 | These spiritual affections, the affections of the human heart,
00:08:36.000 | will never be the product of computerized databanks.
00:08:42.000 | And I say that not only because computers will never be human hearts,
00:08:49.000 | that is, they'll never be created as humans in God's image.
00:08:55.000 | I say it also because not only are human hearts or souls of another nature
00:09:04.000 | from computers and computer language, I say it also because, and this is even more significant,
00:09:11.000 | the God-glorifying, Christ-exalting human heart is a new creation
00:09:19.000 | that is brought into being by a supernatural, not a natural, not a computerized,
00:09:27.000 | intervention by the Holy Spirit.
00:09:30.000 | It's called new birth or new creation or new person.
00:09:35.000 | The new creation in Christ, the newborn heart, the supernaturally created person,
00:09:43.000 | is the only person who can rejoice in God for who he really is.
00:09:49.000 | The eyes of the heart have been opened by the Holy Spirit.
00:09:53.000 | The spiritual beauty of Christ in the gospel is seen,
00:09:58.000 | and the echo of this beauty in the heart is to trust him and rejoice in him and treasure him.
00:10:04.000 | Those God-glorifying affections spilling over in outward acts of love
00:10:10.000 | are the reason God created the universe, which means for chat-GPT
00:10:17.000 | that it is quadruply cut off from God-intended purposes for intelligence.
00:10:25.000 | So here they are.
00:10:26.000 | I'd say chat-GBT is quadruply cut off from God-intended purposes for intelligence.
00:10:36.000 | First, it is a kind of intelligence, not affections,
00:10:42.000 | but affections are of the essence in living a Christ-exalting, God-glorifying human life.
00:10:51.000 | Second, this so-called intelligence is the product of a machine, not a heart,
00:10:59.000 | and the heart is of the essence of living a Christ-exalting, God-glorifying human life.
00:11:06.000 | Third, the causes and effects of this so-called intelligence are all natural, not supernatural.
00:11:15.000 | But the Bible makes plain that the merely natural man and all the more natural computer
00:11:22.000 | cannot be what humans are created to be, namely God-glorifying persons.
00:11:29.000 | Fourth, this artificial intelligence is defective in the same way that a natural man is defective.
00:11:38.000 | It can rise no higher than the natural, fallen, unregenerate heart of man.
00:11:45.000 | Intelligence, as God gave it at first, was designed not only to perceive natural,
00:11:56.000 | external reality and then assemble it, but also to see in it, to see through it,
00:12:05.000 | the reality of the glory of God, the greatness, the beauty, the worth of the infinite person who created us.
00:12:15.000 | When intelligence cannot do this, cannot spiritually discern, see, and feel that glory,
00:12:24.000 | it fails in the most important reason that intelligence exists.
00:12:32.000 | So, in answer to the question, I would like the legacy of my works to be viewed as the fruit
00:12:43.000 | of a finite and fallible and imperfect human mind and human heart that were touched
00:12:55.000 | by the supernatural work of God in Christ and enabled to see the glory of God and feel something of the worth
00:13:06.000 | and reflect for the world the glory of God for the supernatural enjoyment of as many people as possible.
00:13:17.000 | Hm. Quadruply cut off from God's intended purposes for intelligence.
00:13:22.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today. If you want to ask Pastor John,
00:13:26.000 | the real, living, breathing, regenerate, God-centered, God-enjoying John Piper, that one,
00:13:32.000 | if you have a question for him, type it out and email it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:13:38.000 | Well, can we lie to women who are seeking abortions if by lying,
00:13:46.000 | it increases the likelihood that we can save a baby's life?
00:13:52.000 | When this question came in, it immediately grabbed my attention, and it's up next time.
00:13:56.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. See you Thursday.
00:13:59.000 | [ Silence ]