Back in April of 2016 I did a broadcast covering this very topic of Artificial Intelligence putting white-collar workers out of business. It’s big news now because of the top-of-the-line chatbots. But the issues of tech displacing workers isn’t new news. Years ago Richard and Daniel Susskind were in the news because they had written and written convincingly that not only WOULD Artificial Intelligence replace white-collar workers, but that it was already happening.
And I said back then, and I’ll say right now that this can be a good thing. Having computers do your taxes and write your wills CAN BE a good thing. Outsourcing mindless work to machines CAN BE a good thing. Notice that I’m saying CAN BE and not IS. There is a distinction with a difference between things being good in themselves and things having the potential for good. There is a difference between technology having the potential to make our lives easier and making our lives better.
Now, full disclosure, I’m a bit of a luddite. I prefer to take notes with paper and pen. I like to read physical books, I hate smartphones, and refuse to have one.
But I’m a luddite who spends huge portions of my day working on a computer. I use the computer to study the Bible, to do research, to go to seminary, to write articles and essays and to do a weekly radio broadcast. I use it for emails. I use it for sermon-prep. I use the computer to study Hebrew and Greek and French and German and Latin. I use the computer for fun. I use it to watch movies and shows, to listen to podcasts, to play chess, and to talk with friends.
I have a computer on and with me most of the day.
Is it because I love computers?
No. I really don’t love them or have any special care for technology.
But I love the usefulness of a computer. I love what it allows me to do. But I’m not fooled into thinking that it isn’t a mixed bag. Yes, the computer allows me to do a lot of things very efficiently. But it’s also changing how I work and think and it’s also very addictive. And, of course, there’s the simple reality that computers allow us to search through vast amounts of information to find exactly what we’re looking for very quickly without the need to sort through vast amounts of related and unrelated data—unless, of course, you’re using the file explorer on Windows 11 which can’t find anything.
But sometimes the most rewarding part of research is all the little nuggets and rabbit trails and treasures you find along the way. One of the things that made old time scholars so good was the fact that they were so well-rounded. They did a lot of broad reading and they read through things inefficiently, but the inefficiency of their education and research methodologies meant that they had a broader and less specialized body of knowledge.
And while this isn’t the point of this broadcast today, I do want to at least mention in passing that a broad knowledge base is a necessary thing for any kind of scholar or thinker, or frankly, any kind of useful citizen in a free republic. A few years ago I was having dinner with one of the Deans at Dallas Seminary and one of the things that he thought was very detrimental to Christian education and pastoral ministry is that so many students came to Dallas Seminary out of Bible Colleges and Christian Colleges with Bible degrees.
Now, make no mistake, he was NOT against Bible degrees. But he thought that people need a broader body of knowledge and experience to make a well-rounded pastor. And I must say I agree. If I had to do it all over again I would have made better life-choices and sinned less, but I still would want to marry my wife and have my kids, and I would still want to be a pastor and a theologian. And I still would want to study at Dallas. But I would NOT go get a Bible degree from a Christian college. And when I look at how God has used me, I’m glad I spent so many years as a carpenter and feeding cattle and working with Youth for Christ. I’m glad because it gave me a lot of life experiences that have made my ministry and theology richer. So, doing things the hard way is often beneficial in indirect ways. I like to think of it as learning to do calculus by hand without a calculator. Can you do it faster and more efficiently with a calculator? Sure. But it isn’t rewarding and you don’t actually learn calculus—you learn calculator operations.
And I’m glad we have very powerful calculators. And when the best mathematicians in the world can use the best tools in the world then we can make new advances in mathematics and solve problems that we might never have solved otherwise!
But technology comes with costs. Anything that is going to change the world is going to destroy aspects of the world as it is. Now, I know that that might comes as a surprise. But it’s a simple reality. Anything that changes your world destroys the world as it is. Technological advancements come with costs; they create and they also destroy.
Back hundreds of years ago when the Industrial Revolution hit, it was a disaster for rural life, particularly in England as England industrialized more rapidly than anywhere else. And the Industrial Revolution allowed England to become the leader of the world and to expand her empire beyond anything it had yet seen. But there was a real cost. There was a human cost. The ruination of rural life led to a rapid population influx to the major urban centers where they were exploited by corrupt and greedy capitalists. See Charles Dickens for more details.
Now, we have a welfare state so I doubt that there will be mass impoverishment resulting from the inception of AI technology. I also don’t know what the pace will be and what kinds of laws will be put in place to protect industries. Let me give and example.
So, lawyers are particularly susceptible to losing work because of AI. Who is going to go to a lawyer for a simple will or for a straightforward tax return when the computer can do it for you in a matter of second for free? The answer is nobody. No one will go to a lawyer to fill out forms for them if a computer can do it. So, consider the influence and power of lawyers in this country. Even though lawyers no longer make up the majority of congress they still make up a large plurality. And when you consider lobbying by the American Bar Association and the State Bars, you can imagine that it won’t be long before there are state and federal regulations limiting what kind of legal documents can be filled out and filed by AI. And obviously this goes further. As we talked about back in 2016, when we looked at the research by the Susskinds, Daniel Susskind made this point:
“Consider that every year on eBay, 60m disagreements are resolved using “online dispute resolution” software, without a traditional lawyer. This is three times as many lawsuits as are dealt with in the entire US justice system. Clearly, in the absence of this system many of those 60m would go unresolved. And it is this – what access to expertise people would have if these systems did not exist – that should often be our benchmark.”
Now that was back in 2016! Lawyers are only getting less needed for a lot of routine tasks. And that’s actually a good thing. It’s good because it means that millions of people are able to resolve disputes and get some measure of justice or being made whole when they wouldn’t have otherwise. AI COULD BE a tool to promote a more just society by allowing more people to have more access to legal services than they could otherwise.
Does this mean that there will come a day when we don’t need lawyers? No. But what it does mean is that lawyers will have more time to do tasks that require actual humans. It means that lawyers won’t have a lot of their income coming from boilerplate forms and paperwork, but will need to find other ways of serving clients with their legal talent and expertise.
And, as I said back in 2016, the clergy, pastors, YOUR pastor will be affected by the advent of artificial intelligence. Most people, especially protestants, make a very strong association between the role of a pastor and preaching a sermon. But what about when your pastor isn’t preaching HIS sermons but is just having the computer write them. Do you really need a pastor at that point?
Now, I don’t think that this is meaningfully different from pastors who plagiarize or pastors who buy their sermons. If you’re a plagiarist or you buy your sermons, shame on you. And I’d love to talk about this more, but we’re running out of airtime so we must move on.
There are a lot of clergymen who are either blithely unaware of how much AI will change preaching, or they arrogantly still think that a computer will never be able to preach as well as a human, or they are terrified that this means the end of the clergy.
I think that this is a tool that can be, is, and should be threatening to pastors who are not engaged in incarnational ministry. I am afraid that too many will think that this is a huge boon that will allow them to continue being lazy and ignorant and still drawing a paycheck.
But I also think that this is an opportunity. I think that IF AI breaks the American Church by proving that the television, entertainment model of worship that we currently have is inadequate and not truly human and not truly Spirit-filled.
Too many people, not just pastors, but layfolk as well, have an idea that church is nothing more than a Jesusy-inspirational speech or a glorified Bible-study. The average church is set-up as close as it can be to make you feel like you’re watching television. Just think about this. How the stage is bright and emits light in a dark space and it’s in that bright space where stuff happens and your attention is fixed. Church has become television and that’s why so many people found it so easy to move to “virtual church”—which isn’t church and never has been and never will be.
The problem is that pastors have come to the place where they think of themselves as TV personalities performing before a live studio audience rather than as men of God shepherding a congregation. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming to be a perfect pastor or even a very good one. Nor do I make any claim to being anything other than a fair to middling preacher. But the one thing I strive to be is honest, authentic, and true to my calling.
The Artificial Intelligence Revolution could be a great opportunity for the people of God in America and the West to see how shallow and robotic so much of what we do has become. It is an opportunity for us to see that church as we know it has serious problems and is not really incarnational. It is not a faith and church-life that’s lived out in body, soul, and spirit, but one that is primarily addressed to being as much like entertainment as possible.
This could be a call to return to gathering as the people of God to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength together, sharing our lives together, to share the loaf and cup, to wash feet, to lay on hands and anoint with oil, to have genuine fellowship and to practice hospitality. This could be the kick in the pants we need to stop living beneath our privileges and fully embrace being the BODY of Christ.