Guest Host, Dr. Alex McFarland, is joined by Dr. Drew Dickens, an expert in the faith world on AI

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
2. 0:03It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
4. 0:10It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
5. 0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
7. 0:20God has called you and me to be His ambassador.
8. 0:24Even in this dark moment.
9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
10. 0:28and now, the Hamilton Corner.
11. 0:32Well, good evening.
12. 0:36Master and journalist Abe Hamilton the third.
13. 0:39Very honored for the times that I get to sit in.
14. 0:43If you recognize my voice, it's probably
15. 0:45from a show called Exploring the Word.
16. 0:48And I've got the privilege of Monday through Friday.
17. 0:50We have a live Bible teaching and call in question program,
18. 0:54exploring the word.
19. 0:56But when Abe is traveling or out of the office,
20. 1:00Sometimes I get to sit in for him and this is one of those days and this is a program
21. 1:05I've looked forward to for a long time because we have a very very special guest to talk about
22. 1:11one of the most commonly asked questions on exploring the word people call and ask about
23. 1:17the rise of AI.
24. 1:20And so we're going to talk for this show about artificial intelligence.
25. 1:24Is it good or bad?
26. 1:26Is there a digital war being waged for our souls?
27. 1:30And so we're very privileged to have an expert on the subject.
28. 1:34Dr. Drew Dickens holds a doctorate in theological anthropology from Southern Methodist and a
29. 1:40master's from DTS, just one of the most respected theological schools in the world, Dallas Seminary.
30. 1:48And his doctoral research was a study of the impact of generative artificial intelligence
31. 1:56on the field of spiritual direction and spiritual inquiry, and very privileged, this most relevant
32. 2:04of subjects, very privileged to get to know this colleague and hear from him today on AI
33. 2:11and spirituality. Dr. Drew Dickens, thank you and welcome to the American Family Radio
34. 2:16Network.
35. 2:18Alex, big fan of the network and what an honor and privilege is to be with you guys.
36. 2:24Well, it's great to be with you and I look forward to hearing about your research and your
37. 2:28insights.
38. 2:29But so, you know, before the show, you and I were talking off air and just getting acquainted
39. 2:35and I kind of feel like I've known you a long time.
40. 2:39I feel like I've made a new friend.
41. 2:40But tell us about your journey and your background and how God brought you to where you are in
42. 2:47your life and ministry at this point.
43. 2:50Absolutely.
44. 2:51Yeah, and likewise, it's like we met in junior high or something, it is kind of getting reacquainted.
45. 2:57Follower of Christ, cleverly disguised as a husband but one wife, coming up on 40,
46. 3:05that's impossible, 43 years that in college at Baylor, thank you very much.
47. 3:12Cleverly disguised as a dad, two grown sons,
48. 3:18and my proudest accomplishment is a granddad.
49. 3:22So I'm pop to two amazing grand sons
50. 3:26and have the privilege of living here in Dallas
51. 3:30with them nearby, and so that's a real joy.
52. 3:33Came to Christ, became aware of God's calling in my life
53. 3:37in sixth grade at a Billy Graham crusade
54. 3:41and went there with my Cub Scout pack
55. 3:45just to see the inside of Texas stadium.
56. 3:47Had no idea who Billy Graham was.
57. 3:49I just had never seen AstroTurf, so we went
58. 3:51and went down on the 20-yard line
59. 3:54and gave my life to the Lord and freaked out my parents
60. 3:58who had no idea about how to disciple that.
61. 4:01And so I just started pouring into everything I could read
62. 4:04and get my hands on.
63. 4:06And I went into full-time vocational ministry,
64. 4:1020-some odd years ago with a ministry called Need Him that I launched.
65. 4:14It's an evangelism response ministry with the Billy Graham organization and campus crusade
66. 4:19and a bunch of others.
67. 4:20And then joined up with a prayer app called Abide 10 years ago and helped that get started.
68. 4:28And that was a blast.
69. 4:29A bunch of 20-year-old PhDs from Stanford that are all engineers at Google wanted to do something
70. 4:35for the kingdom.
71. 4:36And so got to be a part of that.
72. 4:37They needed an old man with a seminary degree.
73. 4:40And so about six years ago started in Counter, which is a daily meditation on a verse of the
74. 4:48day with the U-version Bible app, and who just celebrated a billion downloads this weekend,
75. 4:55this past weekend.
76. 4:56And then AI and spirituality has been a fascination of mine, the crossroads of theology and technology
77. 5:04at seminary, kept writing on that. And then four or five years ago decided to pursue a doctorate.
78. 5:12And AI was, well, it's been around since World War II, but Chad GPT hadn't even launched.
79. 5:19So it was tough to get a return phone call, but now everybody wants to be on their podcast. So
80. 5:24the timing is fantastic. So a little about my journey.
81. 5:29Isn't it true that very often great moves of God, revivals, awakenings, run parallel
82. 5:40to technological breakthroughs?
83. 5:43I think about printing in the Gutenberg Bible and not too long thereafter came the Protestant
84. 5:49Reformation.
85. 5:51You mentioned going to a Billy Graham event and Billy Graham was one of the first to really
86. 5:56harness the power of television.
87. 6:00Absolutely.
88. 6:02We're living, I mean, every day's news cycle is populated by articles about NVIDIA and AI
89. 6:09and could it be, for all the draconian warnings we've heard about computers are bad and things
90. 6:17like that, could it be that the technological advancements of this moment might be a bit
91. 6:26be harnessed for the power of the gospel.
92. 6:29And I mean, I know this, I'll say this,
93. 6:31and then I will throw it to you.
94. 6:33We have listeners on American Family Radio,
95. 6:37our program exploring the word.
96. 6:39We have gotten much mail from Saudi Arabia,
97. 6:43from places that missionaries might not necessarily go.
98. 6:49And so I actually think, you know, the World Wide Web
99. 6:54and possibly AI is going to be used by God for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
100. 7:00But what do you say? The breakthroughs of technology and spiritual awakenings, are they in any way related?
101. 7:11Absolutely. And of course, it's to the glory of God. Everything exists for His glory.
102. 7:18So, and let's don't end in our time together today
103. 7:22without talking about the benefits
104. 7:25and how God will be, I believe, glorified through this.
105. 7:30It's easy to go dark and dystopian fairly quickly
106. 7:33in the conversations.
107. 7:34A lot of the news cycles that you mentioned
108. 7:36have a clickbait element to it.
109. 7:39I'm much more likely to click on an article
110. 7:41about robots taking over whatever than I am,
111. 7:45some of the benefits.
112. 7:46but let's please carve out some time
113. 7:48that we can talk about that.
114. 7:50Because I agree with you 100%.
115. 7:52I think though this is different.
116. 7:54A lot of when I was in seminary,
117. 7:55I was writing about our relationship with technology
118. 7:58as people of faith over time,
119. 8:02not to get too much in the weeds,
120. 8:04but you can even go back to the Urim and the Thumum devices
121. 8:09that the prophets used in the ancient of times
122. 8:13to inquire God.
123. 8:15we look at in the New Testament, even casting a lot, right?
124. 8:18So we're always wanting to engage
125. 8:21with some kind of inanimate object to draw closer
126. 8:24to a divine encounter.
127. 8:28So that this isn't new.
128. 8:29I think this technology though,
129. 8:31this major technological shift that I believe
130. 8:35we are in the midst of right now,
131. 8:37because they've all rewritten culture.
132. 8:39Absolutely, you were pointing on in mentioning Gutenberg
133. 8:42and early advances in radio.
134. 8:44some of the first radio programs were preachers,
135. 8:47and Billy Graham on TV and the internet.
136. 8:50But AI is, I think, different.
137. 8:53It aims to, as opposed to earlier technologies,
138. 8:58it aims to imitate the human soul.
139. 9:03And imitate is, even within the name,
140. 9:06artificial intelligence.
141. 9:08So it's all about imitation.
142. 9:10And I think that's different.
143. 9:11I don't think we engage with the printing press,
144. 9:14we engage with casting of lots and are able to differentiate that from who we are as humans.
145. 9:23AI is different.
146. 9:25AI is artificial general intelligence, artificial super intelligence are levels yet to come.
147. 9:33But I think what's different about AI is its ability to imitate who we are and that should
148. 9:40wake up every Christian right now.
149. 9:43Let me ask you this, Dr. Dickens, you wrote a dissertation on, oh, thank you, generative
150. 9:50artificial, now what does that mean?
151. 9:53Help us understand what is AI and what is generative AI?
152. 10:02Well generative is in the name GPT, which everybody's familiar with, Chad GPT.
153. 10:06So GPT stands for generative retrained transformer.
154. 10:11So generative, simply enough, is a form of AI that generates content.
155. 10:18So I can go into chat GPT.
156. 10:21I can go into any context window on any language model,
157. 10:25and type a question as you do in a Google context window.
158. 10:30Type in a question, and it generates a response.
159. 10:33Or I can ask it to, hey, draw me a picture of a cat,
160. 10:36and it will generate an image of a cat.
161. 10:39So generative AI is just that.
162. 10:41It generates content.
163. 10:46We can talk about whether it's original content or not,
164. 10:49but it generates something.
165. 10:51It can generate some text or a picture or music
166. 10:54or wherever your mind can take you.
167. 10:58There's the next phase.
168. 10:59If you feel like, you know, I've missed the boat on AI,
169. 11:01it's already that ship is sailed.
170. 11:03I've missed the wave.
171. 11:05Well, the next wave pass generative AI is agent AI,
172. 11:10and just take the word agent and put IC on the end of it.
173. 11:13So it's agent driven agent AI.
174. 11:17And that takes generative AI to the next level.
175. 11:21So instead, the example I use is,
176. 11:27well, a timely example is it's Christmas coming up.
177. 11:31Could you generate a list of some ideas for gifts
178. 11:35that I might get my wife, Bob, done.
179. 11:38That's easy.
180. 11:39So it will generate a list.
181. 11:41A gintech AI will actually go out,
182. 11:43find the best, it will read my wife's Instagram feed,
183. 11:49it will make the decision which gift is best to get her.
184. 11:52It'll find those gifts on Amazon,
185. 11:54choose the most efficient or the cheapest one,
186. 11:57and then ping my credit card.
187. 11:58So an agent is like a travel agent, if you will,
188. 12:02that will go out and yes, it will book an airline,
189. 12:04but it will also book your rental car,
190. 12:06your cruise package, everything kind of for you.
191. 12:09So that's a gintic AI would be kind of the next wave
192. 12:13of AI from there.
193. 12:16So let me figure out how to ask this.
194. 12:22Chat, GPT and the platforms,
195. 12:25they perform tasks when asked to do so.
196. 12:29We could go on and say,
197. 12:31please give me the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie recipe, and it would regurgitate
198. 12:39and give that. To what degree are you aware that AI is voluntarily generating content on
199. 12:48its own without having been asked by a human being?
200. 12:55Currently, when you say, am I aware of, right now, I think we're limited by that's not
201. 13:05these conversations get outdated so quickly. So as of today at this moment,
202. 13:11there are community guidelines, there are limitations with technology, where autonomy,
203. 13:18which would be the word I think we're looking for, autonomous direction within AI is fairly limited.
204. 13:26You can look at examples of autonomous driving, self-driving cars, Teslas and whatnot.
205. 13:33We'll make decisions on our behalf. It might change lanes when I wouldn't think to do so.
206. 13:41So there is some autonomy that we're seeing within AI, certainly. Will there be more? Absolutely.
207. 13:48Again, you're seeing some of that as I just described with a gentic.
208. 13:51are these firewalls or protocols built in to prevent like for instance what if
209. 13:58AI said gee I'm gonna cut the power to all of America's hospitals I mean what
210. 14:04what prevents we've got a break this is fascinating stuff dr. Dickens we're gonna
211. 14:11come back and talk more folks but what is your website before this first
212. 14:14commercial what's your website best way to find me is Drew Dickens drew like a
213. 14:19picture Dickens like Charles DrewDikens.com.
214. 14:21Wow.
215. 14:22Folks, Alex McFarland here with Dr. Drew Dickens, we're talking about AI.
216. 14:27It is a part of your life, you know.
217. 14:30Stay tuned, folks.
218. 14:31We're going to come back with more after this brief break on the American Family Radio Network.
219. 14:35Don't go away.
220. 15:00HGTV has changed over the years and not necessarily for the better.
221. 15:05The seemingly wholesome home and garden television has decided it would be clever and funny to
222. 15:10to hint at an expletive in the title of one of its newest shows.
223. 15:14The alternative spelling is so poor that children can still read it and repeat it.
224. 15:19Obviously I won't say it here, but you can go to 1millionmoms.com to find out more and
225. 15:24urge HGTV to rename the show, 1millionmoms.com.
226. 15:35Shiting Light Into the Darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
227. 15:42Welcome back to the program, Alex McFarland here thoroughly enjoying learning from Dr.
228. 15:48Drew Dickens.
229. 15:49And honest, I promise folks, we are two human beings.
230. 15:53The voices you are listening to are actually human beings talking.
231. 15:58And you'll concur Dr. Dickens, right?
232. 16:01Let me check.
233. 16:02Yep.
234. 16:03Yes, I am.
235. 16:04Okay.
236. 16:05But I'd say that in just, but before the break,
237. 16:09we were talking about what AI can voluntarily decide
238. 16:14to do and generate.
239. 16:17And I want to pick that back up.
240. 16:18And I asked the question, I mean,
241. 16:21what's to stop AI from turning off the electricity
242. 16:27to America's hospitals or something malevolent?
243. 16:30Is AI capable of malevolence?
244. 16:38I would think so, yes.
245. 16:41It's not neutral technology.
246. 16:45And as it continues to evolve,
247. 16:48that's the word I can use there.
248. 16:51It's being trained on the entirety of human knowledge.
249. 16:56So it's read every book on malevolence.
250. 16:58It's read every book on manipulation.
251. 17:01So yes, absolutely it's capable of that.
252. 17:06There was an interesting thought experiment going back 20 or 30 years now, not specifically
253. 17:10about AI at the time, but Nick Bostrom, who's a Swedish philosopher, came up with what's
254. 17:16now called the paperclip experiment.
255. 17:20Your listeners can Google just paperclip experiment, and it's frightening, fascinating, but the
256. 17:25scenario is that it would give, let's say, an AI model a task, just as I mentioned a moment
257. 17:32ago, pick out some Christmas present ideas.
258. 17:35This one is a little more, again, malevolent.
259. 17:37It was give or it became so.
260. 17:40It was design a system, a manufacturing system that would maximize the number of paper clips
261. 17:50that a company would be able to produce.
262. 17:54And then it just let it run.
263. 17:56If you just let it run with no barriers constraints to it.
264. 17:59And it was fascinating how quickly it started coming to it, this AI platform, if you would.
265. 18:05to the conclusion that one of the biggest barriers to advancement is energy resources. So I've got
266. 18:13limited supply of metal that I can use, but I've also got limited supply of power. And so it,
267. 18:18one of the things that you start thinking through is does it start shutting down what it
268. 18:23perceives as irrelevant manufacturing processes? So could it shut down the power to a hospital,
269. 18:30let's say, it was your example. And it would begin to make those decisions in order to achieve
270. 18:37its goal. So two important words there are goal assignments and alignment. Is AI aligned
271. 18:46with human flourishing? And if so, it wouldn't shut off a hospital. And is its goal clearly defined?
272. 18:54So you mentioned, I mentioned looking for Christmas lists.
273. 19:00You mentioned chocolate chip cookie recipes, is we need to be very
274. 19:04specific. You can tell where my priorities are.
275. 19:08Exactly. I'm concerned about my wife's flourishing over the holidays, and you're all about dessert.
276. 19:15So is it, is it, is it, does it have a clearly assigned, assigned task?
277. 19:22and is it aligned with human flourishing?
278. 19:26So long answer, but yes, it can get malevolent,
279. 19:30but we need to keep in mind that as we program it,
280. 19:34that it's aligned with what is best for humanity
281. 19:38and keep those goals very targeted.
282. 19:41Is AI self-aware?
283. 19:44Mm, great question.
284. 19:47And you mentioned AI is one of your most frequently asked
285. 19:51questions, mine is, is it self-aware?
286. 19:53is it sentient will it become sentient?
287. 19:58The grandfather of AI claims that it is becoming self-aware.
288. 20:08I think one of the things that's missing in awareness or
289. 20:11sentience is an awareness of life experience.
290. 20:18So as it begins to, and each of the language models now are doing
291. 20:23this as it begins to keep historic logs of conversations, it can, well, I do air quotes
292. 20:33a lot in these conversations, but it can draw on what it might perceive as a life experience
293. 20:40with me. So I've noticed in some of the language models that I use, and I use them all, it might
294. 20:46begin a conversation with, hey, Drew, how are the grandkids today? So it's developing
295. 20:53some awareness of our relationship, if you will. But Jeffrey Hinton, who's the grandfather
296. 21:00of neural networks and early stage AI is alive and flourishing and doing quite well, but he
297. 21:06believes it will become sentient. I think the better question, though, is not whether it
298. 21:11will become self-aware, but will we engage with it as though it is? As I think far more profound
299. 21:18and relevant question, is it sentient or will we act with it as though it is? And I think
300. 21:24that's a clear yes. We're already seeing that on how people are engaging with it.
301. 21:30Sure, sure. And you know, we do summer camps for youth, biblical worldview camps, and we have for
302. 21:3827 years. And I got to tell you one of the hardest things, but we talked to the parents and the
303. 21:47grandparents up front, and we say at our summer camps, we don't allow the kids to have their
304. 21:55mobile devices with them because we're trying to go horseback riding and hiking in the mountains
305. 22:02and then have Bible study. And do you know the first 48 hours, you know, there are kids
306. 22:11at our camps that, I mean, it is like withdrawal, like an addict getting off of a drug. It's
307. 22:18a beautiful thing to see though by three, four, five days of Christian camp, you know, the
308. 22:25cries for the cell phones are gone.
309. 22:29Because, and it's almost like,
310. 22:32and I'm as guilty as anybody.
311. 22:34I mean, I'm always on the computer.
312. 22:36I'm always writing or emailing or whatever.
313. 22:41We are addicted to technology, aren't we?
314. 22:45Yeah, absolutely.
315. 22:47And as a Christian, one of the things
316. 22:50that we are supposed to be very careful stewards of,
317. 22:53Well, two things, time and our mind, aren't we,
318. 22:57as a Christian, because time is a non-recoverable resource.
319. 23:01I mean, if you lose money, you can get more money,
320. 23:04but wasted and lost time can't be recovered.
321. 23:08And also what goes into our minds.
322. 23:10To what degree are you concerned about
323. 23:13even technology addiction among believers?
324. 23:16Yeah, very much so. I applaud you for having a technology Sabbath during your retreats and
325. 23:27during your summer camps. It's one of the things that I always advise when I meet speaking
326. 23:34with a group, seminary or a church or whatever to do that. I was just having a lunch yesterday
327. 23:40with a friend of mine who did his doctoral work on even how we engage in scripture with a printed
328. 23:47Bible versus reading it on our phone. And he was able to fascinating research about how we tend to
329. 23:55integrate it into our daily walk if we're holding it in our hand, not by the phone, by the way,
330. 24:05but printed pages.
331. 24:08I'm sure you probably know this,
332. 24:11but 20 years ago there were studies done
333. 24:13about assimilation and recall.
334. 24:15And when we read from a book,
335. 24:19the printed page, maybe it's the haptics
336. 24:22of touching the paper and handling.
337. 24:25But assimilation and recall are stronger
338. 24:29when we read from a book book rather than a screen.
339. 24:34And that's what he was able to determine as well.
340. 24:36But I'll leave you though, not leave you, but I'll give you this quote, which I thought was fascinating.
341. 24:41It was about a year ago.
342. 24:43In the Wall Street Journal, there's an article that I quote that I think the headline was,
343. 24:49in 2025, this was again last year, 2025 AI will become invisible.
344. 24:56And I think that the clickbait aspect was, is it going to go away?
345. 25:00but what the intent of the title was it would become ubiquitous, that it's not just a phone
346. 25:08anymore. And so it's so hard now to different, I get people quite often who tell me, I'm just
347. 25:17not on AI. I don't do AI. Well, we all do every day. The minute you turn on Netflix and suggested
348. 25:23movies or suggested friends on Facebook, or just the content we're reading that we don't
349. 25:30realize his AI generated. So ship is sale. We're all using AI, open AI. In fact, Sam Altman,
350. 25:39just partnered with Johnny Ivy, who is the product designer for Apple for many, many years. He's
351. 25:47one that would design the iPhone and the interface of it and the physical aspect of it. He's designing
352. 25:53now an AI device with no clue what that is. I don't know if it's something you wear. Maybe it's
353. 25:59It's a neck, I don't know.
354. 26:01In fact, just this week, I believe Elon Musk said that next year, the phone will become a
355. 26:11speaker for AI, not just a phone.
356. 26:16So even saying to put your phone away doesn't, won't necessarily separate us from the effects
357. 26:23and the impact and the engagement, the relationship that I think will be drawn to with AI.
358. 26:32So it's, again, one of the other frightening aspects of AI is the relational aspect to it.
359. 26:38Again, OpenAI just announced two weeks ago that they're going to start lowering the bar
360. 26:44on erotica, on erotic content. And so now, with porn, you just look at pictures, but now
361. 26:53with AI, you're able to talk to it and what that does to your soul when you're
362. 27:04we're designed to be in a relationship. That's what the Trinity represents to us.
363. 27:09And so we're going to be drawn to, I think, that aspect of AI, which will be even, I think,
364. 27:15more dangerous than just walking around with a phone so I can check scores or the latest TikTok
365. 27:22video or whatever. Now I'll actually be able to have a relationship with this entity.
366. 27:28For those just tuning in, Alex McFarland here, we're talking with Dr. Drew Dickens about the
367. 27:35overlap of AI and spirituality. And it is ubiquitous. I've told people as well that,
368. 27:44look, if you've ever been through like a logic tree on a phone, you know, if you want this, press one,
369. 27:50if you need this department press too. I mean, we have all interacted with AI. So I'm going to
370. 27:59ask the question that I've pondered for a while. And this is, it might sound weird, but I'm going
371. 28:08to ask it anyway. I'm ready. Can demons interact with hardware?
372. 28:18I would think obviously, yes, God, all things are created by Him and for Him. So with His
373. 28:31allowance, I would say absolutely. We're not to be a people of fear either. So, you know,
374. 28:40can, and what we all know the scripture about, you know, what the world might mean for evil.
375. 28:47And so we, I think we need to be discerning is a word I use a lot discerning when we're
376. 28:54using it because most definitely we can, there's so many amazing opportunities that this represents
377. 29:03for us to see the kingdom advance for us to grow deeper in our walk with the Lord for
378. 29:10for him to be able to use this tool.
379. 29:14AI certainly didn't surprise him.
380. 29:17He's coming.
381. 29:18So it's not like he was like,
382. 29:19well, look at this technology.
383. 29:21So this is by no means a surprise.
384. 29:25Can demons use printed material?
385. 29:28Absolutely.
386. 29:30And so can the printing press be used for evil?
387. 29:33Can radio, can television, absolutely?
388. 29:36Can technology, so yes, it can.
389. 29:38Yes, of course it can.
390. 29:40but likewise it can be used for God's glory.
391. 29:43But again, with his allowance,
392. 29:47it can be used for good and bad,
393. 29:50but we need to be discerning.
394. 29:52And I think that's one of the things
395. 29:53that's so tempting about AI.
396. 29:55A line I toss out quite a bit is,
397. 29:57AI is incapable of not answering.
398. 30:00So we need to be discerning when we ask these questions.
399. 30:06What's the best chocolate chip cookie recipe?
400. 30:09Instead of just taking that recipe and putting it together,
401. 30:16you should pause and look at the ingredients.
402. 30:19Does the ingredients include me throwing in,
403. 30:23mixing gasoline with the, whatever?
404. 30:26So let's be discerning for a moment.
405. 30:29And we need to do that even with scripture
406. 30:32and commentaries that we read,
407. 30:34programs we listen to on the radio.
408. 30:36We need to be discerning.
409. 30:37What am I listening to?
410. 30:38What are their worldviews and beliefs?
411. 30:41So, but it's, you know, that's time consuming,
412. 30:44we'd rather not have to mess with all that.
413. 30:46So I'm just gonna take it at face value and go ahead.
414. 30:48I think therein lies the demonic opportunities
415. 30:52when we aren't discerning.
416. 30:55But do you feel like it's making us intellectually lazy?
417. 31:01Yeah, there's a great word that I came across
418. 31:04in seminary as Acedia, A-C-E-D-I-A.
419. 31:10Acedia was a word that first gained some popularity
420. 31:13with the desert fathers in the early first century church
421. 31:18that these monastic traditions.
422. 31:20And they found that fact that there's a scripture
423. 31:24referencing it, the noon day sun is everybody kind of wakes up
424. 31:29and they have their morning devotion time.
425. 31:31We know how to have an evening devotion time.
426. 31:34But they defined the noon day sun as a seed, yeah, is spiritual slothness.
427. 31:41There's a lot of S is there, but being spiritual sloth and I can talk to this.
428. 31:47I have written several articles about a seed, yeah, and that and the sloth of it.
429. 31:53Because I experienced it every day.
430. 31:56It's just so much easier for me to pop on the AI real quick and say, boy, you know,
431. 32:02What did Paul mean or give me two or three examples or using it as a concordance?
432. 32:08Oh, hold on. We've got to take a break. It's not bad. We've got to take a brief break. Dr. Drew Dickens, A.I. and your
433. 32:15faith. Stay tuned, folks. Alex McFarlane here, glad you're listening. We'll be back after this brief break.
434. 32:30The God who speaks. And of course, he went beyond even the Old Testament law in the
435. 32:35sermon on the Mount saying you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. I will tell you that
436. 32:39that if you've lost it in your heart, you have already committed it to the whole tree.
437. 32:43And then I realized something.
438. 32:45I can't believe less than Jesus believed, and he had absolute confidence in the Old Testament.
439. 32:54The God Who Speaks at resources.afa.net
440. 32:58The Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Minute Common Terrets are available at aFR.net back
441. 33:10to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
442. 33:15Welcome back to the program. We're going to resume our conversation with Dr. Drew Dickens.
443. 33:20I want to remind people, I know the last thing you're probably thinking about right now is
444. 33:25the summer of 2026. But I've got the privilege, I'll be again at the Cove, the Billy Graham
445. 33:33Training Center in Western North Carolina. It's just been a great joy to go there for
446. 33:3820 summers. And next summer, July 17 through 19, I'll be doing a three-day seminar on biblical
447. 33:46prophecy. And then July 27 through 31, I'll be there for five days with Dr. Gary Habermas,
448. 33:54just one of the great apologists in the world. And we'll be doing kind of a deep dive on apologetics
449. 34:01about knowing and defending the Christian faith, kind of rising to the challenge of first Peter
450. 34:06315 being ready to give an answer. And so the website is the cove.org.
451. 34:12Spelges like it sounds, T-H-E-C-O-V-E, the cove.org. We always have people from literally
452. 34:20around the world. When I was there last summer, we had a family came from India, came all the
453. 34:26way from India to go to the cove. It's in beautiful Western North Carolina in the Appalachian mountains,
454. 34:32We will get into the Word of God and fellowship together.
455. 34:36Please pray about joining us at the Cove next summer. Also, I want to remind people that Bert Harper and I just released our third book,
456. 34:44100 Bible Questions on Prophecy and the End Times.
457. 34:48And these are the questions from the listeners of our show exploring the Word.
458. 34:53And so published by Broad Street along with we did a hundred Bible questions.
459. 34:58We did a hundred Bible questions for families as you
460. 35:01You plan the gifts that you'll give.
461. 35:04Each of our books really contains an explanation of a clear explanation of the gospel.
462. 35:11And we ask the reader a question, have you begun a relationship with Christ?
463. 35:16So we pray that God will use these books and we hope they'll be a blessing to you.
464. 35:21As always my travel schedule and the articles I write, they're available at AlexMcFarland.com
465. 35:28and we appreciate your interest.
466. 35:30with me is Dr. Drew Dickens and Dr. Dickens, you, I want to commend you, you're such a fascinating
467. 35:38person with whom to speak and I want to encourage people, look, familiarize yourself with his
468. 35:44research and his work. He's helping a lot of people understand where we are technologically
469. 35:50myself included. Dr. Dickens, give your website if you would.
470. 35:55Dr. Drew Dickens, D-R-E-W, D-I-C-K-E-N-S, Drew Like-It-Picture, Dickens-Like-Charles.com.
471. 36:02And you can find my sub-stack channel and the website and boy, just, there are no pictures
472. 36:08of the grandkids, but pretty much everything else you get everyone to know is on Drudekins.com.
473. 36:13You know, I want to talk about the good side of this technology because I really do think
474. 36:20There's a lot of good there.
475. 36:21But one more potentially negative question, you know, you read like in Revelation chapter
476. 36:2713 about, you know, the beast and the antichrist.
477. 36:32And there's this image of the beast that has God-like properties.
478. 36:38And imagine, you know, people worship the beast and the image of the beast.
479. 36:46Do you see AI playing a role in some of what the Bible prophesies about the end times and
480. 36:57the tribulation period and this global police state and people, you know, it says there's
481. 37:04a strong delusion coming.
482. 37:07Do you foresee AI potentially being a part of all that?
483. 37:12Yes, most definitely.
484. 37:14So when I came to Christ, it was the first book my parents got me was How Lindsay, the
485. 37:21Lake Great Planet Earth.
486. 37:22Sure.
487. 37:23And I obviously went to Dallas Seminary, so I've already naturally have a bent towards
488. 37:28pre-millennial dispensational not to get into the weeds there.
489. 37:33Me too.
490. 37:35So they already have some of those leanings.
491. 37:37in Hal Lindsey's book,
492. 37:40but he was mapping out those metaphors
493. 37:43quite liberally as far as,
494. 37:45well, the locus were helicopters and so on and so forth.
495. 37:49And so it was hard for me at the time, 50 years ago,
496. 37:54more than that 50 years ago,
497. 37:56to envision a world where,
498. 38:00that one day we might be able to broadcast content
499. 38:05around the world. I'm just things that were mind-blowing to me in seventh grade. Now we,
500. 38:09of course, just accept all that. And so, tempted to go back and look at his book again and see,
501. 38:15boy, AI could so easily create all of the word you use delusions, but so easily generate fake content
502. 38:26and delude us into thinking that this is this or that is that or this isn't this or that. One of
503. 38:34of the threats I think to the church right now with AI is just the attack on authority.
504. 38:39So, yeah, most definitely I see AI easily playing a role in that. I do want to challenge you on
505. 38:45something you were mentioning the next summer, you at the Cove on prophecy. I'd really challenge
506. 38:53you. It's fascinating right now, but Peter Teal is someone your listeners may not be familiar
507. 38:59with, but he's the co-founder of PayPal. He was the first outside investor in Facebook.
508. 39:05He's the CEO of a company called Palantir right now. Exactly.
509. 39:09Just as AI, AI, AI defense. But his passion, I've not talked to the man, but listening to
510. 39:17podcasts that he's been on, he identifies himself as a little O Orthodox Christian
511. 39:22and is very active in a church and a Bible study in San Francisco.
512. 39:28But his passion right now is the Antichrist.
513. 39:34And you don't have to do much besides just Google,
514. 39:37Peter Thiel and Antichrist,
515. 39:39but he is passionate about speaking to his many
516. 39:43that will listen about AI and the Antichrist.
517. 39:48Now, his definition of anti-Christ may be different than yours in mind.
518. 39:53His view of end times theology may be different.
519. 40:00He's still kind of fleshing out some things.
520. 40:02He said on a recent podcast, It's Above My Pay Grade.
521. 40:05But I would before you speak there next summer, which is an eternity in the AI timeline.
522. 40:12But I think you would be fascinating to get kind of caught up on where Peter teal.
523. 40:18For that matter, Elon has spoken about it.
524. 40:20So has Zuckerberg, who's a Jewish,
525. 40:23so is Sam Altman is Jewish,
526. 40:26all acknowledge the presence of a Supreme being.
527. 40:31But I think it's interesting watching Silicon Valley
528. 40:35in these AI frontier models,
529. 40:37start leaning into what are the theological implications
530. 40:40of AI and what does it mean to be human?
531. 40:43So yes, I think that the enemy can use that
532. 40:46to delude us into this or that,
533. 40:50I think will be a great threat to us in today,
534. 40:53as well as in times as well.
535. 40:56You mentioned the late great planet Earth by Hal Lindsey,
536. 41:00and I'm gonna invoke another late 20th century
537. 41:06American evangelical book that came out,
538. 41:09and I'm sure you probably,
539. 41:11you haven't thought of this in years.
540. 41:12There was an author, he was a born again,
541. 41:15Arab man named Salem Curban, and he wrote a book called 666.
542. 41:22And do you remember that?
543. 41:24This is like Eons before the Left Behind series,
544. 41:28but it was basically pre-millennialism in story form.
545. 41:34I remember, because I became a Christian when I was 21,
546. 41:38Drew, I was in college, but I probably,
547. 41:42Somebody at school, I was maybe in fifth or sixth grade,
548. 41:46had the book 666, I knew nothing about anything,
549. 41:51but I read it and it really scared me.
550. 41:53But there's a picture in that book
551. 41:54of people bowing down before a computer.
552. 41:57There's like this IBM computer that looks
553. 42:00about like a deep freezer, but people are,
554. 42:03it's a big huge box.
555. 42:04They're bowing down before it and worshiping this computer.
556. 42:09And, but you know, people, you know, mocked those kinds of books, how Lindsay even earnest,
557. 42:18angely, I'm really doing a deep dive in evangelical truth. But he wrote one of these books too.
558. 42:25But you know, in a way though, they weren't, while stylistically, you know, this was not
559. 42:33Shakespeare here. But you know, they weren't far off the mark in predicting how technology
560. 42:41would just become ubiquitous and would envelop all of our lives.
561. 42:45Yeah, I don't think it will be as, I think it'll be more nuanced than us bowing in front
562. 42:50of a computer. One of the things that China just in fact announced this swarm of robots
563. 42:58that they're releasing for a company.
564. 43:02Elon, I think that will be the biggest growth for Tesla,
565. 43:05is not cars are going to Mars, but is robot automation.
566. 43:11And then when you embody,
567. 43:15and again, we can get into theological implications
568. 43:17of just the incarnation,
569. 43:18but when you start embodying AI into a robot,
570. 43:22I think it will be more subtle than that.
571. 43:24I think it's the ability for AI to generate content,
572. 43:27to generate audio, video.
573. 43:29And I didn't mean to laugh, but when you said,
574. 43:33here we are both drew in Alex's humans.
575. 43:36I think we're at a point where we kind of need to verify that.
576. 43:42In fact, OpenAI is launching an orb
577. 43:45where it will verify our humanity.
578. 43:48So I think that's very real.
579. 43:50And I think it'll be, again, more nuanced
580. 43:52than bowing to an IBM.
581. 43:55It certainly won't be an IBM.
582. 43:56But I think to a data center, whatever,
583. 44:01but it'll be more nuanced and subtle than that.
584. 44:03But I definitely think that that will be a threat
585. 44:06that we need to take very real.
586. 44:09Ethically, how do you feel about Christians investing
587. 44:13in these companies?
588. 44:18Is it ethical for Christians to buy stock
589. 44:23stock and the major technological players in your opinion.
590. 44:29Well, I have never, I've lost count of podcasts I've been on. I've never been asked that question.
591. 44:35So thank you for that.
592. 44:37Well, all of life is stewardship, you know?
593. 44:40Yes, absolutely. And I think we need to be good stewards of, definitely we need to be
594. 44:44good stewards of it. We need to be discerning for anything that we do. But again, as we start
595. 44:52the conversation in the very beginning about it's easy to go dystopian with all the threats.
596. 44:59But when you look at open AI specifically right now,
597. 45:07the advances that it's seeing in pharmaceutical, in healthcare, massive advancements that would
598. 45:18have taken decades can now be done in a matter of seconds as far as research goes. So,
599. 45:25you know, if you reframe the question, would I want to invest in a company that might usher in
600. 45:32the rise of demonic forces? Of course not. But what I want to invest in a company that might cure
601. 45:39cancer next week, absolutely. So again, I think we need to be discerning on how they're,
602. 45:48you know, using different things. Obviously, the return that these companies have seen,
603. 45:54whether or not we're in a bubble right now. But I'm very excited about where this is going.
604. 46:01I'm excited about the advances in pharmaceutical and science innovations and research is just
605. 46:08mind-blowing the things that we're already seeing the benefits of. And as far as the kingdom,
606. 46:15It's ability to go into all the world.
607. 46:20A pastor at a small church in rural Oklahoma
608. 46:25can within seconds have their sermon translated
609. 46:30into every known language in the world
610. 46:32and sent out via various networks.
611. 46:38It can create study notes and a 12 week Bible study series.
612. 46:43study series. My wife and I last year on vacation, we actually had it create a four-day Bible study
613. 46:54program from scratch for her with questions and commentaries and all that. So it's ability to customize
614. 47:05are time in the Word is amazing.
615. 47:08The multiplication of it, the translation capabilities.
616. 47:14And just the fun of chasing a rabbit,
617. 47:16just theological rabbits.
618. 47:17I mean, how fun is it just to crack open the Bible
619. 47:20and just say, man, I've never noticed that verse before.
620. 47:22Where did that come from?
621. 47:23Is it, you know, it's ability to take us there.
622. 47:26It's so exciting.
623. 47:27So I would say it's ethically neutral when it comes to investing
624. 47:32investing, but we need to be discerning on the use of it.
625. 47:38Time fleets way. And I've got five dozen questions that I want to ask you. Now.
626. 47:46And here's one. Will you come back? May we have a 2.0 on this conversation?
627. 47:53Absolutely. I'd be honored anytime. Anytime. Anytime.
628. 47:56We got about a minute. Give us a homework assignment. A book to read.
629. 48:01Yeah, what did it study?
630. 48:02Yeah, absolutely.
631. 48:04We're not to be people of fear.
632. 48:05So I would, if you haven't already, I would, and they're all free models or paid models,
633. 48:11but they're all free.
634. 48:12So I would go to any of the larger language models.
635. 48:17If you have a Gmail account, then you already have an account with Jim and I, which is Google's
636. 48:22language models.
637. 48:23So start there if you want to open AI is another one and just go into their context window
638. 48:28and start asking questions.
639. 48:31Maybe something that you wished had been answered on Sunday morning and just for my
640. 48:35engagement.
641. 48:36We're out of time.
642. 48:37Bless you.
643. 48:39Thanks for listening, folks.
644. 48:40The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
645. 48:44Family Association or American Family Radio.