A well-designed machine is a thing of beauty. I appreciate a good tool. The food processor with the right blade for turning roasted tomatoes into sauce, the right sized tongs, the perfectly balanced sharp knife to dice, the correct drill bit to make a hole that perfectly fits a screw, the perfect setting on my garden hose to water a new plant. Is AI just another tool? Or is it more than a tool?

There has been much brouhaha about generative AI in education, and particular concerns in higher education.  As always, people have lots of opinions, with the most dramatic opinions receiving the most clicks and traffic to drive the algorithms that will serve you up more targeted advertising: AI will save the world! AI is the beginning of robots taking over the world! AI makes you dumber! AI makes you smarter because you can outsource the lower tasks and save your brain for the harder ones!

While I would appreciate a tool that would mow my lawn without me (and, ironically, I saw a drone mower earlier this week), I know people who love the process of mowing the lawn. I enjoy the process of pulling weeds and repotting plants and getting my hands in the soil and seeing my visual progress in the midst of the task. I know people who love to do data entry and others who don’t. I don’t love pulling hair out of my bathroom drain or capturing a centipede or renegade bat in my house. I don’t bake my own bread, but I know many who do and love the process. I don’t love grading student essays, but understand that my feedback is a powerful conversation between myself and my student that includes both critique and encouragement. Tools that are useful and effective may or may not be enjoyed by some, and may or may not be useful. AI can do all kinds of “menial” labor for us, like writing emails, or essays (or grading essays) or creating spreadsheets, meal plans, or travel itineraries. Spotify has AI generated music playlists (so they don’t have to pay the creators). But is the music good? Is the work that AI does “good” and does that matter? Who decides what type of labor requires a tool to make it easier and who decides what kind of labor is an enjoyable process? 

I see a possible shift in younger generations. They grew up with the ubiquity of smart phones and digital media and technology, and they seem to be ambivalent or dislike technology and its implications. Most of Gen Z will not willingly give up their phones, but they will surrender them if they are required to do so. They soon notice how much better they feel (and realize they can function!) without their phones. I wonder if Gen Z and Gen Alpha will critique and even reject the role of AI and other forms of digital technology and media in favor of “old fashioned” socializing and learning? Research consistently shows the loneliness epidemic continues, despite the ways people connect digitally. Will AI tools help us connect better and do the hard work of live relationships? Or does the imitation of human connection only make us more lonely?

Earlier this week, our pastor shared a message from Genesis 1 and 2 about the creation story: God spoke, and it became. Creating humans in the image of God also means that our words have value and meaning and perhaps even some power. Not creation power like God, but, through a glass darkly, a reflection of God’s power in our speech. What we say and how we speak matters, even as sinful people in a sinful world. 

Can AI do the same, as a tool created to imitate humans, designed by (flawed) humans?