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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking

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Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world

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Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that

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Speaker 1: hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to

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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this

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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm

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Speaker 1: joined by Dr. Ashish Varma. And today we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about artificial intelligence as it relates

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Speaker 1: to politics. So we've been doing our political series here

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Speaker 1: on Thinking Christian for a while now, and we're kind

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Speaker 1: of in the midst of it. And so instead of

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Speaker 1: having another guest on or doing one of our reaction shows,

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Speaker 1: we're going to deal with artificial intelligence and its role

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Speaker 1: in politics. And we could start with something that's very specific.

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Speaker 1: Right now, there are several articles out. I wrote one

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Speaker 1: for Christianity.com, but there are other pieces out there. If

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Speaker 1: you check to Google News and just maybe got on

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Speaker 1: there and said like data warehouses and politics, you would

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Speaker 1: pull up a lot of news pieces where people are

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Speaker 1: frustrated about the sort of data centers that have to

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Speaker 1: be built. to handle all of the energy needs to

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Speaker 1: train and deploy artificial intelligence. And these are becoming bigger

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Speaker 1: deals because they do take up an awful lot of space.

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Speaker 1: They take up an awful lot of natural resources. But

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Speaker 1: on some level, more telling, they also don't add a

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Speaker 1: lot of jobs to the places where they're put. And

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Speaker 1: so this isn't like putting in, you know, in the

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Speaker 1: old days, we might've had like a car factory where,

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Speaker 1: you know, there would have been a lot of people

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Speaker 1: employed by that car factory or a steel mill or

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Speaker 1: something like that. Those also took up natural resources. Those

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Speaker 1: also took a toll on the environment, but there was

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Speaker 1: a sense in which the economic life of a community

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Speaker 1: could be bettered by providing jobs within these spaces. And

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Speaker 1: AI data warehouses simply don't seem to be doing that.

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Speaker 1: And so we'll dig into that a little bit more.

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Speaker 1: But just as a preface, that's what we're going to

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Speaker 1: be talking about today. That's the general direction of this.

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Speaker 1: And really wrestling with the tech lobby and where we

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Speaker 1: need to go to be thinking about and really deeply

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Speaker 1: considering the sort of regulations that maybe should be put

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Speaker 1: around tech and ultimately the way we respond to it,

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Speaker 1: use it, all those kind of pieces. So I'll leave

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Speaker 1: it there. Ashish, if you want to kind of riff

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Speaker 1: off that, feel free. But otherwise, let's just dive in.

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Speaker 2: I do. I want to riff, but I also want

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Speaker 2: to maybe supplement. There are a lot of issues at

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Speaker 2: stake in this conversation, right? You mentioned some of them,

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Speaker 2: job creation, use of resources, Arguably, even the question of

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Speaker 2: how we understand the world, do we understand it as

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Speaker 2: a set of resources, is a deep theological question that

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Speaker 2: puts something, I think, of a wedge between if we're

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Speaker 2: really thinking through the biblical narrative and theological being and

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Speaker 2: the ways that our current forms of politics, government, social order,

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Speaker 2: think about land resources use. And that's something maybe we

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Speaker 2: can get into as well. Kind of on a meta level,

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Speaker 2: I want to introduce what might seem like an inane topic,

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Speaker 2: but you and I have both heard plenty of times.

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Speaker 2: You know, we've read our Bible, we've heard the pastor preach,

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Speaker 2: we've heard this doctrine, this, that, or the other, and

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Speaker 2: it sounds really important and we accept that, but we

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Speaker 2: don't really get how it matters for everyday life. And

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Speaker 2: I think to some degree what we've done, both in

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Speaker 2: talking to Kevin Flatt and in the ways that we've

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Speaker 2: tried to bring that into a variety of discourses is

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Speaker 2: to show that the ways in which we're approaching the

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Speaker 2: faith are themselves already a bit skewed when we just

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Speaker 2: think in terms of the content of our faith are

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Speaker 2: these dogmatic claims. And don't hear me as saying these

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Speaker 2: dogmatic claims don't matter. They do matter, but they are

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Speaker 2: second order. And what we've said about this before is

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Speaker 2: that Second order is always an attempt to make sense

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Speaker 2: of a way of being, right? To make sense of

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Speaker 2: a biblical narrative, to make sense of theological posturing, to

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Speaker 2: make sense of a way of being. They are not

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Speaker 2: meant to be themselves replacing of those other things. And

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Speaker 2: when we replace them, we get the sort of things

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Speaker 2: that Kevin Flatt talked about, which is an idea of

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Speaker 2: religion as a set of practices and beliefs that often

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Speaker 2: seem set apart from the everyday life. And so the

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Speaker 2: questions make sense. But I think what we're getting in

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Speaker 2: a topic like this is that theological being, biblical being,

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Speaker 2: whatever one wants to call it, is a question of

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Speaker 2: what does it mean to faithfully inhabit the world as

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Speaker 2: the people that God has made to be caretakers of

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Speaker 2: the world, to be part of creation, to be drawing

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Speaker 2: from creation, to have that creation drawn into us, even

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Speaker 2: as we represent in some sense, as image bearers, the

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Speaker 2: presence of God to it, to cultivate it. to bring

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Speaker 2: it into its fullest sense of thriving on its own terms,

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Speaker 2: how does that mandate and that sense of creational being

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Speaker 2: sit alongside the idea of what technology is trying to

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Speaker 2: do and what technology is trying to serve? Something like

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Speaker 2: AI is trying to serve, something that you yourself have

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Speaker 2: hinted at both on the podcast and in your writing

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Speaker 2: of all the ways in which we use AI to

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Speaker 2: create nothing to do, to do utterly nothing other than

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Speaker 2: just to say, we made this silly video, right? Or

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Speaker 2: we made this deep fake of fill in the celebrity, right? Um,

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Speaker 2: there is a wedge here between what we're trying to

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Speaker 2: articulate as a way of being in the world and

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Speaker 2: what these programs are after. And that's going to come

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Speaker 2: to a head then and how we understand all these

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Speaker 2: other issues, right? Like the toll on the environment, um,

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Speaker 2: The use of space, the communities that are most affected

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Speaker 2: by the space, the use of energy, and the powering

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Speaker 2: of these sorts of things. What sorts of goals are

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Speaker 2: we after? And it seems to me that big tech,

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Speaker 2: if we can use that term, or coin that term

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Speaker 2: if it doesn't exist, has particular goals that might not

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Speaker 2: align with what we see as theological or biblical being

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Speaker 2: in the world. So I want to kind of set

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Speaker 2: that up as a supplement to what you're saying. as

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Speaker 2: the ways in which we're trying to approach this topic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really helpful because I would argue

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Speaker 1: that even when the goals of technology are stated, they

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Speaker 1: tend to run afoul with what we normally would think

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Speaker 1: of as a biblical or theological lifestyle. And so let's

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Speaker 1: just take one. Let's say one of the goals that

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Speaker 1: you often hear with any technological tool, any technological system

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Speaker 1: that's put out is it's going to make us more efficient.

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Speaker 1: This is largely an argument of AI. It's going to

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Speaker 1: make us more efficient, going to be able to do

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Speaker 1: things more efficiently. We can do things faster. We can

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Speaker 1: do things with greater ease. Now, all of that doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound that bad, right? Efficiency on its own, applied to

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Speaker 1: specific scenarios that probably any of us could think of

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Speaker 1: in our head we're kind of sitting back going yeah

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Speaker 1: it'd be great if that were more efficient that could

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Speaker 1: be helpful i think the trouble is that as we've

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Speaker 1: made things more efficient we haven't slowed anything else down

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Speaker 1: and so there's a difference between saying uh yeah we

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Speaker 1: can make this more efficient um We were just talking

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Speaker 1: about working out before we got on the podcast. And

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Speaker 1: as I've gotten a little bit older and a little

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Speaker 1: bit wiser, I don't spend three hours a day in

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Speaker 1: the gym. My workouts have gotten more efficient. I've learned

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Speaker 1: what's effective to produce strength, to build muscle, and to

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Speaker 1: get a good workout in. And so I can get

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Speaker 1: in and out of the gym in, let's say, an hour,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to three. I've eliminated a lot of what's

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Speaker 1: usually referred to as junk volume. That's a good sort

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Speaker 1: of efficiency. I'm doing what's effective for me in the

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Speaker 1: moment to accomplish a very particular goal of getting stronger,

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Speaker 1: taking care of my body, being fit. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: spending three hours in the gym doing things that are

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Speaker 1: completely unnecessary to that. That's a good sort of efficiency

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Speaker 1: in my mind. A lot of times what we get

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Speaker 1: in technology, though, is we get the ability to be

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Speaker 1: efficient for 12, 15, 20 hours a day. because part

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Speaker 1: of the efficiency that occurs creates actually more work for us.

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Speaker 1: And so I think we've used this example on the

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Speaker 1: program before, but if we think about, you know, sort

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Speaker 1: of how email or texting has created an ease, a

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Speaker 1: more efficient way for us to communicate, that's true. It's,

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Speaker 1: it's quicker than the snail mail that we used to use. It's,

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Speaker 1: more reliable in some ways than the telephone because we

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Speaker 1: know people are receiving it. You don't have to leave

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Speaker 1: a voicemail or just miss someone altogether because they're not

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Speaker 1: in the same place as a phone. And I'm thinking

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Speaker 1: a physical wall phone like I had in my house, right?

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Speaker 1: When I was growing up as a kid. If I

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Speaker 1: wasn't home, I was missing those calls. And so there's

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Speaker 1: a lapse in communication there. Well, when you text someone,

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Speaker 1: the general understanding is that 100% of those are getting received.

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Speaker 1: And the problem with that is that when we're receiving 100%

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Speaker 1: of the messages that we're being sent, we feel like

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Speaker 1: we need to respond to or read or be on

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Speaker 1: alert for all of those messages. It becomes this sort

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Speaker 1: of social expectation that now we have one other thing

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Speaker 1: in our lives that we have to respond to. It's

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Speaker 1: all these texts. Well, that's not terribly efficient. It just isn't.

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Speaker 1: Because we've gone from maybe somebody thinking twice about a

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Speaker 1: letter that they're going to write and send or a

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Speaker 1: phone call that they're going to make, right? Because they

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Speaker 1: know that they have to put some level of effort

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Speaker 1: in to getting texts from companies, from getting random texts

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Speaker 1: from friends, to getting all of these different sort of

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Speaker 1: communications that because it's easier to send them, we get

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Speaker 1: more of them. And as we get more of them,

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Speaker 1: we either have to begin ignoring them which isn't terribly efficient,

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Speaker 1: or we have to answer all of them, which isn't

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Speaker 1: terribly efficient. And so what we've created in this efficiency, right?

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Speaker 1: And I'm using air quotes for those of you who

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Speaker 1: are just listening. This efficiency is really quite inefficient if

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Speaker 1: you think about it in the right way. And then

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Speaker 1: what that ends up doing as we think of it

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Speaker 1: from a biblical and theological perspective in the ordering of time,

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Speaker 1: We're very much collapsing time in ways that I don't

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Speaker 1: think God ever really intended. For us to have that

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Speaker 1: sort of instantaneous communication with people who are disembodied from us,

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Speaker 1: if you just think about that for a moment, it's

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Speaker 1: not a bad thing that we're able to communicate, but

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Speaker 1: it isn't exactly natural either. And as we let more

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Speaker 1: and more of this communication in, and it isn't just ads,

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Speaker 1: it's everything else. As we let more and more of

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Speaker 1: that communication in, our time becomes something other than our own.

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Speaker 1: It becomes something other than something we could give to God.

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Speaker 1: It becomes much more difficult for us to carve out

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Speaker 1: space to just say, I'm not going to look, I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to read, I'm not going to answer, I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to do anything right now with my time.

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Speaker 1: And if I want that time, I have to do

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Speaker 1: something like put my phone on Do Not Disturb, which

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Speaker 1: I have it on for the podcast. Right. So we

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Speaker 1: can have a good interaction and I'm not seeing messages

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Speaker 1: pop up all over the place. Point is that what's

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Speaker 1: promised is efficiency isn't always efficiency. It's almost always a

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Speaker 1: you can do now more work over a longer period

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Speaker 1: of time. And that expectation will build and build and

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Speaker 1: build until you break. And I think we have to

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Speaker 1: be cautious about that sort of, quote unquote, benefit or

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Speaker 1: efficiency of technology because it isn't really benefiting us as humans.

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Speaker 2: This is good. A lot of different angles to take

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Speaker 2: from that. So maybe I'll just bullet point them and

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Speaker 2: see which ones stick, which ones we want to work through.

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Speaker 2: I appreciate the use of the conversation on efficiency because

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Speaker 2: I think that it signals a bit of a tension point, right?

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Speaker 2: On one level, what's efficient for one person seems like

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Speaker 2: it may not be efficient for someone else, right? It's

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Speaker 2: efficient for me to send you the text message, and

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Speaker 2: it's efficient for 100 people to send you the text message,

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Speaker 2: and there you are with 100 text messages or the email, right?

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Speaker 2: I think about before that with the email, studies showed

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Speaker 2: that whereas conventional logic might have thought that emails, because

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Speaker 2: they're not using paper, reduced the need for paper, it

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Speaker 2: turns out it actually increased the use of paper because

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Speaker 2: now you send that mass email to everyone in the

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Speaker 2: office and you call them to a meeting and everyone

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Speaker 2: then prints it.

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Speaker 1: Out, right?

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Speaker 2: Whereas previously, perhaps they would have just gone and just

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Speaker 2: presented points, right? So even the efficiency of an email

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Speaker 2: created the inefficiency of the use of resources. Or we

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Speaker 2: could speak the same about the text message, right? The

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Speaker 2: fact that I can get it on my phone might

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Speaker 2: mean that I have fewer things to print out now.

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Speaker 2: But that also means that I'm more frequently charging my

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Speaker 2: phone and then charging my computer. And then everyone else

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Speaker 2: in my household is charging their stuff as well, right?

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Speaker 2: And so perhaps we're actually drawn greater upon energy resources

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Speaker 2: than before. So the efficiency thing is a bit... It

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Speaker 2: hits at one of the key issues, right? That what's

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Speaker 2: efficient for one may not be efficient for others. But

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Speaker 2: I think on top of that, I also want to

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Speaker 2: use efficient in scare quotes. Because what we think of

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Speaker 2: as efficient may in fact not be what's best for us. Right?

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Speaker 2: To do something efficiently, in one sense, might reduce the

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Speaker 2: reality of the building of character, let's say, or the

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Speaker 2: patience that's required to do something the long way. I

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Speaker 2: think about my middle schooler and the use of the calculator.

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Speaker 2: Of course, when he's my age, I don't expect him

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Speaker 2: to sit down with a piece of paper and do

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Speaker 2: long-form math on everything that he needs to do. But

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Speaker 2: might there be a benefit to his development right now

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Speaker 2: to minimize the use of the calculator? There might be

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Speaker 2: times that he needs it. There are times that he

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Speaker 2: needs it. But to truly understand it, to understand the math,

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Speaker 2: for instance, he has to do the work and go

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Speaker 2: through the process. And in that process, he might actually

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Speaker 2: learn that he's stretching his mind in ways that develop

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Speaker 2: it for ways that when he gets to other disciplines,

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Speaker 2: whether it be math or something else, he's built these

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Speaker 2: habits of mind into him. Or we think about the

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Speaker 2: efficiencies of the use of land, right? What might be

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Speaker 2: an efficient use of water by building a dam in

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Speaker 2: order to create electricity out of it also might be

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Speaker 2: deeply harmful to the other creatures of the earth that

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Speaker 2: depended upon water flowing in certain kinds of ways, right?

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Speaker 2: It might actually be ecologically devastating, those sorts of things.

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Speaker 2: And so the question of efficiency, not only is it relative,

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Speaker 2: it also sometimes goes against what might be actually best

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Speaker 2: for us right and i think that's a theological concern

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Speaker 2: that has to be built into this as well right

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Speaker 2: so so we think about ai and data centers ai

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Speaker 2: does help us do some things really fast perhaps it

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Speaker 2: helps us write a report faster but does it do

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Speaker 2: we lose something in the process the ability to actually

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Speaker 2: write reports or the process of learning that comes into

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Speaker 2: it when we're writing the report in which it's not

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Speaker 2: just the finished good but it's It's every step along

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Speaker 2: the way that's shaping us and building us. I've mentioned

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Speaker 2: this before on the podcast. I've long had in my

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Speaker 2: mind the great coach of the Chicago Bulls, Phil Jackson,

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Speaker 2: would always teach his teams that, of course, we have

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Speaker 2: a goal, and that goal is to win a championship.

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Speaker 2: And he did it at a higher clip than any

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Speaker 2: coach in NBA history, having won 11 as a coach.

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Speaker 2: But what really set him apart was the steps that

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Speaker 2: we go through It's a thousand mile journey, and it's

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Speaker 2: one step at a time. And he wanted to emphasize

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Speaker 2: that one step at a time. And one of the

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Speaker 2: ways that paid off for him that I thought was

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Speaker 2: really significant, and I don't see teams doing it very

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Speaker 2: often now, and I think it's to their detriment, is

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Speaker 2: often in late game situations, when everyone else calls for

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Speaker 2: a timeout to draw up a play, Phil would say, no,

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Speaker 2: we're not calling a timeout. Because if I call a timeout,

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Speaker 2: the other team gets to set up a defense. I

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Speaker 2: have to trust that the steps that we've taken along

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Speaker 2: the way mean that my team knows what to do

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Speaker 2: in this moment. And they've built those habits of practice

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Speaker 2: within them that they can take the next step. And,

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Speaker 2: you know, of course, they had his early team said

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Speaker 2: Michael Jordan, his later teams said Kobe and Shaq. Like,

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Speaker 2: let's put that into perspective. But there was a remarkable

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Speaker 2: success of that, right? And I think there was something

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Speaker 2: to his philosophy that's instructive here, that efficiency is might

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Speaker 2: actually undermine a larger goal, which is to build character, right?

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Speaker 2: To build a fruit of the spirit, which is ultimately

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Speaker 2: what theological being is gearing us towards, to be certain

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Speaker 2: kinds of people. Does this make sense?

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Speaker 1: It does. I think I'm going to get this gentleman's

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Speaker 1: name wrong. I was struggling to remember what it was,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's Pincus wrote an article in the

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Speaker 1: 1960s or 70s He was an economist and he talks

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Speaker 1: about the tyranny of small decisions. And I think this

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Speaker 1: is part of what we're struggling with when we're executing

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Speaker 1: on some of these technologies. Now, Phil Jackson, the way

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Speaker 1: you described him, he's got a bigger vision in mind

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Speaker 1: and he's going to architect back to the small decisions.

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Speaker 1: Those every that very next step, right? Every step matters

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Speaker 1: in this thousand step journey. He's architecting backwards. He knows

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Speaker 1: where he wants to get to. He has a clear

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Speaker 1: vision of what he needs to do. And so now

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Speaker 1: he can sort of manufacture all of those steps along

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Speaker 1: the way to prepare his team to do what they

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Speaker 1: want to do. By contrast, what we often do is

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Speaker 1: we're presented with some new technology, some new ideology, some

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Speaker 1: new whatever it is. And we're given a choice. Do

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Speaker 1: you want it or do you not want it? Would

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Speaker 1: you like to use email?

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: Seems easy. Right. Would you like to use social media? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that sounds great. Who wouldn't want to keep in touch

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Speaker 1: with their high school friends that they didn't really like

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Speaker 1: even when they were in high school? That sounds amazing. Right. Amazing. Right.

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Speaker 1: And so we pick these things up. And we just

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Speaker 1: start doing them. And we don't give any real thought

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Speaker 1: to where they're taking us. And so in this example,

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Speaker 1: we don't have a true end, a true telos that

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Speaker 1: we're aiming for. What we're doing is we're picking this

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Speaker 1: thing up and we're saying, yeah, I'd like to do that. Now,

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Speaker 1: what he describes in his article on these tyranny of

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Speaker 1: small decisions, he says, let's say an alien race comes

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Speaker 1: down and they present you with a car. And they say,

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Speaker 1: if you move away from your horse and buggy, we'll

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Speaker 1: give you these cars. And everybody said, you know, they'll

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Speaker 1: be able to get you to where you're going faster.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can take more people with you. They

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Speaker 1: don't need to be, you know, fed. They don't get tired,

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Speaker 1: you know, whatever it is, right? All of these benefits

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Speaker 1: of cars. And he says, most of us, and we

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Speaker 1: have as a society, we bought into cars. Yes, cars

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Speaker 1: sound great. They have these huge benefits and it's amazing. Now,

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Speaker 1: the way he phrases it, he's like, now let's say

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Speaker 1: that same Maryland race came down and said, in addition

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Speaker 1: to that, you're going to ruin your planet through carbon emissions. And,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're going to have less time together with

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Speaker 1: your family. You're going to have less community because you're

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Speaker 1: commuting and stuck in traffic jams constantly. You know, you're

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Speaker 1: going to have smog in L.A. You know, all these

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Speaker 1: negative benefits. Would we have thought twice about it? And

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Speaker 1: that's sort of his notion of these tyranny of small decisions.

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Speaker 1: We're all making these small independent decisions about what we're

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Speaker 1: going to use without any context of a future negative

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Speaker 1: state where we sit back and say, oh, there was

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Speaker 1: a real downside to picking these things up, right? There

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Speaker 1: are downsides to cars. There are downsides to email. There

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Speaker 1: are downsides to AI. But if we're not clear on

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Speaker 1: where we're going, We can't gauge whether we're willing to

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Speaker 1: live with those downsides or whether we want to set

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Speaker 1: aside the technology and say, no, we don't really want

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Speaker 1: that world. That's not where we're headed. And so this analogy,

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Speaker 1: I think, that you've used with the Bulls and Phil

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Speaker 1: Jackson and all that, it's like because he knew where

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Speaker 1: he was going, he can understand the steps that it

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Speaker 1: would take to get there and then coach his team

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Speaker 1: toward that end. What we have is we have no

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Speaker 1: discernible telos other than some sort of amorphous, it'll make

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Speaker 1: life better. And then we're presented with tools that really

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Speaker 1: do have clear benefits in the near term at the

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Speaker 1: very least. But we have no idea where they're actually

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Speaker 1: leading us. And without that final telos, that goal, that

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Speaker 1: vision of what the future is going to be It's

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Speaker 1: very difficult for us to assess whether any given technology

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Speaker 1: is actually going to help us get there or whether

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Speaker 1: the downsides of that technology are ultimately going to hinder

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Speaker 1: us from getting there. Now, for Christians, we have sort

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Speaker 1: of that entelos. We just need to understand it. We

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Speaker 1: have a theological anthropology. We have an eschatology. We have

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Speaker 1: all these things. We understand where we're going and what

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Speaker 1: our aim is. Our aim is to pattern our lives

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Speaker 1: after Christ, to conform to his image. And so we

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Speaker 1: can ask ourselves, how are these technologies actually helping us

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Speaker 1: do some of that? Are they really helping me order time?

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Speaker 1: Are they really helping me order space? Are they really

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Speaker 1: helping me align and be that sort of, to gesture

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Speaker 1: back to Kevin Flatt's conversation in the sacred social order,

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Speaker 1: is my social order reflecting God's sacred order or is

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Speaker 1: it doing something else? We have the understanding of where

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Speaker 1: we're going that would allow us to ask those questions.

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Speaker 1: I'm just not always sure we always do. And I

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Speaker 1: would just throw in there that it's very difficult to

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Speaker 1: avoid all of the inconspicuous patterns that technology tends to

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Speaker 1: build into our lives. It's very difficult to avoid them.

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Speaker 1: And that's why I think the data centers are so

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Speaker 1: interesting because the data centers are not inconspicuous. They're an intrusion,

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Speaker 1: a big intrusion. They're noticeable. I mean, these are huge

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Speaker 1: multi-acre sites, right? They have to be built. They're physical.

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Speaker 1: They're staring you in the face if you have one

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Speaker 1: in your community. But I don't think data centers are

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Speaker 1: the only problem. They're an intrusive aspect of a bigger

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Speaker 1: problem that should prompt us to ask questions about six

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Speaker 1: or seven or eight or nine or 10 steps back

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Speaker 1: and say, If I don't want the data center, what

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Speaker 1: am I willing to give up not to have it?

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Speaker 1: This intrusive thing that I don't want, and intuitively I

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Speaker 1: know it's not good for my community, am I willing

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Speaker 1: to surrender Claude? Am I really willing to get rid

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Speaker 1: of a lot of these AI tools that are coming out?

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Speaker 1: What am I willing to get rid of so that

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Speaker 1: I don't even have to have the conversation about this

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Speaker 1: because this is not where I want the world to head?

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Speaker 1: And I think that it's the intrusive aspect of these

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Speaker 1: that's really crucial to grasp because everything else about these

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Speaker 1: technologies or most everything else about these technologies is very inconspicuous.

431
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,500
Speaker 1: It trains us in ways that we don't really notice

432
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:26,180
Speaker 1: most of the time.

433
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:33,220
Speaker 2: This is key. We got here from several steps before, right?

434
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:36,250
Speaker 2: We didn't just suddenly plop into this moment. it's a

435
00:26:36,290 --> 00:26:38,189
Speaker 2: bit of a natural progression, not in the sense that

436
00:26:38,230 --> 00:26:40,730
Speaker 2: we had to end up here, but it's not as

437
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:44,179
Speaker 2: if there aren't already data centers that existed, right? They

438
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:48,500
Speaker 2: existed before that for the cloud. We use Dropbox. We

439
00:26:48,580 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 2: use Box. We use Microsoft Drive, Amazon's version, whatever they

440
00:26:52,900 --> 00:26:56,740
Speaker 2: call it, Google Drive. I guess Microsoft's is OneDrive, whatever

441
00:26:56,770 --> 00:27:00,969
Speaker 2: it is. They all require these data centers, but they

442
00:27:00,990 --> 00:27:03,850
Speaker 2: could be more conspicuous. But now with the proliferation of AI,

443
00:27:06,020 --> 00:27:12,290
Speaker 2: They can't be hidden so much. And they very much

444
00:27:12,430 --> 00:27:18,030
Speaker 2: do connect to the issues of the physical that it

445
00:27:18,130 --> 00:27:21,350
Speaker 2: seems like that they've transcended above. They do not exist

446
00:27:21,410 --> 00:27:24,350
Speaker 2: without the physical, and that's the physicality of the places

447
00:27:25,210 --> 00:27:27,470
Speaker 2: in which you build them, the resources that they use,

448
00:27:27,510 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 2: the clean water that's being used to cool them. All

449
00:27:31,130 --> 00:27:35,159
Speaker 2: of these things matter. But to your point, it's the questions.

450
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,070
Speaker 2: and the issues that came before them. So even if

451
00:27:38,190 --> 00:27:40,570
Speaker 2: we don't have a telos for what these things are,

452
00:27:40,609 --> 00:27:44,090
Speaker 2: they're given to us, we have been inscribed by our

453
00:27:44,190 --> 00:27:48,710
Speaker 2: very enculturation into a way of life in which someone

454
00:27:48,750 --> 00:27:51,149
Speaker 2: else's telos has been put upon us, right? Fill in

455
00:27:51,170 --> 00:27:53,750
Speaker 2: the name of whoever that is. The people that control

456
00:27:53,790 --> 00:27:55,609
Speaker 2: these things do have a telos. They do have a

457
00:27:55,690 --> 00:27:59,940
Speaker 2: goal that they're working towards. And that goal, there's a

458
00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:03,060
Speaker 2: variety of things. Some of it is influence, right? You

459
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:07,930
Speaker 2: think about Just after 9-11, the way that Elon Musk

460
00:28:08,070 --> 00:28:11,949
Speaker 2: used the event and the legal system to ensure that

461
00:28:12,070 --> 00:28:15,189
Speaker 2: he would be forced into a contract with the government

462
00:28:15,290 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 2: for his Starlink process, he had a goal, and that

463
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:24,060
Speaker 2: goal was to nestle himself into a place of influence

464
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 2: and a sense of dependency upon him. That's where he

465
00:28:26,820 --> 00:28:30,369
Speaker 2: knew his wealth would come from. His concern was less

466
00:28:30,460 --> 00:28:34,719
Speaker 2: about the companies that were being displaced. and I don't

467
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:37,370
Speaker 2: have a lot of sympathy necessarily for the companies being displaced,

468
00:28:38,030 --> 00:28:43,910
Speaker 2: but his interests were also less with what this might

469
00:28:43,970 --> 00:28:50,250
Speaker 2: enable in terms of creation of jobs long-term. It was

470
00:28:50,510 --> 00:28:54,180
Speaker 2: his own influence. And that's what animated him, and that's

471
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 2: what animates a lot of these tech companies. How do

472
00:28:57,380 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 2: we sell this particular way of life in order to

473
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,780
Speaker 2: trade for influence? And that influence comes in the form

474
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:11,060
Speaker 2: of capital, comes in the form of proximity to those

475
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,180
Speaker 2: who are policymakers. It comes in the form of the

476
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,830
Speaker 2: ability to ultimately be able to dictate a way of

477
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:23,410
Speaker 2: life that should be concerning to everybody, right? Not just

478
00:29:24,130 --> 00:29:26,770
Speaker 2: people of the Christian faith, but also to those of

479
00:29:26,790 --> 00:29:33,100
Speaker 2: the Christian faith, because it requires a series of micro-compromises, right?

480
00:29:33,650 --> 00:29:35,430
Speaker 2: So on one side, we want to talk about the

481
00:29:35,470 --> 00:29:39,690
Speaker 2: importance of recognizing the moment that we're in. That does matter.

482
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:45,940
Speaker 2: We can't affect something that's outside the moment we're in.

483
00:29:47,660 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 2: It's not within the majority of our capacities to be

484
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,470
Speaker 2: able to say, I think the right way of being

485
00:29:54,730 --> 00:29:57,730
Speaker 2: is fill in the blank, and I'm going to make

486
00:29:57,770 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 2: it happen. I can only make decisions within the moment

487
00:30:00,390 --> 00:30:04,979
Speaker 2: I'm in. But how do we get to these radical moments?

488
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 2: It has to be a series of micro-compromises, right? Well,

489
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,820
Speaker 2: you know, that one thing is okay. I think about

490
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 2: this in the world of computing. I'm sitting in front

491
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:20,340
Speaker 2: of you with my phone with its steady-state hard drive

492
00:30:20,580 --> 00:30:22,959
Speaker 2: and its sealed compartment so that you can't change the battery,

493
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:28,770
Speaker 2: and my Microsoft Surface device with its steady-state hard drive

494
00:30:29,610 --> 00:30:32,130
Speaker 2: and its battery that I can't access, and its hard

495
00:30:32,170 --> 00:30:34,630
Speaker 2: drive that I can access nothing inside of. It is

496
00:30:34,670 --> 00:30:38,540
Speaker 2: a sealed device. I take that back to the days

497
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:41,620
Speaker 2: in which I was in the computer world, in which

498
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 2: one of the coolest things for me was to buy

499
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 2: these shells so that I could build a computer. Now,

500
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,940
Speaker 2: that's definitely a nerd moment. But one of the great

501
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 2: advantages of it was that the video card is no

502
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 2: longer sufficient. My motherboard can support something better. I pull

503
00:30:58,420 --> 00:31:00,460
Speaker 2: out the video card, I go down to the electronics shop,

504
00:31:00,660 --> 00:31:02,270
Speaker 2: and I buy a new video card and I put

505
00:31:02,310 --> 00:31:04,970
Speaker 2: it in. The degree of waste that's in there is

506
00:31:05,070 --> 00:31:08,630
Speaker 2: pretty minimal, right? And those cards could then be recycled

507
00:31:08,690 --> 00:31:13,670
Speaker 2: in some sense, right, to these companies. When my Surface

508
00:31:13,730 --> 00:31:18,370
Speaker 2: is done, it is done. I cannot open it and

509
00:31:18,410 --> 00:31:20,410
Speaker 2: still have it to be a functioning device. I cannot

510
00:31:20,450 --> 00:31:22,430
Speaker 2: go down to the store and find the products to

511
00:31:22,450 --> 00:31:25,719
Speaker 2: be able to hot swap things in and out. When

512
00:31:25,740 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 2: it's done, it's done. And I'm on, I think, my

513
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: fourth Surface device. If I'm counting correctly, I like the device.

514
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:33,500
Speaker 2: But I can't upgrade it. I just have to be

515
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:38,390
Speaker 2: done with it and move on, right? Why is that significant? Well,

516
00:31:38,410 --> 00:31:41,050
Speaker 2: it puts me in a position now where I've had

517
00:31:41,090 --> 00:31:45,410
Speaker 2: to make a series of compromises where the tech companies

518
00:31:46,190 --> 00:31:49,230
Speaker 2: made their wager that people will take the cool-looking factor

519
00:31:49,250 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 2: of these sealed devices and they could sell cool And

520
00:31:53,820 --> 00:31:55,820
Speaker 2: we could get away from the model that made them

521
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 2: less money, which was me going to the store and

522
00:31:58,740 --> 00:32:02,300
Speaker 2: just buying a new graphic card. Or buying a new

523
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 2: hard drive. And they were right. They wagered correctly. And

524
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:07,239
Speaker 2: now we're in a position where I actually don't have

525
00:32:07,380 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 2: much of a choice unless I go and I build

526
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 2: my own clunky machine that's just not portable. I can't

527
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,350
Speaker 2: take it anywhere. The advantage of this device is I

528
00:32:14,380 --> 00:32:19,850
Speaker 2: can take it wherever I go. Small thing, but a

529
00:32:19,870 --> 00:32:22,270
Speaker 2: big thing, right? Because it represents the larger landscape that

530
00:32:22,310 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 2: gets us to the present. in which we didn't just

531
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 2: plop here with data centers, a bunch of micro moves.

532
00:32:29,740 --> 00:32:32,250
Speaker 2: And those micro moves are things that we have to

533
00:32:32,290 --> 00:32:35,350
Speaker 2: have a certain sense of culpability for. But it also

534
00:32:35,370 --> 00:32:37,490
Speaker 2: means we have to at some point be willing to say,

535
00:32:38,510 --> 00:32:43,580
Speaker 2: let's thickly examine what's really at stake here. Thoughts on that?

536
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean, I think that, you know, the

537
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,660
Speaker 1: example of the computers, I was never much of a

538
00:32:50,740 --> 00:32:54,710
Speaker 1: tech guy, but I can remember buying additional hard drive

539
00:32:54,730 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: space from my computer and installing it myself on a laptop.

540
00:32:59,860 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I can remember doing it and you can't

541
00:33:03,220 --> 00:33:05,780
Speaker 1: really do it anymore. And it's just a great example

542
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:08,020
Speaker 1: of the way that we tend to get a little

543
00:33:08,060 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: bit squeezed in, right? If you think about right now,

544
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,050
Speaker 1: and I actually think McLuhan has these four laws and

545
00:33:16,070 --> 00:33:17,530
Speaker 1: I won't go through all of them, but one of

546
00:33:17,590 --> 00:33:20,610
Speaker 1: them talks about sort of a, almost like a recursive

547
00:33:20,710 --> 00:33:26,570
Speaker 1: moment where, um, Technology is going to make certain things obsolete,

548
00:33:27,690 --> 00:33:31,350
Speaker 1: but then there's a tendency for it to bring back

549
00:33:31,490 --> 00:33:35,630
Speaker 1: things that had been made obsolete previously or bring back

550
00:33:35,710 --> 00:33:39,690
Speaker 1: things that were around previously. And my tendency is to

551
00:33:39,730 --> 00:33:42,590
Speaker 1: think that we're going to come into these recursive moments,

552
00:33:44,020 --> 00:33:46,740
Speaker 1: that we may not ever go back to writing letters

553
00:33:47,620 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: as our main source of communication. but I also don't

554
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:58,220
Speaker 1: think that we're going to be driving into this completely

555
00:33:58,420 --> 00:34:03,010
Speaker 1: digital VR type world where, you know, you see in

556
00:34:03,070 --> 00:34:05,470
Speaker 1: things like the books, uh, ready player one and ready

557
00:34:05,510 --> 00:34:09,410
Speaker 1: player two, like a totally virtual environment or something like

558
00:34:09,450 --> 00:34:12,890
Speaker 1: the matrix where you're plugging in and you're interacting in

559
00:34:12,950 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: this totally virtual world, the metaverse that.

560
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:17,940
Speaker 2: Um, we don't know it.

561
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:20,610
Speaker 1: Yeah. Unless we're already in it. We don't know it. Um,

562
00:34:21,500 --> 00:34:23,820
Speaker 1: The metaverse that was proposed a few years ago, I

563
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,420
Speaker 1: just don't know that I see that coming to fruition.

564
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 1: I think that is a radical step that probably won't

565
00:34:30,860 --> 00:34:34,589
Speaker 1: be taken. But I also, and so I say that

566
00:34:34,630 --> 00:34:37,850
Speaker 1: to say this, I think there is some hope that

567
00:34:37,890 --> 00:34:42,830
Speaker 1: we're seeing Generation Z sort of returning to the movie

568
00:34:42,850 --> 00:34:46,380
Speaker 1: theaters as opposed to watching things just on their phones.

569
00:34:47,180 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: But you have to be careful because it's not just

570
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:53,850
Speaker 1: on their phone. I think what we're going to move

571
00:34:54,469 --> 00:34:58,870
Speaker 1: toward is a more hybrid future. And there's something in

572
00:34:58,950 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: that that is helpful because it shows us that we're

573
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: not caught 100% in this loop that you're describing. Yes,

574
00:35:09,020 --> 00:35:11,910
Speaker 1: I probably can't go and build my own laptop. That

575
00:35:11,950 --> 00:35:13,970
Speaker 1: is not something that I'm going to take the time

576
00:35:14,030 --> 00:35:16,290
Speaker 1: to do, nor is it something that I feel like

577
00:35:16,330 --> 00:35:19,850
Speaker 1: I have the technical ability to do. And if I

578
00:35:19,930 --> 00:35:21,950
Speaker 1: were to be able to do it, the way I

579
00:35:22,010 --> 00:35:23,390
Speaker 1: would be able to do it is I would go

580
00:35:23,489 --> 00:35:27,009
Speaker 1: on YouTube and watch a YouTube video and construct my

581
00:35:27,050 --> 00:35:30,589
Speaker 1: own laptop, which sort of defeats the point. You don't

582
00:35:30,660 --> 00:35:35,270
Speaker 1: exactly escape the loop at that moment. But I do

583
00:35:35,330 --> 00:35:37,710
Speaker 1: think that what these little sort of, like I said,

584
00:35:37,730 --> 00:35:41,090
Speaker 1: you know, Gen Z returning to the movies, right? This

585
00:35:41,190 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: sort of renaissance of vinyl, right? Albums and the coming

586
00:35:48,890 --> 00:35:51,009
Speaker 1: back of some of these, what we would consider to

587
00:35:51,050 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: be like vintage or analog sort of activities. I think

588
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: it's a really crucial sign that we don't want to lose, right?

589
00:35:59,460 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: We're not all just moving like zombies inexorably toward a

590
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:09,690
Speaker 1: digital future. We are starting to step back and say, no,

591
00:36:09,910 --> 00:36:14,989
Speaker 1: I don't want this digital. I want this analog. I

592
00:36:15,030 --> 00:36:19,390
Speaker 1: want this physical. I want it different than you're giving

593
00:36:19,430 --> 00:36:22,030
Speaker 1: it to me. I think we saw a similar dynamic

594
00:36:22,050 --> 00:36:24,710
Speaker 1: with eBooks and print books. Print books should be dead

595
00:36:24,750 --> 00:36:28,819
Speaker 1: by now. They're not. People still like print books. And

596
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,489
Speaker 1: so as much as we talk about, yes, I agree

597
00:36:31,530 --> 00:36:33,609
Speaker 1: with what you're saying. And like I said, I think

598
00:36:33,630 --> 00:36:36,270
Speaker 1: you have all these different inconspicuous patterns that are sort

599
00:36:36,350 --> 00:36:39,390
Speaker 1: of built in that are very difficult to avoid. It

600
00:36:39,469 --> 00:36:43,180
Speaker 1: isn't impossible for us to avoid all of them. And

601
00:36:43,260 --> 00:36:46,940
Speaker 1: I think that AI is probably the most inconspicuous of

602
00:36:47,100 --> 00:36:53,170
Speaker 1: all of these. It's easy to think that. especially with

603
00:36:53,190 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: the way AI interacts, that it's giving you good information,

604
00:36:57,090 --> 00:36:58,859
Speaker 1: that when you pull up a Google search and you

605
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: just hit AI mode, it's giving you the right information.

606
00:37:01,580 --> 00:37:04,580
Speaker 1: It's pulling from all the websites that you could possibly visit,

607
00:37:04,620 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: and it's giving you the best possible information. It's easy

608
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: to believe that. I'm not sure it's true, but it's

609
00:37:11,300 --> 00:37:12,020
Speaker 1: easy to believe.

610
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,839
Speaker 2: It's definitely not true, but it's right.

611
00:37:15,900 --> 00:37:18,779
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, we can subvert that by just saying, no,

612
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,930
Speaker 1: I'm not going to use that AI mode. Or I'm

613
00:37:21,989 --> 00:37:24,930
Speaker 1: only going to use that AI mode for what's the

614
00:37:24,969 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: best restaurant in my area sort of queries, not deeper research,

615
00:37:30,020 --> 00:37:33,150
Speaker 1: certainly not biblical and theological information. Just don't use it.

616
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 1: And I think there are those little ways that we

617
00:37:37,060 --> 00:37:39,610
Speaker 1: can sort of step back from all of this and

618
00:37:39,620 --> 00:37:42,690
Speaker 1: start saying, I'm going to force myself back into what

619
00:37:42,730 --> 00:37:46,370
Speaker 1: would be considered an inefficient approach. I'm going to take

620
00:37:46,530 --> 00:37:51,339
Speaker 1: different steps because I'm heading toward a different goal. And

621
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,580
Speaker 1: now I'm breaking out of these inconspicuous patterns where I'm

622
00:37:55,660 --> 00:38:00,450
Speaker 1: capable of doing so. And then accepting, to your point,

623
00:38:00,850 --> 00:38:04,170
Speaker 1: there are going to be those moments where I'm not

624
00:38:04,250 --> 00:38:06,610
Speaker 1: even sure you can buy a flip phone anymore.

625
00:38:07,710 --> 00:38:08,590
Speaker 2: You can't actually.

626
00:38:08,790 --> 00:38:10,489
Speaker 1: Can you? Okay, there you go.

627
00:38:10,570 --> 00:38:14,140
Speaker 2: To your point about vintage, they've come back because... Parents

628
00:38:14,180 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 2: don't want their kids to have the smartphones.

629
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: Parents don't want their kids to have the smartphones. And so,

630
00:38:18,620 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great thing. Like, get a flip

631
00:38:22,900 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: phone instead of a smartphone. I don't know how I'll

632
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: find my way places. I'll have to buy maps too

633
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,380
Speaker 1: and just be lost most of the time. But it

634
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,780
Speaker 1: is what it is, right? Like, now there are starting

635
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:34,259
Speaker 1: to be these ways we can step out of it.

636
00:38:34,300 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: But there will always be, I think, ways that we're

637
00:38:38,219 --> 00:38:41,390
Speaker 1: going to get squeezed into that sort of bubble where

638
00:38:41,410 --> 00:38:44,500
Speaker 1: it's like, this is just part of our time. And

639
00:38:44,540 --> 00:38:48,020
Speaker 1: there really isn't another way to live, quote unquote, off

640
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,980
Speaker 1: the grid in this moment. To do so is to

641
00:38:52,060 --> 00:38:55,110
Speaker 1: give up an awful lot of other things that most people,

642
00:38:55,170 --> 00:38:57,090
Speaker 1: myself included, would not be willing to give up.

643
00:38:58,770 --> 00:39:02,009
Speaker 2: This is good because I think it could be easy

644
00:39:02,050 --> 00:39:04,650
Speaker 2: to be lost in the criticism. And I've offered a

645
00:39:04,670 --> 00:39:07,340
Speaker 2: lot of criticism. And I think what you're showing us

646
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 2: is that the payoff is the small compromises don't have

647
00:39:11,260 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 2: to be the small compromises. It might be inefficient. But

648
00:39:17,260 --> 00:39:21,580
Speaker 2: maybe there's something built out of the inefficiency that's better, right?

649
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:25,410
Speaker 2: So I can't turn off AI mode on my search engines.

650
00:39:28,570 --> 00:39:31,180
Speaker 2: The makers of them have not allowed us to. They

651
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:33,140
Speaker 2: used to, and then they've gotten rid of that. But

652
00:39:33,180 --> 00:39:35,500
Speaker 2: what I can do is instead of going and being

653
00:39:35,540 --> 00:39:38,500
Speaker 2: satisfied with the AI overview that they give you and

654
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 2: then clicking the see more button, go to the webpage.

655
00:39:42,020 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 2: The webpage is actually what they're taking these materials from,

656
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:47,569
Speaker 2: and the organizers of those webpages are the ones who

657
00:39:47,590 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 2: are actually losing when we just allow AI to aggregate

658
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:57,100
Speaker 2: their information. Inefficient. But what we might learn is that

659
00:39:57,140 --> 00:39:59,580
Speaker 2: the aggregation left stuff out, because you have to leave

660
00:39:59,620 --> 00:40:05,230
Speaker 2: things out when you aggregate, right? Or even better, if

661
00:40:05,250 --> 00:40:07,310
Speaker 2: you want that recipe, go to the library, pick up

662
00:40:07,590 --> 00:40:12,089
Speaker 2: the recipe book, or go to your parent or your

663
00:40:12,130 --> 00:40:15,740
Speaker 2: friend or to your neighbor and say, hey, I know

664
00:40:15,780 --> 00:40:17,900
Speaker 2: I could get this online, but I really like how

665
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,490
Speaker 2: you make that. You want to walk me through this

666
00:40:20,570 --> 00:40:22,589
Speaker 2: or you want to give me a recipe, right? Those

667
00:40:22,630 --> 00:40:24,989
Speaker 2: sorts of things. If it's the map, yes, it'll be

668
00:40:25,030 --> 00:40:29,350
Speaker 2: inefficient to get lost. I don't know about you. I

669
00:40:29,390 --> 00:40:31,830
Speaker 2: try not to use the maps function just simply because

670
00:40:32,430 --> 00:40:35,030
Speaker 2: historically I learn a place better when I get lost,

671
00:40:35,370 --> 00:40:40,070
Speaker 2: which is very inefficient. But when you learn a place better,

672
00:40:40,210 --> 00:40:44,069
Speaker 2: the ability to navigate and the ability to understand where

673
00:40:44,110 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 2: you are is so much more fulfilling, just to be blunt, right?

674
00:40:48,580 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 2: So there's little things like that that are training us.

675
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:56,339
Speaker 2: If you're doing research, do real research. Don't be satisfied

676
00:40:56,420 --> 00:40:59,439
Speaker 2: with what AI is giving you. AI is aggregating again,

677
00:40:59,540 --> 00:41:00,779
Speaker 2: and then you have to ask the question of what

678
00:41:00,820 --> 00:41:02,700
Speaker 2: is it aggregating? Why is it aggregating the way that

679
00:41:02,739 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 2: it's aggregating? Why are some sources valued and others not?

680
00:41:09,570 --> 00:41:14,870
Speaker 2: Those are complicated questions to answer. Go find out for yourself.

681
00:41:15,890 --> 00:41:18,430
Speaker 2: What's going on in these particular sources? What's being done?

682
00:41:18,550 --> 00:41:21,710
Speaker 2: What is the aggregation? And I'll even say just anecdotally

683
00:41:21,750 --> 00:41:25,049
Speaker 2: that I've had plenty of conversations where we've allowed just

684
00:41:25,110 --> 00:41:30,609
Speaker 2: as a test for Zoom's function or Google's functions to say,

685
00:41:30,670 --> 00:41:34,750
Speaker 2: let AI take notes for you. And there's just enough

686
00:41:34,810 --> 00:41:37,169
Speaker 2: right there that if you're not paying attention, you could say, wow,

687
00:41:37,190 --> 00:41:40,130
Speaker 2: it took great notes. But it's actually quite bad. It

688
00:41:40,190 --> 00:41:46,420
Speaker 2: misses antecedents that change dynamics altogether. Don't trust it. That

689
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's not useful again. But there are bigger

690
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,700
Speaker 2: things at play here than just simply buying into the system.

691
00:41:53,460 --> 00:41:55,580
Speaker 2: And it's those little compromises again that puts us in

692
00:41:55,620 --> 00:41:57,780
Speaker 2: the situation now where we have to ask the question,

693
00:41:59,060 --> 00:42:01,299
Speaker 2: can they build this data center here? Well, the answer

694
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:04,020
Speaker 2: is yes, they will build the data center. Even if

695
00:42:04,060 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 2: we fight it being built at point X, it'll be

696
00:42:05,980 --> 00:42:08,620
Speaker 2: built at point Y because we've made the small compromises

697
00:42:08,660 --> 00:42:12,779
Speaker 2: and allowed that way of life to really undermine our

698
00:42:12,820 --> 00:42:15,989
Speaker 2: ability to navigate the world in other ways, ways that

699
00:42:16,030 --> 00:42:19,380
Speaker 2: are considerate ecologically, ways that are considerate of our neighbors

700
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:22,109
Speaker 2: who have to deal with all the realities that go

701
00:42:22,140 --> 00:42:25,590
Speaker 2: with these data centers, ways that are inconsiderate to maybe

702
00:42:25,610 --> 00:42:30,490
Speaker 2: even my own children's future and finding jobs, and ultimately

703
00:42:30,590 --> 00:42:33,590
Speaker 2: ceding them to the few that have the most to

704
00:42:33,630 --> 00:42:37,450
Speaker 2: gain by these, right? The few in the tech industry

705
00:42:37,489 --> 00:42:39,840
Speaker 2: that are making these things, that are pushing them forward,

706
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:41,819
Speaker 2: that are bringing them before us and dangling them as

707
00:42:42,660 --> 00:42:45,180
Speaker 2: really temptations in front of us, what they have to

708
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 2: gain is They don't have to pay your health insurance now.

709
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,110
Speaker 2: Maybe do the research of why that's the way that

710
00:42:51,130 --> 00:42:53,489
Speaker 2: we even think about health insurance. It goes back to

711
00:42:53,510 --> 00:42:55,670
Speaker 2: the civil rights era. It's really interesting. Maybe that's for

712
00:42:55,690 --> 00:43:02,330
Speaker 2: another time. All of these little things are real opportunities

713
00:43:02,390 --> 00:43:05,910
Speaker 2: in front of us, but it's when we don't take

714
00:43:05,930 --> 00:43:07,700
Speaker 2: them seriously. And I think this is why we're doing

715
00:43:07,739 --> 00:43:09,980
Speaker 2: it as part of a politics and faith part of

716
00:43:10,020 --> 00:43:12,870
Speaker 2: that series is that No, there are opportunities in front

717
00:43:12,890 --> 00:43:15,109
Speaker 2: of us to actually exercise a voice that aren't just

718
00:43:15,230 --> 00:43:18,169
Speaker 2: merely subservient to the politicians who get their money from

719
00:43:18,410 --> 00:43:22,270
Speaker 2: the tech people. But our ability to exercise our concerns

720
00:43:22,330 --> 00:43:24,750
Speaker 2: and say, you know, here's what we really care about.

721
00:43:24,830 --> 00:43:27,029
Speaker 2: Here's what we really value, not just what you told

722
00:43:27,090 --> 00:43:30,049
Speaker 2: us we need to care about or the flashiness that

723
00:43:30,070 --> 00:43:32,589
Speaker 2: you've dangled in front of us to make us think

724
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,500
Speaker 2: this is the right thing to care about, right? That

725
00:43:35,500 --> 00:43:36,840
Speaker 2: 10 steps down the line we'll regret.

726
00:43:38,530 --> 00:43:40,489
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think about some of the conversations we've had,

727
00:43:40,530 --> 00:43:44,270
Speaker 1: which probably haven't aired as we're recording this one, but

728
00:43:45,410 --> 00:43:47,170
Speaker 1: we've talked a little bit about, you know, sort of

729
00:43:47,630 --> 00:43:51,589
Speaker 1: local engagement and political process and what you can do

730
00:43:51,630 --> 00:43:54,770
Speaker 1: in your local community as part of your political engagement

731
00:43:54,830 --> 00:43:57,310
Speaker 1: as a Christian. And I would say this ratchets it

732
00:43:57,370 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: down another level, right? If there's a coordinated effort of

733
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,460
Speaker 1: Christians to sit back and say, hey, we're leery of

734
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:16,009
Speaker 1: using AI for this. okay, just stop completely, right? That

735
00:44:16,030 --> 00:44:21,660
Speaker 1: would be an interesting political move. It probably wouldn't be

736
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: sufficient enough to sort of cut into anybody's profits or

737
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: even as a usage notice, but I think as a community,

738
00:44:28,980 --> 00:44:33,140
Speaker 1: it would be a very interesting thing to try. These

739
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,130
Speaker 1: sort of concerted efforts to sit back and say, yeah,

740
00:44:36,190 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 1: as a community, we're just not interested in that. Stanley

741
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,500
Speaker 1: Hauerwas wrote an article way back when about Christians participating

742
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: in the military. Now, he's a pacifist and he's got

743
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,540
Speaker 1: his own bent on this. But I think the kernel

744
00:44:50,580 --> 00:44:52,839
Speaker 1: that I want to sort of draw out of that

745
00:44:52,900 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 1: article is just this, is that it's strange that Christians

746
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:02,270
Speaker 1: are embraced into the military. From his perspective as a pacifist,

747
00:45:02,290 --> 00:45:04,710
Speaker 1: he's sitting back and saying, isn't it odd that Christians

748
00:45:04,770 --> 00:45:09,569
Speaker 1: would be such great fighters? And And what I think

749
00:45:09,590 --> 00:45:12,730
Speaker 1: he's sort of hinting at is we tend to get

750
00:45:12,850 --> 00:45:18,090
Speaker 1: assimilated into these ideas and embrace them in ways that

751
00:45:18,330 --> 00:45:23,589
Speaker 1: then keep us from really resisting where we should. And

752
00:45:24,410 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: I think it's just an important thing for us to

753
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,299
Speaker 1: think about that sort of local aspect of this. When

754
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 1: we are making personal decisions, when we're making local and

755
00:45:33,540 --> 00:45:37,450
Speaker 1: community decisions, about technology use and where we're going to

756
00:45:37,550 --> 00:45:42,190
Speaker 1: execute and use technology in things like worship, in giving,

757
00:45:42,390 --> 00:45:46,850
Speaker 1: in any sort of form and function, we need to

758
00:45:46,890 --> 00:45:50,340
Speaker 1: be having these sort of deeper theological conversations and trying

759
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: to understand where this is taking us. So I'd say

760
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,609
Speaker 1: that for one. The second thing I want to bring

761
00:45:55,710 --> 00:45:58,490
Speaker 1: out is an insight that I love from George Carlin.

762
00:45:58,530 --> 00:46:00,649
Speaker 1: He was a comedian back in the day. If you're

763
00:46:01,150 --> 00:46:04,390
Speaker 1: familiar with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, he's the guy

764
00:46:04,430 --> 00:46:06,589
Speaker 1: who sort of shepherds Bill and Ted on their adventure.

765
00:46:07,530 --> 00:46:12,140
Speaker 1: And he was on Bill Maher's old show. Bill Maher

766
00:46:12,180 --> 00:46:14,340
Speaker 1: had a show before the one that he has, I

767
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: think it was called Politically Incorrect, if I'm remembering right.

768
00:46:16,739 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, the PBS one, I think, wasn't it?

769
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Or no, ABC, I think it was. Yeah,

770
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:25,330
Speaker 1: one of those. And- Carlin makes this point. He says,

771
00:46:25,350 --> 00:46:30,330
Speaker 1: you don't have to have a conspiracy where interests are aligned.

772
00:46:32,150 --> 00:46:33,810
Speaker 1: And so what I want to be careful of at

773
00:46:33,850 --> 00:46:37,029
Speaker 1: this point in the program is saying that we don't

774
00:46:37,050 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: want to run the risk of feeling like conspiracy theorists.

775
00:46:40,620 --> 00:46:43,700
Speaker 1: What I would say is happening is there are interests

776
00:46:43,780 --> 00:46:51,980
Speaker 1: converging that not only political players' interests and tech players' interests,

777
00:46:52,300 --> 00:46:56,700
Speaker 1: but our interests. These are things that we're all interested

778
00:46:56,780 --> 00:47:00,100
Speaker 1: in and that we believe will benefit our lives. And

779
00:47:00,180 --> 00:47:04,020
Speaker 1: so as this is all coming together, we have to

780
00:47:04,140 --> 00:47:08,280
Speaker 1: really rethink what our interests are. We need to ask ourselves,

781
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:12,819
Speaker 1: if I can sort of misappropriate Augustine language, whether we

782
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:19,660
Speaker 1: have misdirected interests. Augustine would have talked about sins in

783
00:47:19,700 --> 00:47:24,859
Speaker 1: the terms of misdirected desires. And so misdirected interests. What

784
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:27,020
Speaker 1: is it that we're trying to do and be in

785
00:47:27,060 --> 00:47:30,259
Speaker 1: the moment that may be hindering us from conforming to

786
00:47:30,300 --> 00:47:34,989
Speaker 1: Christ later down the road? What's going to become an

787
00:47:35,250 --> 00:47:39,230
Speaker 1: obstacle even as it helps us in this near term?

788
00:47:40,210 --> 00:47:42,190
Speaker 1: And I think that we've got to wrestle with that

789
00:47:42,210 --> 00:47:45,089
Speaker 1: a little bit because it isn't just the big tech

790
00:47:45,130 --> 00:47:48,230
Speaker 1: guys and the political guys colluding in a back room

791
00:47:48,310 --> 00:47:51,390
Speaker 1: somewhere where, you know, somebody's sitting petting a cat and

792
00:47:51,450 --> 00:47:56,790
Speaker 1: twisting their mustache. Like, It's not, I don't think, a conspiracy.

793
00:47:57,610 --> 00:48:00,290
Speaker 1: I think what it is, is it's a wired in

794
00:48:00,370 --> 00:48:05,780
Speaker 1: set of interests that are not taking the theological reality,

795
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:11,219
Speaker 1: the theological fabric of the world into account. And Christians

796
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,140
Speaker 1: have a, we're the only ones with a unique perspective

797
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:18,060
Speaker 1: to really disrupt that. And I think that we need

798
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,589
Speaker 1: to take a step back and really think through how

799
00:48:21,650 --> 00:48:23,069
Speaker 1: we would go about disrupting that.

800
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:28,760
Speaker 2: Agreed. I don't want to sound like I'm peddling conspiracy theories.

801
00:48:31,730 --> 00:48:34,290
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I would agree on the non-theological part

802
00:48:34,310 --> 00:48:38,850
Speaker 2: of it. It may not be overtly or intentionally theological,

803
00:48:38,870 --> 00:48:43,089
Speaker 2: but I think it's deeply theological in the ways that

804
00:48:43,739 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 2: the use of the word pseudo-theological, the way that J.

805
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 2: Cameron Carter at USC would talk about it, that there

806
00:48:50,340 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 2: is a theology at place, there's an elevation at place,

807
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:58,950
Speaker 2: there's a sense of supervening upon creation that's deliberately at

808
00:48:59,010 --> 00:49:01,850
Speaker 2: work to say this is the imagination that's being put

809
00:49:01,910 --> 00:49:06,700
Speaker 2: forth and there's an elevation a deification that is the

810
00:49:06,739 --> 00:49:11,460
Speaker 2: kind of deification that we get out of genesis 3.

811
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: Right and would you agree that that's oh sorry i

812
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:16,770
Speaker 1: was just gonna clear would you agree that's often implicit

813
00:49:17,550 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 1: yeah i think that's yeah so i with you on

814
00:49:20,540 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: the pseudo-theological point. I would revise mine to use that

815
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: term and then say it's often implicit. I don't think

816
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 1: people know they're doing it. They wouldn't identify that they're

817
00:49:31,060 --> 00:49:34,410
Speaker 1: doing it, but they are doing it. Correct. Thank you

818
00:49:34,430 --> 00:49:35,210
Speaker 1: for that clarification. Go ahead.

819
00:49:36,350 --> 00:49:38,410
Speaker 2: No, that's kind of where I wanted to go, to

820
00:49:38,469 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 2: say that I don't know that you have the CEOs

821
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:43,819
Speaker 2: of a tech company thinking, I am God. Though, you know,

822
00:49:44,739 --> 00:49:50,220
Speaker 2: I've been surprised before. I read a pretty long-form article

823
00:49:50,300 --> 00:49:53,660
Speaker 2: on Michael Jordan long after he'd retired by an ESPN

824
00:49:54,140 --> 00:49:57,430
Speaker 2: reporter that was really, really good. And he drew out

825
00:49:57,510 --> 00:50:02,650
Speaker 2: that Michael Jordan's codename for his security detail is Yahweh,

826
00:50:02,670 --> 00:50:07,569
Speaker 2: which That doesn't sound like an accident. It sounds like,

827
00:50:08,510 --> 00:50:10,210
Speaker 2: at the very least, his security team is trying to

828
00:50:10,230 --> 00:50:12,149
Speaker 2: say something. And this is a lifelong Michael Jordan fan,

829
00:50:12,170 --> 00:50:17,170
Speaker 2: by the way, and me. But that's troubling, right? Does

830
00:50:17,210 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 2: Michael know that's what they call him? Presumably he does.

831
00:50:20,580 --> 00:50:24,540
Speaker 2: There's something less implicit, let's say, in something like that.

832
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't put it out of reach to say

833
00:50:26,340 --> 00:50:26,620
Speaker 2: that a.

834
00:50:28,340 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 1: Very.

835
00:50:29,710 --> 00:50:32,710
Speaker 2: a very wealthy person who's in control and has very

836
00:50:32,790 --> 00:50:36,390
Speaker 2: strong desires to continue the influence that he or she

837
00:50:36,430 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 2: might have, might have such lofty claims about themselves as well.

838
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 2: But I also recognize that the presence of that in

839
00:50:46,940 --> 00:50:51,250
Speaker 2: the Michael Jordan narrative doesn't necessarily mean that the president

840
00:50:51,270 --> 00:50:57,529
Speaker 2: of Microsoft or Cisco is doing that same sort of thing.

841
00:50:57,610 --> 00:51:03,380
Speaker 2: And so implicitly, Implicit is probably better if what we

842
00:51:03,420 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 2: mean by that is that even in the case of

843
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 2: Michael Jordan, does he really fully get the theological ramifications

844
00:51:08,180 --> 00:51:10,540
Speaker 2: of the kind of claim being made when that's his codename?

845
00:51:10,739 --> 00:51:19,580
Speaker 2: Probably not. Actually, I hope probably not. But nevertheless, pseudo-theological

846
00:51:19,620 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 2: claim it is. And pseudo, of course, not meaning quasi

847
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 2: or approaching. It's a theological claim that's false.

848
00:51:31,530 --> 00:51:39,430
Speaker 1: I think one of my theories here is that we

849
00:51:39,489 --> 00:51:43,779
Speaker 1: have what I would call a soft transhumanist philosophy that's

850
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 1: becoming more and more pervasive. Transhumanism is this idea that

851
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:52,379
Speaker 1: we should use technology to overcome our biological limitations, even

852
00:51:52,420 --> 00:51:57,790
Speaker 1: the biological limitation of death. And so what you find

853
00:51:57,989 --> 00:52:02,550
Speaker 1: is sort of an interesting theological moment where the eschatology

854
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:11,219
Speaker 1: for transhumanism is post-humanity or post-humans, right? These are things

855
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:16,060
Speaker 1: that become something other than human. And so there's, and

856
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:20,569
Speaker 1: they are in many ways, they have overcome the biological limitations.

857
00:52:20,630 --> 00:52:23,760
Speaker 1: And so we could say that they are better than humans.

858
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:27,010
Speaker 1: There's an elevation or an escalation sort of aspect to this.

859
00:52:28,530 --> 00:52:34,549
Speaker 1: I don't think that everyone is a transhumanist, right? In

860
00:52:34,570 --> 00:52:36,730
Speaker 1: a hard sense, right?

861
00:52:36,750 --> 00:52:39,430
Speaker 2: Most of them probably aren't in a hard sense.

862
00:52:39,630 --> 00:52:43,049
Speaker 1: I would say most, yes, 100%. But I do think

863
00:52:43,110 --> 00:52:48,390
Speaker 1: that that mentality of there can be progress here. We

864
00:52:48,410 --> 00:52:52,350
Speaker 1: can overcome this through, you name it, medicine. We can

865
00:52:52,410 --> 00:52:56,060
Speaker 1: overcome this through whatever the next technology is. I think

866
00:52:56,100 --> 00:52:58,720
Speaker 1: that is becoming more and more pervasive in our culture.

867
00:52:59,340 --> 00:53:06,930
Speaker 1: And I think it's because it's often applied narrowly and

868
00:53:06,989 --> 00:53:11,290
Speaker 1: because we do have evidence, for instance, in medicine, right,

869
00:53:11,330 --> 00:53:15,290
Speaker 1: that these things are going to work eventually. We've solved

870
00:53:15,330 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 1: a lot of disease problems, and that's a great thing.

871
00:53:18,580 --> 00:53:20,779
Speaker 1: but that they're going to work eventually, that people sort

872
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,219
Speaker 1: of hold out hopes like, oh, I've got a problem

873
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: with my neck right now. It's like, I can't believe

874
00:53:26,660 --> 00:53:29,200
Speaker 1: they don't have a fake disc that they can just

875
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:33,140
Speaker 1: throw back in there and fix it. But they don't.

876
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: But I would say secretly, I'm sitting back going, probably

877
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:40,680
Speaker 1: will at some point, right? And why wouldn't they? And

878
00:53:40,739 --> 00:53:43,669
Speaker 1: I think that we begin to sort of allow that

879
00:53:43,730 --> 00:53:47,940
Speaker 1: sort of understanding and philosophy to drive the way we

880
00:53:48,020 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: think about a lot of what's going on. But the

881
00:53:51,060 --> 00:53:55,799
Speaker 1: reality is that as we do these things technologically, there

882
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 1: are aspects of our reality we just can't get back.

883
00:53:59,739 --> 00:54:05,040
Speaker 1: We still have finite resources. We still have a finite world.

884
00:54:05,660 --> 00:54:09,529
Speaker 1: And so there has to be some cognizance about not

885
00:54:09,690 --> 00:54:13,060
Speaker 1: only When we talk about data centers, how much water

886
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:15,469
Speaker 1: are they using? Where is all this power coming from?

887
00:54:15,550 --> 00:54:18,810
Speaker 1: What happens to the land underneath? Those are important questions.

888
00:54:20,150 --> 00:54:23,290
Speaker 1: But on our everyday level, we need to be asking ourselves,

889
00:54:24,130 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 1: where did all the time go? Right? What's happening to, like,

890
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:36,180
Speaker 1: why didn't I go outside today? If I become a

891
00:54:36,219 --> 00:54:39,020
Speaker 1: hermit that's living in my house and just having groceries delivered,

892
00:54:40,600 --> 00:54:44,379
Speaker 1: You know, like we have to begin thinking about some

893
00:54:44,420 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 1: of those things as well because it isn't trivial. And ultimately,

894
00:54:51,100 --> 00:54:55,460
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing that progress in one area doesn't

895
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 1: necessarily mean human flourishing overall.

896
00:54:58,860 --> 00:55:00,860
Speaker 2: Right.

897
00:55:01,420 --> 00:55:04,100
Speaker 1: And that, I think, is a real crucial aspect of

898
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: this conversation.

899
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:10,210
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. And maybe the operative idea here is that

900
00:55:10,230 --> 00:55:20,219
Speaker 2: we're not talking about necessarily even explicit expectations or desires, right?

901
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,140
Speaker 2: And that's why I want to emphasize with you the

902
00:55:23,180 --> 00:55:27,740
Speaker 2: implicit element. But it's more the notion that there's stuff

903
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:31,720
Speaker 2: baked into the cake. And the cake represents the notion

904
00:55:31,739 --> 00:55:34,210
Speaker 2: of civility, of maturity, of what we tend to think

905
00:55:34,290 --> 00:55:38,319
Speaker 2: of We've used this trifecta a lot of what's good

906
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:43,430
Speaker 2: and true and beautiful. And the questions that we should

907
00:55:43,469 --> 00:55:46,390
Speaker 2: be asking is why is that what's true and good

908
00:55:46,410 --> 00:55:48,730
Speaker 2: and beautiful? Is that what's true and good and beautiful?

909
00:55:49,430 --> 00:55:51,310
Speaker 2: And maybe even the beginning point is in the middle

910
00:55:51,330 --> 00:55:53,790
Speaker 2: of all that is the beautiful, right? Because sometimes it's

911
00:55:53,870 --> 00:55:57,910
Speaker 2: easier to recognize what's just in fact ugly. It may

912
00:55:57,950 --> 00:56:02,100
Speaker 2: in fact be quite ugly. Once we start to recognize

913
00:56:02,219 --> 00:56:05,569
Speaker 2: what the building of these data centers might mean for

914
00:56:05,590 --> 00:56:07,509
Speaker 2: the creatures of the earth that we were not only

915
00:56:07,570 --> 00:56:10,050
Speaker 2: to share the land with, but according to Genesis 2,

916
00:56:10,050 --> 00:56:14,050
Speaker 2: to care for. When we start to recognize what it

917
00:56:14,090 --> 00:56:19,100
Speaker 2: might mean in terms of the loss of good, clean

918
00:56:19,140 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 2: drinking water, and for whom is it a loss, right?

919
00:56:22,739 --> 00:56:25,419
Speaker 2: Which communities are especially going to be affected by this?

920
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:31,060
Speaker 2: And my hint is it's not the gated communities. When

921
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:33,820
Speaker 2: we start to consider the effects that it's going to

922
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:38,810
Speaker 2: have on the power grid, Again, which power grids are

923
00:56:38,830 --> 00:56:40,830
Speaker 2: going to be affected? And my guess is it's not

924
00:56:41,070 --> 00:56:45,489
Speaker 2: the gated communities again. When we begin to think about

925
00:56:45,590 --> 00:56:48,430
Speaker 2: all these sorts of dynamics and what we've taken for

926
00:56:48,489 --> 00:56:51,300
Speaker 2: granted within that, and part of that is, why haven't

927
00:56:51,340 --> 00:56:55,380
Speaker 2: we gone outside today? Why don't we recognize that I

928
00:56:55,460 --> 00:57:01,239
Speaker 2: cannot live inside? I really can't. There's all this incredible

929
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:04,100
Speaker 2: realization that's coming to play even in the medical community today,

930
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:06,500
Speaker 2: what people have known for a long time. when you

931
00:57:06,540 --> 00:57:10,770
Speaker 2: get onto that airplane, a lot of people sit down

932
00:57:11,930 --> 00:57:15,150
Speaker 2: and fall asleep pretty quickly. The reason for that is

933
00:57:15,210 --> 00:57:21,370
Speaker 2: because we're entering into a lockbox of carbon dioxide. We

934
00:57:21,390 --> 00:57:23,820
Speaker 2: have a whole bunch of people piling onto this closed

935
00:57:23,860 --> 00:57:26,800
Speaker 2: environment in which the engines are not yet running, and

936
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,500
Speaker 2: so the circulation of clean air from outside is not

937
00:57:29,540 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 2: coming in. We're in an environment that's heavily carbon dioxide.

938
00:57:34,900 --> 00:57:37,740
Speaker 2: That's why we get tired and fall asleep right i

939
00:57:37,780 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 2: got new windows put on my house in which the

940
00:57:40,260 --> 00:57:43,500
Speaker 2: company said these are a lot better energy efficiency and

941
00:57:43,560 --> 00:57:46,870
Speaker 2: sealing the place off the trap you could run into

942
00:57:46,950 --> 00:57:49,710
Speaker 2: is you don't open the windows and you end up

943
00:57:49,730 --> 00:57:52,030
Speaker 2: with stale air well the reason of this that stale

944
00:57:52,090 --> 00:57:55,590
Speaker 2: air matters is because again the fresheners of the air

945
00:57:55,650 --> 00:57:57,620
Speaker 2: the hepa filters that god made for us are the

946
00:57:57,680 --> 00:58:02,220
Speaker 2: trees outside but we're cutting down trees we have far

947
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 2: less forest reserves than we used to have and that's

948
00:58:05,180 --> 00:58:07,990
Speaker 2: just decreasing all the time right i think of vancouver

949
00:58:08,070 --> 00:58:10,750
Speaker 2: island off the coast of bc that's incredibly natural and

950
00:58:10,770 --> 00:58:15,310
Speaker 2: beautiful and yet a mere 10 percent of its old

951
00:58:15,330 --> 00:58:18,140
Speaker 2: growth forests remain and this is where we get the

952
00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:21,740
Speaker 2: majority of oxygen right that wind currents and all that

953
00:58:22,620 --> 00:58:25,320
Speaker 2: bring to the rest of us these forests never mind

954
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:28,240
Speaker 2: rainwater and clean water and how that works through forests

955
00:58:28,300 --> 00:58:30,620
Speaker 2: and things like all these things are implicated within it

956
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 2: And so we've got to be able to ask the

957
00:58:33,060 --> 00:58:39,400
Speaker 2: question of what is actually lost so that I can

958
00:58:39,420 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 2: have a data center that lets me make a cute

959
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 2: birthday card or whatever.

960
00:58:48,220 --> 00:58:51,290
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think just to underscore this point, and then

961
00:58:51,330 --> 00:58:55,310
Speaker 1: maybe we can close out, but there's this study that

962
00:58:55,330 --> 00:58:57,770
Speaker 1: was done not too, too long ago. It was called

963
00:58:57,830 --> 00:59:02,470
Speaker 1: Body Electric. What Body Electric looked at was how much

964
00:59:02,610 --> 00:59:08,470
Speaker 1: movement do people who are working relatively sedentary jobs like

965
00:59:08,570 --> 00:59:10,490
Speaker 1: I do. right? I sit in front of a computer

966
00:59:10,510 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 1: an awful lot doing stuff on the computer, writing things,

967
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:16,580
Speaker 1: what have you. So how much movement do I actually

968
00:59:16,640 --> 00:59:19,780
Speaker 1: need in a day? Well, I would have thought, you know,

969
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: I work out, I go to the gym or whatever,

970
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:25,260
Speaker 1: and that would be enough. But what the study shows

971
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: is that our bodies are not designed to sit in

972
00:59:28,930 --> 00:59:31,570
Speaker 1: for prolonged periods of time. And so their guidelines and

973
00:59:31,590 --> 00:59:36,570
Speaker 1: recommendations were five minutes out of every half hour, you're

974
00:59:36,710 --> 00:59:40,680
Speaker 1: up and moving. Now you don't have to do anything strenuous.

975
00:59:41,050 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: Like they talk about just taking a stroll, right? Walking

976
00:59:44,660 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 1: around a little bit. They relax some of those, as

977
00:59:48,380 --> 00:59:50,340
Speaker 1: I recall them, you know, they do like 10 minutes

978
00:59:50,380 --> 00:59:53,020
Speaker 1: in an hour or something like that. But the goal

979
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:56,340
Speaker 1: is it's pretty frequent and it's frequent throughout the day.

980
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:02,610
Speaker 1: It's not just one exercise session for an hour during

981
01:00:02,620 --> 01:00:06,070
Speaker 1: the whole day. And what they saw was improvements in mood.

982
01:00:06,130 --> 01:00:11,110
Speaker 1: They saw improvement in various physiological categories. I don't have

983
01:00:11,130 --> 01:00:13,610
Speaker 1: to regurgitate the whole study here. People can go out

984
01:00:13,630 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: and look for body electric. They'll find it. But it's

985
01:00:17,260 --> 01:00:21,760
Speaker 1: an interesting case, I think, for us that hits home

986
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:25,150
Speaker 1: in a very micro level of that the things we've

987
01:00:25,210 --> 01:00:28,420
Speaker 1: decided with regard to technology and the sorts of jobs

988
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:30,940
Speaker 1: we're going to work, that wasn't all technology. I mean,

989
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: people worked office jobs all the time, right? But I

990
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:36,660
Speaker 1: think particularly nowadays where a lot of our lives are

991
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:41,110
Speaker 1: structured around devices, that is not how our bodies were

992
01:00:41,150 --> 01:00:47,130
Speaker 1: intended to be. The easier life gets, the more intentional

993
01:00:47,170 --> 01:00:49,410
Speaker 1: we're going to have to be about moving our body

994
01:00:49,750 --> 01:00:53,800
Speaker 1: simply because our body needs to move Whereas in the past,

995
01:00:54,390 --> 01:00:56,330
Speaker 1: we would have been moving our body because there were

996
01:00:56,370 --> 01:00:59,330
Speaker 1: tasks that needed to be accomplished that required us to

997
01:00:59,390 --> 01:01:03,790
Speaker 1: move our bodies. And we've passed sort of into a

998
01:01:03,830 --> 01:01:07,130
Speaker 1: different age. And I think it's sort of a microcosm,

999
01:01:07,150 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 1: an interesting microcosm of what we see with some of

1000
01:01:09,700 --> 01:01:13,960
Speaker 1: these data centers. That we're assuming that the physical world

1001
01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:19,040
Speaker 1: can sustain these data centers. But I don't know that

1002
01:01:19,060 --> 01:01:22,570
Speaker 1: we're really sure of that. not really sure that we

1003
01:01:22,610 --> 01:01:25,300
Speaker 1: can sit back and say, no, all of creation was

1004
01:01:25,380 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 1: designed to have this much energy taken out of it

1005
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: for no real production coming back into creation.

1006
01:01:35,380 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 2: Right.

1007
01:01:36,120 --> 01:01:39,900
Speaker 1: That's key. And that is, I think a really crucial

1008
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 1: part of this. Like we have to recognize that these

1009
01:01:42,620 --> 01:01:45,140
Speaker 1: things tend not to just stay at one level. Like,

1010
01:01:45,580 --> 01:01:47,400
Speaker 1: oh yeah, my body needs to move, but a data

1011
01:01:47,420 --> 01:01:53,210
Speaker 1: center should be fine. Right. Like, The same logic tends

1012
01:01:53,330 --> 01:01:58,750
Speaker 1: to pull up because we're part of God's creation and

1013
01:01:58,790 --> 01:02:01,530
Speaker 1: God's creation has a design and an order to it.

1014
01:02:01,550 --> 01:02:04,930
Speaker 1: It has certain limitations and it's supposed to function in

1015
01:02:04,970 --> 01:02:08,190
Speaker 1: a very similar way. And so when we ignore those dynamics,

1016
01:02:09,130 --> 01:02:11,930
Speaker 1: we are going to tend, I think, to feel more

1017
01:02:12,050 --> 01:02:14,790
Speaker 1: tension than we need to. There's going to be more

1018
01:02:14,890 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 1: friction that creates the sort of heat that could burn

1019
01:02:17,260 --> 01:02:21,040
Speaker 1: us than we really want. And I think it's just

1020
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:23,920
Speaker 1: crucial for us to think through it in those different ways.

1021
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:27,420
Speaker 1: So last comments, man, and then we'll, we'll close out

1022
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:27,980
Speaker 1: this episode.

1023
01:02:29,020 --> 01:02:30,939
Speaker 2: No, I think that's a, that's a good ending point.

1024
01:02:30,980 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 1: I think.

1025
01:02:33,140 --> 01:02:36,360
Speaker 2: You've taken what could sound like a very critical tone

1026
01:02:36,420 --> 01:02:40,120
Speaker 2: and you've, you've drawn us back to the stakes, right?

1027
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:42,470
Speaker 2: That the stakes are personal. The stakes are communal. The

1028
01:02:42,490 --> 01:02:46,150
Speaker 2: stakes are theological. They're cosmic in the sense of the

1029
01:02:46,890 --> 01:02:52,140
Speaker 2: entirety of creation. Um, And in some ways, maybe the

1030
01:02:52,180 --> 01:02:55,860
Speaker 2: closing thing is the stakes are imaginative, right? Maybe our

1031
01:02:55,900 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 2: problems are that we have so truncated an idea of

1032
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:01,990
Speaker 2: what life ought to look like, right? I think about

1033
01:03:02,030 --> 01:03:08,370
Speaker 2: the reality of my kids when I told them that,

1034
01:03:08,730 --> 01:03:11,270
Speaker 2: you know, you guys watch more TV than I'm comfortable with.

1035
01:03:11,330 --> 01:03:14,190
Speaker 2: And they never watched so much that if I compared

1036
01:03:14,250 --> 01:03:17,430
Speaker 2: it to some other households, I'd say, well, it was

1037
01:03:17,450 --> 01:03:21,630
Speaker 2: always less, but I still wasn't comfortable with it. I

1038
01:03:21,670 --> 01:03:23,650
Speaker 2: finally told them, you know, you ask a lot to

1039
01:03:23,670 --> 01:03:25,690
Speaker 2: turn on the TV, and yet when the TV's not on,

1040
01:03:25,750 --> 01:03:27,810
Speaker 2: I watch you guys. And the way that you guys

1041
01:03:27,910 --> 01:03:33,330
Speaker 2: play is so incredibly creative. And it terrifies me to

1042
01:03:33,370 --> 01:03:35,750
Speaker 2: think of that creativity lost because now you're just sitting

1043
01:03:35,790 --> 01:03:41,130
Speaker 2: there and watching fill-in-the-blank show. Of course, occasionally we'll turn

1044
01:03:41,170 --> 01:03:44,650
Speaker 2: on the TV, but how about we exercise that muscle, right?

1045
01:03:44,670 --> 01:03:48,860
Speaker 2: And I wonder if there's an atrophy. That we see

1046
01:03:48,900 --> 01:03:51,860
Speaker 2: our lives so tied to some of these things that

1047
01:03:51,900 --> 01:03:55,660
Speaker 2: are technological that we've atrophied the muscle of going outside

1048
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:59,300
Speaker 2: and just taking enjoyment, walking among the trees, sticking our

1049
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:02,480
Speaker 2: hands in the soil in the garden, or even things

1050
01:04:02,500 --> 01:04:05,520
Speaker 2: that are the result of lower levels of technology, right?

1051
01:04:05,780 --> 01:04:11,720
Speaker 2: Hopping on that bike and taking a ride. And in

1052
01:04:11,780 --> 01:04:14,940
Speaker 2: some ways, the continued atrophy is what's at stake, every

1053
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:17,160
Speaker 2: bit as much as for my son and the calculator.

1054
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:20,460
Speaker 2: atrophy of the mind and the ability to do complex

1055
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:22,610
Speaker 2: things not because he'll one day need to know how

1056
01:04:22,650 --> 01:04:25,090
Speaker 2: to do like i've never i haven't used calculus since

1057
01:04:25,130 --> 01:04:28,490
Speaker 2: college and that's okay but i think it was important

1058
01:04:28,550 --> 01:04:31,530
Speaker 2: to learn to do it and to exercise the mind

1059
01:04:31,590 --> 01:04:34,330
Speaker 2: in ways to develop thought patterns that have actually been

1060
01:04:34,350 --> 01:04:36,870
Speaker 2: productive for me right i don't think without developing those

1061
01:04:36,930 --> 01:04:40,780
Speaker 2: things then that going on and doing doctoral work in

1062
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:46,170
Speaker 2: theology could have happened right or whatever so the ability

1063
01:04:46,190 --> 01:04:51,410
Speaker 2: to have problem-solving capacities is actually at stake as well

1064
01:04:51,470 --> 01:04:53,720
Speaker 2: within all of this, the imaginative capacity to be able

1065
01:04:53,740 --> 01:04:56,380
Speaker 2: to do things and to see things in different ways

1066
01:04:56,480 --> 01:05:00,140
Speaker 2: and to problem-solve, to take the can of Coca-Cola and

1067
01:05:00,180 --> 01:05:03,440
Speaker 2: instead of seeing it as a drink that gives us diabetes,

1068
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:07,020
Speaker 2: to see it as something that can help prevent corrosion

1069
01:05:07,100 --> 01:05:09,940
Speaker 2: or take away corrosion on a battery terminal in a car, right?

1070
01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:13,370
Speaker 2: That's an imaginative use of things that gets truncated in

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Speaker 2: the process.

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01:05:14,830 --> 01:05:19,750
Speaker 1: Yeah. Agreed. No, that's a good ending, man. And hopefully, folks,

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01:05:20,030 --> 01:05:22,990
Speaker 1: you'll kind of understand how this relates into politics. I

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01:05:23,030 --> 01:05:25,590
Speaker 1: think a lot of politicians are weighing in on data centers.

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01:05:26,110 --> 01:05:28,790
Speaker 1: But more importantly, there is a local aspect to what

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01:05:28,830 --> 01:05:31,760
Speaker 1: we need to do as we're evaluating technologies. And a

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01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:33,080
Speaker 1: lot of that's going to be left up to our

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01:05:33,140 --> 01:05:36,740
Speaker 1: own discernment. I'm not anti-AI. I don't think Ashish is either.

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01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:40,020
Speaker 1: I use AI a good bit. Even in the production

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01:05:40,040 --> 01:05:43,380
Speaker 1: of this podcast, our transcripts are created via AI. A

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01:05:43,420 --> 01:05:46,260
Speaker 1: lot of the website I manage has an AI component

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01:05:46,300 --> 01:05:53,860
Speaker 1: to it. I'm not afraid of AI and I'm not anti-AI,

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01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:57,690
Speaker 1: but I do think that there are implications. I think

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01:05:57,710 --> 01:06:00,850
Speaker 1: we need to have a judicious use of it if

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01:06:00,890 --> 01:06:04,530
Speaker 1: we're going to move into the future in a way

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01:06:04,610 --> 01:06:10,780
Speaker 1: that respects God's creation, that allows us to conform more

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01:06:10,820 --> 01:06:13,530
Speaker 1: closely to the image of Christ. And if we keep

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01:06:13,570 --> 01:06:16,330
Speaker 1: those things in mind, I think there's a whole range

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01:06:16,370 --> 01:06:19,550
Speaker 1: of activities that we can engage in that will involve technology,

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01:06:20,190 --> 01:06:22,980
Speaker 1: but there's a whole range of activities that we won't

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01:06:23,020 --> 01:06:25,980
Speaker 1: be able to engage in. And, uh, and I think

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01:06:26,000 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 1: that's up to moment to moment individual discernments. It's not

1093
01:06:30,160 --> 01:06:34,330
Speaker 1: an anti-technology stance a hundred percent, but it's a call to,

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01:06:34,390 --> 01:06:37,150
Speaker 1: for us to be digitally discerning as we move into

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01:06:37,170 --> 01:06:41,030
Speaker 1: the future. So I'll leave it there. Um, Thanks for

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Speaker 1: the conversation, Ashish. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll catch you

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01:06:43,890 --> 01:06:46,570
Speaker 1: on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. Just

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01:06:46,610 --> 01:06:48,110
Speaker 1: want to take a second to thank the team at

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01:06:48,170 --> 01:06:50,750
Speaker 1: Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking

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01:06:50,790 --> 01:06:54,430
Speaker 1: Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens

1101
01:06:54,470 --> 01:06:57,710
Speaker 1: of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows

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Speaker 1: about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.