by Doy Moyer<\/p>\n
AI (artificial intelligence) is undoubtedly an amazing achievement for humanity, and there are legitimate ways to use it. I’m not talking here about those ways (There is plenty of healthy debate about this). I will, however, express some concerns, especially as one who has been involved in education for several years.<\/p>\n
When a student is assigned to write a paper, there are always concerns about issues like plagiarism. I have had to deal with plenty of cases. I have caught students copying wholesale from the internet. Some others have copied, almost wholesale, from one another. There are multiple lesser cases (I generally have a scale of blatancy), but the point is that plagiarizing is easy enough. It will always undercut the education process and harm the student’s integrity. If I’m comfortable plagiarizing, I’m comfortable lying. No child of God can be okay with that.<\/p>\n
The danger of AI is that it can not only serve as a way to plagiarize but can also make it even harder to discover that this is what is happening. This makes the temptation greater because if we can get away with something cheap and easy in the face of crunched time and effort, will we do it? AI can help catch mistakes, but when it is used as a substitute for students thinking through and doing their own work, they are hurting themselves and their education.<\/p>\n
Plagiarism is another form of lying, especially when one knows this is what he or she is doing. AI can become the same problem of dishonestly short-cutting to get something written and then treating it as if it were the student’s own work. Students often look for ways to streamline what they have to do, and AI has made it easier to cut out the hard work of thinking, writing, editing, and rewording something they did. This has even discouraged professors from requiring writing assignments because none of us want to waste time reading AI-generated papers.<\/p>\n
Add to this that people now use AI-generated photos and stories to pass around on social media. Sometimes, that’s not hard to spot, but the problem is that it is getting more difficult to tell. Reality itself is being questioned, and we hardly know what is true anymore. Again, for Christians, this is not acceptable. Truth is foundational for everything else that we believe and do. If we cannot know what is real and true, we have lost our bearings.<\/p>\n
I will also add that preachers and Bible teachers must be careful here. Preachers already have access to multiple tools that can help them, but they also have access to outlines and articles that could, if they are not careful, make it so that they rarely study and work hard for themselves. We can go to a website and pick an outline late Saturday night, barely put in the time to study and think it through, and get away with another week of barely any study while we pass off lessons of others as our own. Now, we all borrow from others, and I’m not against that, but when we borrow without doing our own study and reading, that is inexcusable. AI is another way in which this can happen. Perhaps you can get some good points, but if something else is writing everything for us, and we are just plucking it up and using it without personal study, we are cheating ourselves and our brethren. Indeed, we may well be robbing God.<\/p>\n
AI can dehumanize, and I often fear this is already happening. Consequently, human beings may think less critically, read far less, and fail to learn how to express themselves adequately. People learn how to use ChatGPT and other platforms, but are they personally learning logic, communication, study skills, and how to write? Are they learning to distinguish truth from error? Are they learning what is real?<\/p>\n
While AI has uses, don’t let it take your integrity away. Don’t let it dehumanize you. Don’t let it think for you. Don’t let it become a fake world where reality cannot be known.<\/p>\n
Or are we already living in the Matrix?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Doy Moyer AI (artificial intelligence) is undoubtedly an amazing achievement for humanity, and there are legitimate ways to use it. I’m not talking here about those ways (There is plenty of healthy debate about this). I will, however, express some concerns, especially as one who has been involved in education for several years. When…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[381,527,392,380],"class_list":["post-70279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-education","tag-honesty","tag-lying","tag-school"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":51773,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/ive-been-going-through-a-lot-and-ive-just-had-it-with-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":70279,"position":0},"title":"I’ve been going through a lot and I’ve just had it with life","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I need help. I've been going through a lot right now. But here is what is going on: We couldn't afford to stay at my original house, so we had to move into a smaller house. Money is really tight right now. We're poor. I don't know if God\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17126,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-corporal-punishment-be-allowed-in-schools\/","url_meta":{"origin":70279,"position":1},"title":"Should corporal punishment be allowed in schools?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Many parents who use corporal discipline at home are opposed to its use in a Christian school. They feel that only the parent should administer this type of discipline when needed. I have always believed that the school should have the authority to paddle when needed. What are your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45734,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-my-mother-die-in-sin\/","url_meta":{"origin":70279,"position":2},"title":"Did my mother die in sin?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I want to make clear why this is so important for me. It would be either way when it comes to a mother, but given how much I owe her, it is especially concerning for me. I apologize if it's a bit long. I was born in Texas (raised\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58265,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-concerns-for-global-warming\/","url_meta":{"origin":70279,"position":3},"title":"My Concerns for Global Warming","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dan Richardson via Search, December 2007; Vol. 14, No. 9 We are hearing much these days on the subject of global warming. Environmentalists warn that because of man's reckless disregard for the release of pollutants, the world is becoming increasingly warmer and we are reaching a peak of global\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/global-warming-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":63475,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/sin-in-action\/","url_meta":{"origin":70279,"position":4},"title":"Sin in Action","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve been telling my wife that clearly I need to lose some weight. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Teasingly I\u2019ve pointed out that the concerns of the last few weeks have some benefit, I\u2019ve lost my appetite and dropped a few pounds. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps I can keep that going. 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